The City of Pensacola has some of the highest-performing elementary schools in the Escambia County School District. However, the one middle school inside the city limits that serves those children is near the bottom for English Language Arts (ELA):
Workman Middle: Sixth Grade 24% at or above reading level, Seventh Grade 30%, and Eighth Grade 26%.
Why this matters: How many of the fifth graders at Cordova Park (76%), A.K. Suter (76%), Scenic Heights (57%) and N.B. Cook (71%) will enroll at Workman?
- The City of Pensacola deserves a better public middle school.
-
-
- Note: Beulah Middle School, the district’s newest middle school, appears to be struggling
- Bellview Middle will probably be the district’s next charter middle school – Sixth Grade 13%, Seventh Grade 19%, and Eighth Grade 24%.
- It’s percentages are lower than Warrington Middle.
-
-
School Name | Grade | Number of Students | Mean Scale Score | Percentage in Level 3 or Above |
ESCAMBIA VIRTUAL ACADEMY FRANCHISE | 06 | 15 | 339 | 87 |
BROWN BARGE MIDDLE | 06 | 204 | 338 | 75 |
BEULAH ACADEMY OF SCIENCE | 06 | 103 | 326 | 51 |
GRADE 06 | 06 | 216,018 | 321 | 47 |
RANSOM MIDDLE | 06 | 344 | 322 | 45 |
ERNEST WARD MIDDLE | 06 | 154 | 321 | 42 |
JIM C. BAILEY MIDDLE | 06 | 377 | 316 | 40 |
FERRY PASS MIDDLE | 06 | 311 | 313 | 36 |
BEULAH MIDDLE | 06 | 284 | 314 | 33 |
J. H. WORKMAN MIDDLE | 06 | 200 | 306 | 24 |
WARRINGTON MIDDLE | 06 | 161 | 305 | 19 |
BELLVIEW MIDDLE | 06 | 300 | 301 | 13 |
School Name | Grade | Number of Students | Mean Scale Score | Percentage in Level 3 or Above |
BROWN BARGE MIDDLE | 07 | 167 | 344 | 72 |
ESCAMBIA VIRTUAL | 07 | 17 | 335 | 65 |
RANSOM MIDDLE | 07 | 393 | 330 | 50 |
ERNEST WARD MIDDLE | 07 | 162 | 329 | 48 |
BEULAH ACADEMY | 07 | 102 | 334 | 48 |
GRADE 07 | 07 | 209,002 | 328 | 47 |
BEULAH MIDDLE SCHOOL | 07 | 334 | 323 | 36 |
FERRY PASS MIDDLE | 07 | 330 | 321 | 35 |
JIM C. BAILEY MIDDLE | 07 | 398 | 323 | 35 |
J. H. WORKMAN MIDDLE | 07 | 217 | 318 | 30 |
WARRINGTON MIDDLE | 07 | 175 | 313 | 22 |
BELLVIEW MIDDLE | 07 | 330 | 311 | 19 |
School Name | Grade | Number of Students | Mean Scale Score | Percentage in Level 3 or Above |
ESCAMBIA VIRTUAL | 08 | 21 | 348 | 81 |
BROWN BARGE MIDDLE | 08 | 166 | 344 | 63 |
RANSOM MIDDLE SCHOOL | 08 | 428 | 334 | 49 |
ERNEST WARD MIDDLE | 08 | 147 | 334 | 48 |
GRADE 08 | 08 | 214,928 | 332 | 47 |
BEULAH ACADEMY | 08 | 105 | 329 | 40 |
FERRY PASS MIDDLE | 08 | 315 | 326 | 37 |
JIM C. BAILEY MIDDLE | 08 | 351 | 328 | 36 |
BEULAH MIDDLE SCHOOL | 08 | 295 | 328 | 36 |
WARRINGTON MIDDLE | 08 | 153 | 318 | 29 |
J. H. WORKMAN MIDDLE | 08 | 254 | 320 | 26 |
BELLVIEW MIDDLE SCHOOL | 08 | 289 | 316 | 24 |
Workman Middle School is only just barely inside the city limit. The homes across the street from Workman to the north, northeast and east are outside of the city limit. Scenic Heights Elementary School is mentioned above but some caveats are in order. Many of the school’s students do not live “in” the city. Further, I have met parents who registered their children at Scenic Heights using a fake address, usually a relative, because they didn’t want their children to attend their bad local neighborhood school. In Scenic Heights, Langley is the boundary for those who attend Workman (those to the south of Langley) versus Ferry Pass (those to the north). Kids living across the street from each other, who both went to Scenic Heights, might attend different middle schools. In the city, east of Hitzman Park, there is an east-west boundary zone line that divides those who attend Scenic Heights versus Cordova Park. A child living south one block south of Scenic Heights Elementary School, might attend that school but a child living three blocks to the south might attend Cordova Park. Some of my Scenic Heights neighbors have solved the Escambia County “middle school” problem by moving to Santa Rosa County.
Thank you for the ongoing coverage where other news sources appear to be done with this story.
You said, “The City of Pensacola deserves a better public middle school.”
Can you explain why we “deserve” anything other than what we are getting thanks to the school boards’ continued malfunction? It’s seemingly like putting a group of skunks in charge of party planning, and then complaining the party stinks.