Pinellas County Schools for St. Petersburg Families

Pinellas County Schools is the single countywide public school district for St. Petersburg and every other Pinellas County community, run from 301 4th St SW in Largo, phone (727) 588-6000 (NCES).

The federal Common Core of Data classifies the Pinellas district as a regular local school district covering prekindergarten through grade 12, and its 2025-26 directory lists 151 schools under it (NCES district detail). The district's own home page counts 141 schools district wide (Pinellas County Schools). Neither page explains the gap of ten, so a St. Petersburg parent comparing figures should note which list a number comes from.

St. Petersburg has no city school system of its own, because Florida law makes each county a school district and a unit for the control, organization and administration of its schools (s. 1001.30, F.S.). The Digital Towns guide to public schools in St. Petersburg covers the individual campuses; this page covers how the Pinellas district itself is governed, graded and paid for.

A seven-member elected School Board governs Pinellas County Schools and appoints its superintendent, a post held by Superintendent Hendrick since 2022 (PCS School Board; PCS superintendent page).

Three Pinellas board members are elected at large by voters across the whole district, and four are elected from single-member districts by the voters who live in each one; those four must live in the district they represent, and all seven represent the entire county once elected (PCS School Board). A St. Petersburg voter therefore helps choose the three at-large members plus the member for the single-member district that covers the voter's home.

The Pinellas board elects its chairperson and vice chairperson every year, and the current officers were elected in November 2025. Meetings are held twice a month during most months, and the board also employs the School Board Attorney, who reports to it directly (PCS School Board).

St. Petersburg residents can reach the whole board or one member through the School Board Office at [email protected] or 727-588-6300 (PCS School Board). Last verified: October 15, 2026, on the Pinellas County Schools website.

Pinellas County Schools enrolled 87,876 students in the 2024-25 school year with 5,514.38 full-time-equivalent classroom teachers, a ratio of 15.94 students per teacher, according to federal data (NCES).

Teachers are fewer than half of the Pinellas workforce. The same federal record puts the district's total staff count at 12,404.27, including 228.80 guidance counselors, 96.03 school psychologists and 117.00 librarians or media specialists (NCES district detail).

The federal enrollment and staffing figures for Pinellas are a year behind the classroom: NCES notes that membership and staffing come from official 2024-25 data, while its directory details are preliminary 2025-26 submissions (NCES).

Pinellas County Schools earned an A district grade from the Florida Department of Education in 2026, with 823 points across 12 components, or 69 percent of the points possible, and 97 percent of students tested (FDOE district grades).

That is the third A in a row for Pinellas: the state file shows A grades for 2026, 2025 and 2024, after B grades in 2016 through 2019, in 2022 and in the 2023 informational baseline (FDOE district grades). Within the 2026 total, the district's graduation rate component, which measures the class of 2024-25, stood at 93, and its college and career acceleration component at 72.

School by school, the 2026 file lists 129 graded Pinellas rows. A Digital Towns count of those rows finds 92 A grades, 27 B grades and 10 C grades, with no D or F; the same rows show 77 A, 39 B and 13 C for 2025 (FDOE school grades file). The file includes Pinellas Virtual Franchise, which earned an A at 67 percent (FDOE row 2921), and St. Petersburg Collegiate High School North Pinellas, a charter school at 97 percent of points, the top Pinellas figure (FDOE row 2930).

Grades depend on the state scale printed in the file: a Pinellas high or combination school needs 65 percent of points for an A, a middle school 64 percent and an elementary school 62 percent (FDOE school grades file). The Florida Department of Education posts the 2026 overview, results packet and both spreadsheets on its school grades page, with the packet updated September 8, 2026 (FDOE school grades).

Most Pinellas County Schools money is raised locally: in the 2022-23 fiscal year the district took in $1,327,289,000, of which 59 percent came from local sources, 23 percent from the state and 18 percent from federal funds (NCES).

Spending that year reached $1,379,146,000, or $14,718 per student, and instruction accounted for $678,527,000, which NCES reports as 58 percent of current spending in Pinellas (NCES district detail). Construction took another $130,919,000. These are the newest fiscal figures in the federal record, two school years older than the 2024-25 enrollment data beside them.

The NCES figures predate the current Pinellas schools referendum, whose ballot language set a district millage of one mill a year from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2029, for teachers and support staff, music, art and reading classes and technology (PCS referendum). By law the Pinellas referendum money is shared with district-approved charter schools, charter schools must submit regular reports to the citizens oversight committee, and the referendum page says teachers receive a 2025-26 salary supplement of $11,081 and full-time support employees about $2,910 (PCS referendum page).

On February 24, 2026 the Pinellas School Board voted to close Cross Bayou Elementary and Disston Academy at the end of the school year and to merge Bay Point Elementary and Bay Point Middle into one K-8 school (PCS Planning for Progress).

The same February vote expanded Oldsmar Elementary into a K-8 model and grew the employee child care program at McMullen-Booth Elementary. A second round followed: on September 10, 2026 the district presented its Fall 2026 Planning for Progress recommendations, which include new K-8, fundamental and technical school pathways, consolidating underused buildings and adjusting selected attendance boundaries (PCS Planning for Progress).

The Pinellas board scheduled a workshop on the fall recommendations for October 6, 2026 and a vote at its meeting on October 13, 2026 (PCS Planning for Progress). As of October 15, 2026 the district's Planning for Progress page still carried the superintendent's pre-vote letter rather than the outcome, so St. Petersburg families watching a boundary change should check the board agenda or call the School Board Office before assuming a zone has moved.