Florida State University Schools (Florida High) in Tallahassee, Florida

Florida State University Schools, known in Tallahassee as Florida High, is Florida State University's K-12 laboratory school at 3000 School House Road in Southwood.

FSU News describes FSUS as the laboratory school of Florida State University, offering a comprehensive K-12 education, and as a charter school affiliated with FSU that brings research into its classrooms while giving FSU faculty an opportunity to conduct educational research. The FSUS About Us page lists elementary (K-5), middle (6-8) and high school (9-12) divisions, gives the school phone as 850-245-3700, and prints the Florida High alma mater, with words by the Class of 1961.

The school's stated mission, in collaboration with FSU's College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, is to advance Florida's K-12 education through exemplary teaching, research, and service. That mission explains why Florida High in Tallahassee admits by lottery, keeps a research office and reports to a university dean rather than to the Leon County superintendent.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the Florida Department of Education's 2026 school grades file, section 1002.32 of the 2026 Florida Statutes, six FSUS pages, the Anne Spencer Daves College home page and three FSU News reports from 2024 and 2025.

Florida High is a lab school because Florida law creates developmental research (laboratory) schools as their own category of public schools, each tied to a state university's college of education.

Section 1002.32 of the 2026 Florida Statutes, the Sidney Martin Developmental Research School Act, sets the mission of a lab school as the provision of a vehicle for the conduct of research, demonstration, and evaluation regarding management, teaching, and learning. It names the Florida State University Charter Lab K-12 School in Leon County among the charter lab schools exempt from the limit of one lab school per university, and it lists Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, across Tallahassee from FSU, among the universities authorized to sponsor a lab school.

The statute also sets how Florida High is paid for and filled. Each lab school receives state operating funds through the Florida Education Finance Program based on the county in which it is located, so Leon County is the funding basis, and the university is the fiscal agent. Admission must be designed to produce a representative sample of public school enrollment based on gender, race, socioeconomic status and academic ability. At FSU, the Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, named for alumna Anne Spencer Daves in 2024, runs three laboratory schools: Florida State University School, FSU Pembroke Pines Charter School and The Collegiate School at FSU Panama City.

Florida State University Schools earned an A in Florida's 2026 school grades, with 936 points and 78 percent of possible points.

The Florida Department of Education's 2025-26 school grades file, dated September 1, 2026, lists the school as Florida State University School, number 0341 in district 73, FSU Lab School, a combination school marked as a charter and a Title I school, with 21.1 percent economically disadvantaged students. The components below are the percentages and totals the state used.

The same file shows an A for the Tallahassee school in every graded year from 2000 through 2026, and a B in 1999. Two official figures for graduation differ because they measure different things: the state's 2026 grade uses a 2024-25 graduation rate component of 97, while the FSUS home page advertises a 99% graduation rate. For the year before, FSU News reported that FSUS kept its A for 2024-25 while raising its total points from 884 in 2023-24 to 939.

Florida High runs FSU-linked research in its Tallahassee classrooms, from an elementary math acceleration program begun in 2002 to reading and assessment studies with FSU centers.

The FSUS Research page says FSUS initiated the Elementary Math Acceleration Program (MAP) in 2002 to let more students reach higher-level math at earlier grades, and that in June 2025 MAP earned the Little Red Schoolhouse Award from the Florida Association of School Administrators. The school's 2024-2025 kindergarten cohort joined Reach Every Reader, an ongoing collaboration with FSU that continued in the 2025-2026 school year, and FSUS teachers and students worked with FSU's Learning Systems Institute to pilot assessment items and platforms for K-2 learners.

FSUS teachers and students also contributed to curriculum modules integrating mathematics and computer science, eight of which were published in 2024. Seminoles Aspire, another FSU partnership, gives all FSUS students access to additional support, and the research page reports that FSUS won funding for five Project SPARK research projects, a program of FSU's Anne's College that pairs university faculty with K-12 educators on problems of practice.

Florida High admits students by a computer lottery with no attendance zone, plus a set of seats reserved for Southwood homeowners.

According to the FSUS Admissions page, FSUS receives approximately 2,000 lottery applications each year, but vacancies are very limited because most students remain once enrolled, and the majority of vacancies occur in kindergarten and sixth grade. Students are selected by computer according to demographic information that most closely represents the public school student population profile of the Florida Panhandle. Within demographic needs, priority goes to siblings of current students, children of FSUS graduates and children of active military parents. The lottery application for the 2027-2028 school year is open, with initial selections expected to begin in March 2027.

FSUS and The St. Joe Company, the developer of Southwood in Tallahassee, have a student reservation agreement that reserves a specified number of seats for Southwood residents, filled first come, first served. To use one, a parent must own property in Southwood and be a member in good standing with the Southwood Residential Community Association, Inc.; renters do not qualify, and families on the Southwood Waiting List are not eligible for the general lottery.

Florida State University Schools in Tallahassee is governed by a 13-member board and run by Executive Director Christopher Small, who reports to the FSU dean who also serves as superintendent.

The FSUS School Board has three parent representatives, four FSU representatives, four community representatives, a faculty representative and a student representative, and a community or parent member chairs it. Its current roster lists Darryl Marshall as chair and includes a Southwood community representative; the board posted agendas through its October 13, 2026 meeting. The About Us page introduces Christopher Small as executive director.

FSU News reported in May 2024 that Small would serve as interim executive director for 2024-2025 after the previous executive director stepped down after nine years. In January 2025, FSU News reported, the FSUS Board of Directors and Dean and Superintendent Damon Andrew chose Small as director; he had served as interim director since June 2024.

The FSUS home page lists 110 students in dual enrollment, 64 STEAM courses, 26 athletics teams, 49 student clubs and organizations, and students from five counties. Its career and technical education courses include commercial art technology, culinary arts, a certified nursing assistant program, gaming and simulation, AP computer science, exercise science, emergency planning and preparedness, and introduction to teacher education.