Elementary Schools in Deaf/Blind

The Deaf/Blind district contains two specialized elementary schools on the same campus in St. Augustine, FL: Deaf Elementary School (Fsdb) (serving grades PK-5 with 97 students) and Blind Pk-8 School (Fsdb) (serving grades PK-8 with 65 students). Despite receiving identical, extraordinarily high per-student funding of $47,918—roughly three to four times the national average—these two schools show dramatically different academic outcomes.

Blind Pk-8 School (Fsdb) stands out as the higher-performing school, with proficiency rates in English Language Arts reaching 60% for 6th and 8th graders, and 55% for 8th grade Math—scores that approach the state average of 60-62%. This is a remarkable achievement for a school serving students who are blind or visually impaired. In contrast, Deaf Elementary School (Fsdb) faces severe academic challenges, with proficiency rates often in the single digits, such as 0% in 5th Grade Science and 4% in 4th Grade ELA. The only bright spot is a 25% proficiency rate in 3rd Grade Math, a significant improvement from 9% the prior year. Both schools share a critical problem with chronic absenteeism, hovering around 37%, which is well above the state average of 31.4%.

The most striking finding is that the school for blind students outperforms the school for deaf students by 30 to 50 percentage points in comparable subjects, challenging assumptions about which disability presents a greater barrier to standardized testing. Blind Pk-8 School (Fsdb) also benefits from an exceptionally low student-teacher ratio of 3.8:1, compared to 5.3:1 at Deaf Elementary School (Fsdb), and has a lower poverty rate (47.69% vs. 67.01% free/reduced lunch). For parents, this data suggests that while both schools provide intensive specialized support, the academic experience and outcomes vary widely depending on the specific disability and grade level.