Pelican Island Elementary School — Sebastian, Florida

Pelican Island Elementary School is a public school of the School District of Indian River County, located at 1355 Schumann Drive in Sebastian, as Vero News reported in November 2017. For most of its history it has been an elementary campus, but in January 2025 the School Board approved turning Pelican Island Elementary into a kindergarten through eighth grade school with a classical curriculum, beginning with sixth grade classes in August 2025.

The school shares its name with Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge in the Indian River Lagoon. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, President Theodore Roosevelt's executive order in 1903 designated the island as the nation's first national wildlife refuge for the protection of nesting birds, and on March 14, 1903, Pelican Island in the Indian River Lagoon became the first federal bird reservation. That conservation link runs through the school's own story: before the classical conversion, the Sebastian campus spent several years building an identity as an environmental science school.

The school serves families in Sebastian, a city the U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 counts at 25,759 residents with a median age of 57.6, a median household income of $68,863 and a median home value of $281,700.

In January 2025, Superintendent David Moore proposed moving four elementary-level schools to a K-8 model. According to Vero News, board members initially approved adding sixth grade classes in 2025-26 at Pelican Island Elementary, with seventh and eighth grade classes to follow in a year-by-year progression, and the Sebastian school was slated to become the first in the district to offer a non-religious, classical-education curriculum.

The board then added sixth grade at Fellsmere Elementary and at the Rosewood and Osceola magnet schools. Under the plan, Fellsmere, Rosewood and Osceola join Pelican Island in adding one grade each year for three years, giving the district four fully functioning K-8 schools by the start of the 2027-28 academic year. The district's other nine elementary schools keep their K-5 format, so Sebastian area parents choose between a K-8 school and a traditional middle school such as Sebastian River Middle School.

Vero News reported that the K-8 schools will offer music programs such as band, orchestra and chorus but will not field athletic teams. Students in grades 6 through 8 at Pelican Island will be allowed to play on teams at the neighborhood middle school for which they are zoned.

The classical idea predates the vote. In April 2024, Vero News reported that Indian River County could become the second county in Florida to open a public magnet school based on a Classical Learning Model, an effort partly aimed at enrollment: since the 2018-2019 school year the school district's enrollment had declined by 850 pupils even as the county's population grew. A year later, an April 2025 Vero News report described the approved conversion of Pelican Island Elementary in Sebastian into a K-8 magnet school with a non-religious, classical-education curriculum, which would make the district only the second in Florida to offer a classical-education model in a public school.

The campus built a record of environmental work in the decade before the classical vote. On Nov. 6, 2017, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection designated Pelican Island Elementary a Green Apple School, according to Vero News. The Green School Designation Program has four tiers, and all schools start at the Green Apple level before working toward Bronze, Silver and Gold Apple status. The Sebastian school's recycling team collected and weighed recyclables in the cafeteria and around campus to track waste.

In January 2018, the School District of Indian River County picked Pelican Island Elementary as one of four pilot schools for a cafeteria recycling program run with the Solid Waste Disposal District, grants from the Carton Council and Waste Management's Think Green program. Vero News reported that Pelican Island also planned to compost its food and biodegradable trays as an added step.

When the district launched its school of choice initiative in March 2020, Vero News reported that Pelican Island was branding itself as a School of Environmental Science, where K-5 students would recycle, compost and manage on-site greenhouses.

Pelican Island Audubon Society has been the school's closest outside partner. According to a November 2023 Vero News report, the society purchased 18 parcels of scrub habitat with scrub jays, gopher tortoises and other animals around the school, provided more than 20 pairs of binoculars so children can observe wildlife near their classrooms, and helped teachers revamp the K-5 curricula to support the district's environmental science designation. The society also ran a school garden program at Pelican Island Elementary for years, building raised beds and supplying topsoil, plants and tools.

Florida assigns letter grades to every public school each summer, and Pelican Island Elementary has moved up in recent years. A December 2023 Vero News column on the district's results noted that four district elementary schools, Glendale, Citrus, Pelican Island and Treasure Coast, improved one letter grade in 2022-23.

That improvement carried a payout. According to Vero News in August 2024, Florida School Recognition Program bonuses go to schools that earn an A or move up at least one letter grade, and Pelican Island Elementary School received $55,000 for 33 teachers and instructional staff and 35 non-classroom employees for the 2022-23 school year. Nearby Treasure Coast Elementary, the other north county elementary school named in that report, netted $120,489.

The district around the Sebastian school has climbed as well. In July 2025, Vero News reported that the School District of Indian River County earned its third consecutive A rating and rose to fifth among Florida's 67 school districts, with 100 percent of its non-charter public schools earning an A or a B.

The Schumann Drive buildings have seen steady work. A new kitchen was built at Pelican Island Elementary in summer 2018, and because of settling the district placed helical piers to support its foundation, with additional piers scheduled for summer 2019, according to a May 2019 Vero News report on the district's summer projects. In summer 2023, Vero News reported that Pelican Island underwent major renovations and that the school was among four in Indian River County opening the year with a new principal promoted from within the district.

The Sebastian campus has also served the wider community. Ahead of Hurricane Irma in September 2017, Vero News listed Pelican Island Elementary School at 1355 Schumann Drive among the regular shelters in Indian River County. In 2025, students from Pelican Island Elementary were among the participants in ORCA's Data Jam, where students turned scientific data into art, sculpture and video projects, as Vero News reported in July 2025.