Summary:
San Mateo, Florida, is served by a single public school, Browning-Pearce Elementary School, which educates students from Kindergarten through 6th grade within the Putnam County School District.
As the only school in the city, Browning-Pearce Elementary faces significant challenges. The school consistently ranks in the bottom 20th percentile of all Florida elementary schools, earning a one-star rating from SchoolDigger. Its overall proficiency across tested subjects averages around 43%, compared to the state average of 62%. The most critical issue is an extreme chronic absenteeism rate of 51.9% for the 2023-2024 school year, which is nearly 21 percentage points higher than the state average. This high rate of missed school days is strongly linked to the low test scores and suggests that factors outside the classroom are severely impacting student learning. The school serves a majority low-income student population, with nearly 60% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch.
Despite these struggles, there is a notable bright spot: 6th graders at Browning-Pearce have consistently outperformed the state average in both English Language Arts and Math in recent years. In the 2025-2026 school year, 6th graders achieved 69% proficiency in ELA and 54% in Math, exceeding state averages of 62% and 60% respectively. This success in the highest grade level is a complete reversal of the trend seen in grades 3-5, where the school lags significantly. This anomaly suggests that the 6th-grade teaching staff or curriculum may be exceptionally effective, offering a potential model for improvement in other grades. While the school's per-student spending of $11,119 is not drastically low, the combination of high poverty, extreme absenteeism, and district-wide struggles (Putnam County ranks 62nd out of 70 Florida districts) means that academic improvement remains an uphill battle.
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