Cypress Elementary School

Cypress Elementary School in New Port Richey, FL, is a PK-5 public school serving 554 students within the Pasco County School District, and it currently ranks in the bottom 10% of Florida elementary schools, a significant decline from its historically average performance between 2016 and 2020.

The school faces considerable challenges, including a high chronic absenteeism rate of 34.9% and a student body where 53.6% qualify for free or reduced lunch. While its per-student spending of $10,753 is moderate, academic outcomes are consistently below district and state averages. Math proficiency is a particular weakness, with scores ranging from 36% to 40% across all grades, well below the state average of 62-66%. There is a fleeting bright spot in 3rd-grade ELA, where 54% of students achieved proficiency, close to the state average, but this success does not carry into 4th and 5th grades. Interestingly, Cypress is not the lowest-performing school in its immediate area, ranking higher than Richey Elementary and Fox Hollow Elementary, but it is dramatically outperformed by nearby Deer Park Elementary, which is a 3-star school in the 57th percentile.

The comparison with Deer Park Elementary, located just 2.92 miles away, is striking. Deer Park serves a similar number of students but has lower chronic absenteeism (25.0% vs. 34.9%) and a lower percentage of students on free/reduced lunch (46.37% vs. 53.61%), suggesting that socioeconomic factors and attendance are powerful drivers of the performance gap. Additionally, local charter schools like Plato Academy Trinity and Learning Lodge Academy consistently outperform Cypress in nearly every metric, despite having lower per-student spending, indicating that their operational model or school culture may be more effective at driving academic achievement.