Tampa Bay Area Schools Rank Among Florida's Best

SARASOTA, FL — As the clock winds down on summer 2017, Tampa Bay area parents and students can see how their individual school districts and schools stacked up against others across Florida on new rankings reports released by Niche.com. The website’s annual rankings take a dive into districts and the best public schools across the country and each state.

To produce its rankings, Niche looked at data from the U.S. Department of Education as well as test scores, college data and ratings collected from Niche users. The methodology for each category of rankings varied with some factors having a higher weight for certain categories over others.

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The 2018 rankings released this month cover elementary, middle and high schools as well as school districts. Here’s how the Tampa Bay area and surrounding counties performed against others in the state across all four categories.

Best School Districts In Florida

Here’s how districts in the region ranked on Niche.com’s statewide list:

• Sarasota County Schools – Sixth place
• Pinellas County Schools – 11th place
• Hillsborough County Schools – 17th place
• Manatee County Schools – 21st place
• Pasco County Schools – 26th place

Polk County schools were unranked, but earned an overall all B- grade.

Check out the full district ranking list for Florida on Niche.com.

Elementary Schools

The following made it into Niche.com’s top 50 list of the 2018 Best Public Elementary Schools in Florida:

• Pine View School, Sarasota County Schools – No. 1
• Tampa Palms Elementary, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 20
• Bay Haven School of Basic Plus, Sarasota county Schools – No. 23
• MacFarlane Park Magnet School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 28
• Bevis Elementary School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 32
• Fruitville Elementary School, Sarasota County Schools – No. 36
• Lakeview Fundamental Elementary Schools, Pinellas County Schools – No. 40
• McKitrick Elementary School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 41
• Southside Elementary School, Sarasota County Schools – No. 44
• Westchase Elementary School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 45
• Pasadena Fundamental Elementary School, Pinellas County Schools – No. 46
• James B. Sanderlin, Pinellas County Schools – No. 49
• Curtis Fundamental Elementary School, Pinellas County Schools – No. 50

The full list of elementary schools ranked across Florida can be viewed on Niche.com.

Middle Schools

The following public middle schools in the Tampa Bay area were ranked in the Top 50 across the state for 2018 by Niche.com:

• Pine View School, Sarasota County School – No. 1
• Clearwater Fundamental Middle School, Pinellas County Schools – No. 9
• Sarasota School of Arts & Sciences, Sarasota County Schools – No. 15
• Terrace Community Middle School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 16
• Williams Middle Magnet School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 17
• James B. Sanderlin PK-8, Pinellas County Schools – No. 21
• Dayspring Academy, Pasco County Schools – No. 23
• Laurel Nokomis School, Sarasota County Schools – No. 26
• Wilson Middle School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 27
• Walker Middle Magnet School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 29
• Martinez Middle School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 32
• Sarasota Middle School, Sarasota County Schools – No. 34
• Plato Academy Largo, Pinellas County Schools – No. 35
• Countryside Montessori Academy, Pasco County Schools – No. 36
• Imagine School Palmer Ranch, Sarasota County Schools – No. 45
• Randall Middle School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 47
• Student Leadership Academy, Sarasota County Schools – No. 48
• Coleman Middle School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 50

Check out the full middle school list on Niche.com.

High Schools

The following public high schools in the Tampa Bay area and surrounding counties made Niche.com’s top 50 list across Florida:

• Pine View School, Sarasota County Schools – No. 1
• Plant High School, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 15
• Palm Harbor University High, Pinellas County Schools – No. 26
• State College of Florida Collegiate School, Manatee County Schools – No. 29
• Strawberry Crest High, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 33
• Newsome High, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 39
• Steinbrenner High, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 40
• Bloomingdale High, Hillsborough County Schools – No. 47

Check out the full list of Florida high schools and their rankings on Niche.com.

For the best school districts, "academics grade" was given the highest priority in the methodology with 50 percent of the ranking being based on this data. Niche calculated the academics grade by using data from the Department of Education as well as data that was self-reported by Niche users. Teachers grade accounted for 15 percent of the ranking while culture and diversity and parent/student surveys on overall experience both accounted for 10 percent of the ranking. The remaining 15 percent of the ranking was based on health and safety, resources and facilities, clubs and activities, and sports.(Click here for more information on how Niche calculates its rankings.)

Niche assigns a standardized score for each factor, which is then weighted before an overall score is calculated for each school district. The overall scores are again standardized and some districts are disqualified from receiving a final letter grade if there isn’t enough data. School districts are then ranked numerically and assigned grades.

Feroze Dhanoa (Patch National Staff) contributed to this article

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