Summary:
In zip code 34476, there is one middle school, Liberty Middle School, serving grades 6 through 8 in Ocala, Florida, with a substantial enrollment of 1,171 students within the Marion County school district.
Liberty Middle School presents a mixed academic profile. The school excels dramatically in advanced math, with 96% of students proficient in Geometry and 82% in Algebra 1, far exceeding both district and state averages. However, this strength contrasts sharply with a persistent weakness in 7th-grade math, where only 24% of students are proficient—less than half the state average. The school performs at or near state averages in 8th-grade English Language Arts (60%) and 8th-grade Science (53%), but lags behind in standard math for all grades and in Civics (74% vs. 77% state). The school has a moderate economic disadvantage rate of 47.82% for free or reduced lunch.
A notable positive is the school's chronic absenteeism rate of 26.8%, which is significantly better than both the district (35.2%) and state (31.4%) averages, suggesting good student engagement. The school has a student-teacher ratio of 18.2:1 and spends $10,347 per student. Its state ranking has been stable, hovering around the 40th percentile (2-star rating) for the last three years. The most critical takeaway is the extreme disparity in math performance, where the advanced program is world-class while the core 7th-grade curriculum is struggling, indicating a potential need to re-evaluate resource allocation to support all students effectively.
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