MANATEE ACADEMY K-8

MANATEE ACADEMY K-8 is an elementary school of substantial scale in PORT ST LUCIE, Florida, overseen by ST. LUCIE, enrolling 1,700 students in grades K through 8. By comparison, Florida's public schools average about 604 students each, so MANATEE ACADEMY K-8 sits 181% larger than that benchmark.

Within ST. LUCIE, which oversees 53 schools and 49,308 students, MANATEE ACADEMY K-8 is one campus in the system.

For racial and ethnic makeup, MANATEE ACADEMY K-8 shows that 36% of students identify as Black, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. The remainder looks like 30% Hispanic, 28% White, 5% multiracial. By comparison, St. Lucie County as a whole is about 22% Black, so the school skews noticeably more Black than its surroundings.

On the resource side, MANATEE ACADEMY K-8 reports 92 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 18.5:1. The state averages around 17.5:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. About 59% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator.

With demographic context factored in, MANATEE ACADEMY K-8 sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 51.6%; this one delivers 52.5%.

In the surrounding community, ACS estimates for St. Lucie County put median household earnings sit near $71,457, 27% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 9%. In all, St. Lucie County runs 57 public schools (combined enrollment of about 50,809 students), of which MANATEE ACADEMY K-8 is one.

Nearest neighbor: ST. LUCIE WEST CENTENNIAL HIGH, around 0.9 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, MANATEE ACADEMY K-8 comes 5th of 8 in the immediate cluster, below the nearby-schools average of 53.5%.

MANATEE ACADEMY K-8 operates from a city-core location.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at MANATEE ACADEMY K-8 has ticked up 24%, going from 1,375 students in 2018 to 1,700 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 37% to 28% across the same window. Class-load math has widened: from 15.8:1 in 2018 to 18.5:1 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, members of the MANATEE ACADEMY K-8 community share and discuss enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. Members of the school community can share what they know.