Carver Middle School

Carver Middle School in Leesburg, FL, serves 737 students in grades 6-8 and is part of the Lake County School District, a district ranked in the middle of the state. The school faces significant challenges, most notably a chronic absenteeism rate that has exceeded 50% in recent years, which is the highest among its nearby peers and far above the state average of 31.4%. While test scores in core subjects like English Language Arts and Math generally lag behind both the district and state averages, there is a clear upward trend in these scores over the last three years, suggesting recent efforts may be starting to pay off.

The most striking feature of Carver Middle School is its exceptional performance in advanced math courses. In the 2025-2026 school year, 70% of students passed the Algebra 1 End-of-Course exam, compared to 54% district-wide, and an outstanding 95% passed the Geometry exam, far exceeding the district's 52% and state's 56%. This creates a "two schools in one" dynamic, where a small group of students excels in accelerated math while the majority of the student body struggles with grade-level math. For example, 8th-grade FAST Math proficiency is only 44%, a stark contrast to the Geometry results.

Compared to its closest neighbor, Oak Park Middle School, which is just 1.75 miles away and faces similar absenteeism challenges, Carver outperforms it in nearly every academic metric, including 6th-grade ELA (52% vs. 44%) and Algebra 1 (70% vs. 45%). However, the contrast with South Sumter Middle School, a top performer in the Sumter district, is stark: South Sumter has a 35.7% absenteeism rate and dramatically higher test scores, such as 70% proficiency in 8th-grade ELA versus Carver's 45%. Despite spending $11,773 per student—higher than many higher-performing schools—Carver's results highlight that funding alone does not solve the deep-rooted challenges of attendance and academic achievement.