Clearwater families have a new benchmark for their public schools. Pinellas County Schools placed fifth out of 68 Florida districts in Niche's 2027 Best School Districts ranking, released Sept. 28.

Pinellas earned an overall Niche grade of A-minus and an average rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars based on 296 reviews.

Niche lists the district with 87,876 students across 147 schools, making Pinellas the largest district by enrollment among Florida's top five.

Clearwater-area campuses in the district include Clearwater High School and Countryside High School.

Pinellas ranks behind four smaller districts

St. Johns County School District took the top spot in Florida with an A overall grade. Seminole County Public Schools ranked second, followed by Walton County School District and Lafayette School District.

Lafayette, based in Mayo, ranked fourth with an A overall grade and 1,152 students.

Niche's rankings combine federal and state data, school-reported statistics and reviews from students, parents and teachers.

For its 2027 rankings, Niche said it updated academic performance data for public schools to use state-level assessment proficiency data rather than federal sources, providing more current measures of student performance.

"Families deserve a complete view of their options, whether they're evaluating schools in their area or exploring what's available elsewhere," Niche founder and CEO Luke Skurman said in a news release announcing the rankings.

District also holds an A grade from Florida

The Niche ranking follows other strong performance results for Pinellas County Schools under Superintendent Kevin Hendrick.

The district earned an A grade from the Florida Department of Education for the third consecutive year, Pinellas County Schools announced in July.

The district said 70% of its district-operated schools earned an A and 92% earned either an A or B.

State assessment results released June 29 also showed Pinellas students outperformed statewide averages in every tested subject area, according to the district.

Those results included English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies assessments.

Niche's rankings and Florida's state accountability grades use different methodologies and should not be directly compared.

Individual district and school profiles are available through Niche.