Bayside High School

Bayside High School is a very small public high school in Clearwater, FL, serving 139 students in grades 9-12 and is part of the Pinellas district.

Bayside High School is an extreme outlier compared to nearby standard high schools like Northeast High School and Clearwater High School. Its academic proficiency rates are in the single digits for almost every subject—for example, only 5% of students are proficient in Algebra 1 and 4% in Biology 1—while nearby schools typically see rates of 42-87%. The school also has an extreme chronic absenteeism rate of 84.8%, which is nearly three times higher than the district average of 30.6% and far above the most challenged nearby schools like Pinellas Park High School (43.3%). This absenteeism crisis is the root cause of the low test scores and a volatile graduation rate that, while improved to 86.7%, remains well below the district average of 93.4%.

Despite spending $25,596 per student—more than double the spending of any other standard high school in the area—and maintaining a very low student-to-teacher ratio of 9.9:1, these resources are not translating into academic success. The school's metrics are far more aligned with alternative schools like Pinellas Teleschool and Pace Center For Girls, suggesting it may function as a placement for students who have not succeeded in larger traditional high schools. A glimmer of hope exists in US History, where proficiency reached 13% in 2025-2026, indicating a potential model for improvement in other subjects.