A growing number of Florida schools are receiving As, but parents who assess their performance by its letter grade alone might be missing some crucial information.

About 71% of all K-12 Florida schools received either an A or B grade in the 2024-25 school year, according to Florida Department of Education data.

There were 2,461 schools that earned As or Bs during the 2024-25 school year — an increase of 246 schools from the year before. Only 10 schools received an F and 61 received a D.

Secret Sauce schools: They expose issues with how Florida grades schools

Florida uses an A-F grading system, but it doesn’t mirror the traditional A-F scale in which 90% or higher equals an A.

Florida’s elementary schools must meet 62% or more of all its academic benchmarks to get an A. For middle, high and K-8 schools, they need 64% or more.

“A single grade makes it easy to understand, but it doesn’t convey complexity,” said Florida PTA legislative advocate and former professor Lancy Lawther. “There’s a lot you’re not seeing in that letter grade.”

Student subgroups left out of school grades

Florida’s grading system assesses school success based on how the majority of students are doing, even if one or more subgroups are failing.

For example, parents of students at Morningside Elementary School in Port St. Lucie may be pleased to see it scored an A (72%) in the 2024-25 school year, but a look at its subgroup data shows it scored a C (48%) for its education of students with disabilities, which make up 13% of the student population, DOE data show.

North County Charter School in Indian River County scored a B last year, but it met the mark for only 28% of its Black students, earning the school an F for that subgroup.

“The problem is, by trying to make it really simple, they don’t fill in the details,” Lawther said. “If this is our 16th year as an A School, are we educating every student? No.”

Demographic data can be found on the DOE’s Know Your Schools website at edudata.fldoe.org.

Secret Sauce Schools

Florida grades its schools based on student outcomes, such as test scores and attendance, rather than what students bring into school, such as their socioeconomic status, language barriers or previous education.

That means a school such as Fellsmere Elementary with 100% student poverty is graded by the same standard as a charter school with 10% student poverty.

“Inputs don’t matter in Florida, only outputs,” Lawther said. “Florida is assessing student academic achievement as a factor of what the school does regardless of what the student’s background might be.”

Some schools are able to overcome extreme poverty rates to score high grades, which Lawther dubs “secret sauce schools.”

There were only two secret sauce public schools on the Treasure Coast during the 2024-25 school year, balancing over 90% student poverty with A grades: Fellsmere and Parkway Elementary School in Port St. Lucie. Martin County has no such public schools.

Changing Florida’s school grading system

State lawmakers have tried to change the A-F school grading system since it was instituted in 1999.

The most recent attempt was in 2025 when State Rep. Susan L. Valdés (R-Tampa) introduced HB 1483, which sought to bring Florida’s A-F school grading scale up to the typical standard. The bill would have increased the grade threshold by 10% each year for five years until 90% equals an A, 80% a B and so forth.

“The purpose of this bill is to provide truth and transparency to our parents, students, and teachers on how well each school is preparing its students,” Valdés said during a House PreK-12 Budget Subcommittee meeting in April. “Don’t put an A in the window of a school when it’s actually at 60% and tell me to be happy about it.”

Opponents thought the move would be hard for communities to absorb.

The bill died in the House Education and Employment Committee in June.

Jack Lemnus is a TCPalm enterprise reporter. Contact him at jack.lemnus@tcpalm.com, 772-409-1345, or follow him on X @JackLemnus.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Florida school grades neglect poverty, disabilities, minority students