Panama City Reporter

Of the 15,818 Bay District Schools students who took part in the 2022-23 school year FAST, 39.5% met the testing standard while 8.8% exceeded expectations, according to the Florida Department of Education.

Bay District Schools's proficiency level in the 2022-23 school year was 48.3%, 1.6% lower than the state's average of 49.9%.

During the 2022-23 school year, St. Johns County School District students fared the best on the ELA portion of the FAST, with 71.1% of them succeeding. Meanwhile Jefferson County School District students did worst on ELA, with 27% of the students passing the test.

There were 27,324 students enrolled in Bay District Schools schools in the 2022-23 school year.

According to WalletHub's analysis, Florida is ranked 9th out of 50 states in terms of its public school quality and safety.

In 2022, Florida had more than 2,8 million students enrolled in a total of 4,202 schools. There were 163,558 teachers in the public schools, or roughly one teacher for every 17 students, compared to the national average of 1:16.

In 2022, Florida replaced the paper-based FSA with the computer-based Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST). Administered three times a year between kindergarten and 10th grade, the FAST is supposed to provide a faster and more individualized feedback on students’ performance than its predecessor.

While Florida public school students saw gains in math on the 2022-2023 FAST, their performance in ELA was slightly lower than in the previous school year. Math scores remained around 55% success rate, while ELA scores hovered around 50%.

School Year	Students who met standards (%)	Students who exceeded standards (%)	Total Enrollment
2022-23	39.5%	8.8%	27,324