Summary:
Panama has three public schools serving prekindergarten through grade 12, with 744 students across elementary, middle and high school. The clearest shared academic concern is math: in 2025–2026, the schools averaged 12% proficient, 13 percentage points below the state average; science averaged 19%, 11 points below the state. ELA was closer to the state, averaging 23% versus 26%. The most important takeaway is that math and science results are the broadest proficiency challenges across these schools.
Top results vary by subject. Panama High School led all-grades ELA at 30%, 13 points above Panama Elementary School and 8 points above Panama Middle School; it was also the only school above the state in all-grades ELA. Elementary led math at 21%, while Middle led science at 30%, matching the state result. At the lower end, both middle and high school had 8% in math, and Elementary had the lowest science result at 10%. Grade-level results also differ: Elementary grade 3 was above the state in ELA and math, while grade 5 was 22 points below in both; Middle grade 8 ELA was 2 points above the state, but its math result was 17 points below.
Recent trends favor Middle School: from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, its ELA, math and science proficiency rose by 15, 5 and 12 points, respectively. Elementary and High School declined in all three subjects; Elementary’s largest drop was 18 points in science, while High School fell 10 points in ELA and 12 in math. SchoolDigger’s statewide percentile ranking rose from 6 to 35 for Middle School, while Elementary moved from 34 to 29 and High School from 68 to 27. For context, student-teacher ratios were 15.1 at Elementary, 22.2 at Middle and 17.2 at High School. All three reported free/reduced lunch eligible for sy 2024–2025, ranging from 78% to 81%; these figures describe the schools and do not explain their results. Chronic absenteeism was below the state rate at each school, and High School’s graduation rate was 89% compared with 78% statewide. All-grades results cover different grade spans, so grade-specific comparisons offer more direct context.
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