LAKEWOOD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL vs NORTHWEST ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Lakewood Elementary School and Northwest Elementary School sit just 5.9 miles apart in St. Petersburg, Florida, and their overall ratings are nearly identical — both score 8.9/10, placing Lakewood at #131 of 3,777 Florida schools and Northwest at #132 of 3,777. For most parents, that one-position gap is statistical noise. The meaningful differences emerge when you look beneath the headline number.

Academically, Lakewood Elementary holds a 0.5-point edge, scoring 8.2/10 versus Northwest Elementary's 7.7/10 — a concrete gap in measured proficiency. On growth, both schools perform exceptionally, but Lakewood again leads: a 9.9/10 growth score against Northwest's 9.6/10, meaning students at Lakewood are advancing at a pace that ranks among the very best in Florida regardless of where they start.

The sharpest demographic contrast is free and reduced-price lunch eligibility: Lakewood Elementary serves 81% of students who qualify, compared to 61% at Northwest Elementary — a 20-percentage-point gap that signals meaningfully different community income profiles. Enrollment is comparable (440 at Lakewood, 430 at Northwest), but Lakewood's student-teacher ratio of 13.8:1 is modestly tighter than Northwest's 14.3:1, translating to roughly one additional student per teacher at Northwest.

Both schools serve grades PK–05, so the grade-span decision is a wash. Where they diverge is context: Lakewood's higher academic and growth scores are achieved with a substantially higher-need student population. Northwest operates with a less economically stressed enrollment yet produces slightly lower academic and growth scores — a distinction that speaks to Lakewood's instructional effectiveness under harder conditions.