1
What's the one class at BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL every student should take?
Community prompt from u/allk12. Replies below.
Enrollment
467
Elementary
DISTRICT 484 · STATE 604
SCHOOL COMMUNITY·PINELLAS·NCES 120156001602
BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
2215 LANCASTER DRIVE, CLEARWATER, FL 33764 · (727) 538-7437 · Pinellas County
GRADES PK–05ELEMENTARY13-CITYTITLE IREGULAR SCHOOL467 STUDENTS
Student : Teacher
13.3:1
35 FTE teachers
DISTRICT 13.6:1 · STATE 17.5:1
Free / Reduced Lunch
58%
273 students
DISTRICT 48% · STATE 50%
Community
6
0 members
Enrollment and student:teacher ratio compared against other elementary schools. Free/Reduced Lunch and demographics compared against all schools.
Enrollment by grade, 2024-25
| Grade | Students | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-K | 58 | 12% |
| Kindergarten | 57 | 12% |
| Grade 1 | 72 | 15% |
| Grade 2 | 75 | 16% |
| Grade 3 | 69 | 15% |
| Grade 4 | 75 | 16% |
| Grade 5 | 61 | 13% |
This year's kindergarten class (57) is 7% smaller than its 5th grade class (61).
Student demographics
67%Diversity index
The chance that two students picked at random belong to different racial or ethnic groups.
DISTRICT 67% · STATE 70% · US 70%
Student head counts by race/ethnicity from federal NCES enrollment data. District, state, and US figures are each group's share of all public school students in that area (US excludes territories). Very small groups may be suppressed in the source, so categories do not always sum exactly to total enrollment.
Gender split
Test scores
FAST / B.E.S.T. 2024-25 . % at Level 3 or AboveEnglish Language Arts
56.4%
FL avg 56.7% . +2.8pp since 2023
Math
66.1%
FL avg 58.9% . -0.3pp since 2023
What this means: On the FAST / B.E.S.T., Florida's statewide test, about 56 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level and about 66 of 100 do math at grade level. Across all Florida schools, those numbers are about 57 and 59. Reading and writing scores are up about 3 points since 2023, while math scores have held steady.
FAST / B.E.S.T. results by year
| School year | English Language Arts | Math |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 56.4% | 66.1% |
| 2023-24 | 53.6% | 66.4% |
% at Level 3 or Above, all students and all tested grades.
Source: FAST / B.E.S.T.. All students, all grades. See all years and grades →
BeatsExpectations
Demographically-adjusted score · methodologyTier
AS EXPECTED
Performing as predicted given the school's student profile
Actual proficiency
61.5%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
51.9%
based on FL schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
+9.7pp
above demographic expectation
What this means: About 62% of students here test proficient in math and reading, compared with the roughly 52% typical for Florida schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations measures results against demographically similar schools rather than by raw scores, and this school falls within the typical range, neither among Florida's top nor bottom 10%.
BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual. How this is calculated →
Schools most like BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL's state test result (61.5% proficient) is higher than 2 of the 5 schools below with a result.
| School | Students | Low-income | Proficient |
|---|---|---|---|
| BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL this school | 467 | 58.5% | 61.5% |
| SOUTHERN OAK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LARGO | 451 | 58.1% | 66.6% |
| SABAL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL MELBOURNE | 493 | 58.4% | 42.2% |
| MCMULLEN-BOOTH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLEARWATER | 445 | 56.0% | 55.4% |
| FLOROSA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL MARY ESTHER | 539 | 56.4% | 70.0% |
| MILDRED HELMS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LARGO | 515 | 61.6% | 63.9% |
Matched among Florida elementary schools on enrollment, the share of students from low-income families (eligible for free or reduced-price lunch), and racial and ethnic makeup. Proficient is the average share of students meeting the state standard across all of the school's state tests in 2023-24 and 2024-25, the same combined score our test-score rankings use. Online schools and schools serving specialized populations are not matched.
Where BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ranks
Among elementary schools| Measure | This school | In Florida | In Pinellas County |
|---|---|---|---|
| State test proficiency ranked highest first | 61.5% | #798 of 2,136 | #51 of 90 |
| Math proficiency ranked highest first | 66.1% | #818 of 2,149 ▼ 133 | #48 of 90 ▼ 9 |
| Reading proficiency ranked highest first | 56.4% | #1,005 of 2,149 ▼ 14 | #62 of 90 ▼ 5 |
| Enrollment ranked largest first | 467 | #1,548 of 2,267 | #42 of 90 |
| Students per teacher ranked fewest first | 13.3:1 | #200 of 2,077 | #42 of 90 |
| Diversity index ranked most diverse first | 67.3% | #407 of 2,108 | #26 of 90 |
| Free and reduced lunch ranked highest share first | 58.5% | #965 of 2,188 | #36 of 90 |
| Enrollment change since 2017-18 ranked steepest decline first | -32.8% | #138 of 1,374 | #10 of 75 |
Ranked against other public elementary schools. Online schools are left out of every list, and test-score lists leave out schools that serve specialized populations. Each rank links to the full list. Arrows under a test-score rank show places moved since the prior test year, among schools tested both years.
