Summary
The Pretrial Detention Facility in Jacksonville, FL, is a specialized high school serving grades 6-12 with just 31 students, operating within the Duval school district to educate youth currently in the pretrial detention system. This school is fundamentally different from traditional schools, as its mission is to provide education in a highly controlled, carceral environment, which explains its unique metrics. For instance, while the school reports a 0.0% chronic absenteeism rate—a stark contrast to nearby schools like Englewood High School (64.6%) and The Bridge To Success Academy At W Jacksonville (82.4%)—this perfect attendance is due to mandatory physical presence, not student engagement. The school's graduation rate is critically low at 47.8%, far below the 100% rates at Stanton College Preparatory and Douglas Anderson School Of The Arts, highlighting the immense challenges of educating a transient, high-risk population.
Key metrics reveal extreme volatility and stark contrasts with nearby schools. The student-teacher ratio plummeted from 17.6:1 in 2023-2024 to 5.1:1 in 2024-2025, the lowest in the area, compared to 24:1 at Riverside High School. Spending per student surged to $20,072, more than double that of most local schools like Darnell Cookman Middle/High School ($7,899), likely driven by security and specialized staffing needs. The percentage of students eligible for free/reduced lunch jumped dramatically from 32.73% to 80.65% in just two years, now the highest among comparison schools. Test scores are among the lowest in the state, with 0% proficiency in Geometry and Biology, though a bright spot is 33% proficiency in US History, possibly reflecting an effective teacher or engaging curriculum.
This school is an outlier in every way, especially when compared to its "sister school," the Duval Regional Juvenile Detention Center, which serves a similar population with slightly larger enrollment (97) and a higher student-teacher ratio (13.8:1). The Pretrial Detention Facility's low performance and high spending underscore the profound educational inequality in Jacksonville, where students just miles apart—like those at top-ranked Stanton College Prep—have vastly different opportunities. For parents, this school represents a specialized, short-term intervention for youth in detention, not a typical educational environment, and its data should be understood in that context.
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