Tallahassee Public Schools

Leon County Schools is Tallahassee's public school district, and its school menu lists 6 high schools, 8 middle schools and 22 elementary schools, plus several special campuses (Leon County Schools).

The high schools are Chiles, Godby, Leon, Lincoln, Rickards and SAIL, and the middle schools are Cobb, Deerlake, Fairview, Griffin, Montford, Nims, Raa and Swift Creek (Leon County Schools). The elementary list runs from Apalachee, Astoria Park and Bond to Springwood and Sullivan, and a separate group includes Woodville School, Ft. Braden, the Ghazvini Learning Center and the Department of Early Learning (Leon County Schools).

The federal count is a little different from a menu count. NCES lists 53 schools for Leon district 1201110 in its preliminary 2025-2026 directory, and its 2024-2025 staff figures include 19.00 school psychologists, 585.91 instructional aides and 135.50 school administrators (NCES district detail, Leon (1201110)). Four Leon County charter schools also appear among the Leon rows of the state grades file: The School of Arts and Sciences on Thomasville, The School of Arts and Sciences Centre, Tallahassee School of Math and Sciences and Tallahassee Classical School (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, school by school against the FLDOE 2025-26 grades spreadsheet, then against the Leon County Schools zone, transportation, open enrollment and choice pages and the NCES record for district 1201110.

The Leon County Schools zone lookup answers that, with separate elementary, middle and high school lookups (Leon County Schools zone lookup).

Leon County Schools says a neighborhood school is assigned based on home address and school boundaries, and a child going to the zoned school needs no application: the family registers directly with that school (Leon County Schools Controlled Open Enrollment). The district adds a caution that all school attendance boundaries are subject to change by School Board action, and that its maps and descriptions are provided for convenience (Leon County Schools Controlled Open Enrollment).

Bus questions go to Leon County Schools Transportation at 850-488-2636, whose page also has bus stop finders by address and by school (Leon County Schools Transportation). For Tallahassee students who ride city buses instead, the same page says StarMetro's STAR Program gives students in grades K-12 within Leon County free transportation with a STAR Program Card (Leon County Schools Transportation).

A count of the 43 Leon County rows in the Florida Department of Education's 2026 grades file finds 17 A grades and one D in 2026, and 15 A grades and two D grades in the same rows' 2025 column (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file).

Counted from the Leon rows of the FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file, which include four charter schools and the Leon County Virtual School franchise.

The state grades on different scales by level. An elementary school needs 62 percent of possible points or greater for an A, a middle school 64 percent and a high or combination school 65 percent (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file). The Leon County elementary schools with the highest share of points in 2026 were Gilchrist at 78 percent, Hawks Rise at 76 and Killearn Lakes at 72, all graded A (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file).

The FLDOE accountability page also posts a 2026 School Grades Results Packet, updated September 8, 2026, and a Grading Scale Changes Overview with the same September 8, 2026 update date, both relevant to Tallahassee schools (FLDOE school accountability reports). This guide reports only the state's own letter grades, not private ratings.

Two Tallahassee high schools, Lawton Chiles and SAIL, and five middle schools, Deerlake, Montford, Swift Creek, Cobb and Fairview, earned an A from the state in 2026 (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file).

Source for the table: FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file.

A high school grade and its graduation rate do not always move together. Rickards High, graded C with 55 percent of points, posted a 2024-25 graduation rate of 92 in the same file, higher than Leon High's 84 at a B (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file). Lincoln High rose from a C in 2025 to a B in 2026 at 62 percent of points (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file).

Among middle schools, Fairview climbed from a C to an A and Cobb from a B to an A, while R. Frank Nims Middle, home of the district's pre-law magnet, fell from a C to a D at 39 percent of points (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file; Leon County Schools 2026/27 choice application page).

Sealey Elementary rose two letters, from a C in 2025 to an A in 2026, while Sabal Palm and Ruediger elementary slipped from A to B (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file).

Bond and DeSoto Trail elementary each rose from a B to an A, and Hartsfield, Astoria Park and W T Moore elementary each rose from a C to a B (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file). Oak Ridge Elementary moved from a D to a C (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file).

On the other side, John G Riley and Canopy Oaks elementary fell from a B to a C, and among Leon County charters The School of Arts and Sciences Centre went from an A to a B while Tallahassee School of Math and Sciences and Tallahassee Classical School rose from a C to a B (FLDOE 2025-26 School Grades file). The district's open enrollment page also states that there are currently no Leon County Schools eligible for an Opportunity Scholarship (Leon County Schools Controlled Open Enrollment).

Through Controlled Open Enrollment, which lets parents of K-12 students apply to a Leon County school other than the zoned one, under section 1002.31 of the Florida Statutes, when space is available (Leon County Schools Controlled Open Enrollment).

Applications go through the Focus Parent Portal, where a parent may select up to 3 school or program choices and has until March 1 to make changes (Leon County Schools 2026/27 choice application page). All School Choice and CTE applications go into a computerized lottery, except the IB high school programme, where acceptance is based on student academic performance (Leon County Schools Controlled Open Enrollment).

The FAQ sets the ground rules. Transportation is the responsibility of the parent or guardian; priority goes to children of active duty military moved by orders, children relocated by a foster care placement, children who moved after a court-ordered custody change or the serious illness or death of a custodial parent, and children who live in Leon County; and a family offered a seat must register the student within ten business days (Controlled Open Enrollment FAQ). Pre-K programs are not part of open enrollment, and the waitlist does not carry over to the next school year (Controlled Open Enrollment FAQ). The two Leon County Schools pages give different windows: the 2026/27 choice page allows application changes until March 1, while the Controlled Open Enrollment page says Open Enrollment is open April 6th through August 1st, without naming a year (Leon County Schools 2026/27 choice application page; Leon County Schools Controlled Open Enrollment).

The magnet list on the 2026/27 page includes the Hartsfield Elementary Magnet School for International Studies, IB preparatory magnets at Cobb and Fairview middle schools, the Raa Middle Fine and Performing Arts Magnet, Godby academies in agriculture, aviation and information technology, and Rickards programs from IB to engineering (Leon County Schools 2026/27 choice application page). The School Choice page says students already on school choice need not reapply unless they want to change schools, and the School Choice office asks families to email [email protected] rather than call (Leon County Schools School Choice).