Blanton is among the poorest schools in Pinellas. Tucked along a humble stretch of 54th Avenue North between St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park, it sits next to an apartment complex offering $150 move-in specials, and backs into Copher's U Pull It, an auto salvage yard stacked high with clunkers.
Three in four Blanton students are eligible for free or reduced lunch. A growing number speak more Vietnamese or Spanish than English. Earlier this year, administrators discovered a student was coming in late because her family doesn't have an alarm clock where they live - in their car.
Shocking? Not at Blanton. The same thing happened last year.
And yet, when it comes to academics, Blanton's results are as loud and impossible to ignore as Copher's car crusher.
Six years after its F (which was changed to a D upon appeal), Blanton has earned two A's in a row. It's expecting a third after this year's Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test season, which kicks into high gear Tuesday.
Blanton's scores outpace nearly every other high-poverty school in Pinellas. And better yet, they stack up well next to Perkins Elementary, the highly prized arts magnet in St. Petersburg that has half Blanton's poverty.
POVERTY, ADACEMICS CO-EXIST
It's commonly assumed there is an iron-clad correlation between poverty and academics. Poor school? Bad school. But in Florida, a growing number of high-poverty schools are defying public perception.
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