Summary:
The city of Okeechobee, Florida, is served by 11 schools across the Okeechobee and Glades districts, including elementary, middle, high, and alternative schools, and faces significant systemic challenges as the district ranks in the 1st percentile statewide.
The standout school in the area is Pemayetv Emahakv Charter Our Way School, which operates in a completely different performance tier. It ranks in the 83rd percentile of Florida elementary schools, with proficiency rates 20-40 points above state averages, and has a remarkably low 1% free/reduced lunch rate and the highest per-student spending at $35,219. In contrast, the traditional public schools in the Okeechobee district struggle with an average poverty rate of about 80%. Among them, South Elementary School is the local leader, ranking in the 43rd percentile and achieving near or above state averages in 3rd-grade subjects despite its high poverty rate. The most challenged school is Okeechobee Achievement Academy, an alternative school with single-digit proficiency rates, a 0% graduation rate, and a 58.9% chronic absenteeism rate.
A critical issue across the district is chronic absenteeism, which averages 50.2%—far above the state average of 31.4%—and affects every school, including Okeechobee High School (63.6%) and Osceola Middle School. Middle school math shows an interesting pattern: both Osceola Middle School and Yearling Middle School exceed state averages in 7th-grade math but fall dramatically below in 8th-grade math, likely because advanced students take Algebra 1 in 8th grade, where both schools score very high. The Okeechobee Virtual Franchise has a 0% chronic absenteeism rate and a 92% graduation rate, but its academic effectiveness is hard to assess due to limited test score data.
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