Summary:
Zip code 32321 in Bristol, Florida, is home to four schools within the Liberty County school district, serving a total of 879 students across elementary, high school, and alternative education settings.
Liberty County High School stands out as the academic powerhouse in the area, ranking in the 78th percentile statewide and boasting a 94.7% graduation rate that exceeds both the district and state averages. It excels in science and history, with 90% proficiency in Biology 1 and 82% in US History. However, this high-performing school also has an alarmingly high chronic absenteeism rate of 46.6%, suggesting that while attending students achieve excellent results, attendance is a major challenge. In contrast, W. R. Tolar K-8 School is a consistent 3-star performer with strong results in Algebra 1 (82% proficient) and Civics (82% proficient), but it faces a critical weakness in 8th-grade math, where proficiency plummeted to just 16%—far below the state average of 61%. This dramatic drop indicates a systemic issue with the upper-grade math curriculum that parents should investigate.
The two alternative schools, Apalachicola Forest Youth Academy and Liberty Virtual Franchise, serve only 30 students combined and provide no standardized test data, making their academic effectiveness impossible to measure. Overall, the district ranks 18th out of 70 in Florida (4 stars), but there is a clear performance gap: the high school is a 4-star institution while the K-8 school is a 3-star school struggling with upper-grade math. Spending per student is higher at the high school ($11,696) than at the K-8 school ($10,655), and economic disadvantage is more prevalent at the K-8 level, where 53% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch compared to 34.5% at the high school. Chronic absenteeism is a district-wide concern, with both traditional schools exceeding the state average of 31.4%.
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