Lawnwood Elementary School

Lawnwood Elementary School in Fort Pierce, FL, serves 765 students from Pre-Kindergarten through 5th grade and is part of the St. Lucie school district, with a high level of economic disadvantage as 67.97% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

Lawnwood has shown a clear and sustained upward trend in recent years, improving from a 0-star rating to a 2-star rating for three consecutive years. The school has seen double-digit percentage point increases in proficiency across nearly every subject and grade level, with 3rd Grade ELA improving by 18 points (33% to 51%) and 4th Grade ELA improving by 21 points (29% to 50%). Most notably, 100% of Lawnwood's 6th-grade students have been proficient in Math for the past four school years, far exceeding the district (56%) and state (60%) averages. However, 5th-grade performance is a concern, with Math proficiency dropping from 77% to 57% and Science proficiency at 55%, below the district average. The most interesting comparison is with Fairlawn Elementary School, located just 0.66 miles away, which serves a similar demographic but is a top-performing school (88th percentile, 4 stars) with a chronic absenteeism rate of only 14.0%, compared to Lawnwood's 39.2%.

This stark contrast strongly suggests that attendance is the single most powerful lever for academic success in this community. Lawnwood's per-student spending ($12,450) is in the middle of the pack compared to its neighbors, indicating that the school's challenges and recent improvements are not primarily a function of funding levels, but rather of how resources are utilized and the impact of non-academic factors like attendance. While Lawnwood is on an upward trajectory, it is fragile, as evidenced by Weatherbee Elementary School, which dropped from a 2-star school in 2024 to a 0-star school in 2025. Lawnwood's challenge will be to sustain its momentum and tackle the chronic absenteeism problem head-on to ensure continued progress.