4-year change
SY 2020-21 vs SY 2024-25Enrollment
467
-46 (-9%) vs 2020
-27% since 1990-91, when it was 640
Student : Teacher
13.3:1
was 11.9:1
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
Enrollment and staffing by year
| School year | Students | Teachers (FTE) | Students per teacher | Free and reduced lunch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 467 | 35 | 13.3:1 | 58% (273) |
| 2023-24 | 484 | 33 | 14.7:1 | 62% (298) |
| 2022-23 | 489 | 38 | 12.9:1 | 62% (303) |
| 2020-21 | 513 | 43 | 11.9:1 | 60% (307) |
| 2017-18 | 695 | 52 | 13.4:1 | 65% (452) |
| 2015-16 | 675 | 51 | 13.2:1 | 68% (461) |
| 2010-11 | 657 | 47 | 14.0:1 | 60% (391) |
| 2000-01 | 562 | 33 | 17.0:1 | 46% (257) |
| 1990-91 | 640 | 32 | 20.0:1 | N/A |
Source: NCES Common Core of Data. Rows are the federal collections on file for BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.
About BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
The public elementary school BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is located in CLEARWATER, Florida. Students in pre-K through 5 attend the school, which enrolls 467 students. The average among elementary schools in Florida is roughly 604 students; this school is 23% smaller than that.
District-wide, PINELLAS has 151 schools and 87,955 students.
No single group makes up more than half of enrollment at BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. The largest is White students, at 48%. The next largest groups are 26% Hispanic, 13% Black, 10% multiracial, and 2% Asian. In Pinellas County overall, about 74% of residents are White. The school's diversity index is 67%, meaning two students picked at random have a 67% chance of belonging to different racial or ethnic groups.
Teachers at the school number 35 full-time equivalents, and the ratio is 13.3:1. This ratio sits 4.1 below the 17.5:1 average for elementary schools in Florida. Roughly 58% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch. Across public schools in Pinellas County, the average is 45%.
BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL posts an average proficiency rate on state tests of 61.5%, compared with a predicted 51.9%. It is not in the top or bottom 10% of Florida schools on BeatsExpectations.
Census Bureau estimates for Pinellas County show that the median household income is $72,646, a bachelor's degree or higher is held by about 37% of adults, and the poverty rate is about 7%. There are 155 public schools in Pinellas County, enrolling about 87,955 students in all.
The school nearest to BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is DISCOVERY ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, at a distance of about 1.0 miles. A five-mile radius around the school includes at least 8 other public schools. Among the 9 closest schools with test data, this one included, BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ranks 4th on average proficiency.
By NCES locale, the school is City: Small, or inside a principal city with a population under 100,000.
Enrollment declined 9% from its 2020-21 level of 513. The student-to-teacher ratio rose from 11.9:1 in 2020-21 to 13.3:1 in 2024-25.
If you have questions about school safety, transportation, and start times at BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, you can post them here. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.
Pinellas County at a glance
View full county profilePopulation
963,481
Census ACS
Median income
$72,646
Household, ACS
Bachelor's+
37%
Adults 25+
Poverty rate
7%
Below federal line
Schools in county
155
87,955 students
Quick facts
Related schools
Other schools in PINELLAS
- PALM HARBOR UNIVERSITY HIGHHigh · 2,413 students
- LARGO HIGH SCHOOLHigh · 2,058 students
- EAST LAKE HIGH SCHOOLHigh · 1,980 students
- DIXIE M. HOLLINS HIGH SCHOOLHigh · 1,934 students
- ST. PETERSBURG HIGH SCHOOLHigh · 1,736 students
- OSCEOLA FUNDAMENTAL HIGHHigh · 1,706 students
Other schools in CLEARWATER
- CLEARWATER HIGH SCHOOLHigh · 1,543 students
- COUNTRYSIDE HIGH SCHOOLHigh · 1,396 students
- CLEARWATER FUNDAMENTAL MIDDLE SCHOOLMiddle · 736 students
- OAK GROVE MIDDLE SCHOOLMiddle · 724 students
- DISCOVERY ACADEMY OF SCIENCEElementary · 722 students
- PLUMB ELEMENTARY SCHOOLElementary · 704 students
Nearby schools
- DISCOVERY ACADEMY OF SCIENCE1.0 mi · 722
- OAK GROVE MIDDLE SCHOOL1.2 mi · 724
- FRONTIER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL1.4 mi · 542
- PLUMB ELEMENTARY SCHOOL1.6 mi · 704
- PINELLAS ACADEMY OF MATH AND SCIENCE1.8 mi · 817
- PLATO ACADEMY LARGO CHARTER SCHOOL2.0 mi · 305
Frequently asked questions
About BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOLWhat is the total enrollment at BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL?
BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL enrolls approximately 467 students in grades PK-05.
What grades does BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL serve?
BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL serves grades PK-05.
How many students per teacher at BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL?
Approximately 13.3:1 students per teacher at BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.
How diverse is BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL?
BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL reports a student body of 48% White, 26% Hispanic, 13% Black, 2% Asian, 10% Two or more.
What district is BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL in?
BELCHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is part of PINELLAS.
Data sourceSchool profile facts are sourced from the NCES. Community content is posted by allk12 members.