Timucuan Elementary School

Timucuan Elementary School in Jacksonville, FL, serves 512 students from Pre-K through 5th grade and is a Title I school within the Duval County Public School District, which ranks in the bottom third of Florida districts. The school has historically been low-performing, consistently ranking in the bottom 20% of Florida elementary schools over the past decade, with a current 1-star rating and a state ranking in the 16th percentile for the 2025-2026 school year.

The most critical challenge facing Timucuan is an extreme chronic absenteeism rate of 65.6% for the 2023-2024 school year, which is nearly double the district average of 44.8% and more than double the state average of 31.4%. This rate is the highest among all nearby schools with available data and has remained above 56% for four consecutive years. For comparison, the high-performing John Stockton Elementary, located just 1.7 miles away, had a chronic absenteeism rate of only 12.9% in the same year. Academic performance is consistently below district and state averages across most subjects and grade levels. For example, in English Language Arts, proficiency rates for 3rd and 4th grade (29% and 34%) are significantly lower than the district (51% and 54%) and state (60% and 60%) averages. Math scores for 3rd and 4th grade (41% and 46%) also lag far behind district (61% and 61%) and state (66% and 65%) averages.

Despite these challenges, there is a notable bright spot in 5th-grade math, where proficiency reached 57% in the most recent school year, matching the district average and coming close to the state average of 62%. This represents a significant improvement from the previous year (31%) and suggests a potential strength in instruction or a particularly strong cohort of students. However, the school's test scores show significant volatility from year to year, indicating a lack of a stable instructional foundation. Interestingly, Timucuan's per-student spending ($10,506) is higher than that of John Stockton ($9,295), suggesting that funding is not the primary issue. Instead, the school's resources are likely consumed by the immense challenges of high poverty and absenteeism, creating a vicious cycle where students who are not in school cannot learn, and instruction is constantly disrupted.