Magnet Programs — St. Petersburg, Florida

Magnet and fundamental programs in St. Petersburg are administered by Pinellas County Schools (PCS), the county-wide district that serves St. Petersburg as the county's largest city. The district organizes these programs under a District Application Programs (DAP) framework, which groups participating schools into themed academic centers — arts, science, communications, international studies, and others — that students apply to regardless of their neighborhood attendance zone. As of the district's published program listings, Pinellas County Schools operates 23 unique elementary magnet and fundamental programs district-wide, with additional magnet programs at the middle and high school levels.

St. Petersburg falls within the South County application area, one of three geographic zones — North County, Mid-County, and South County — that PCS uses to determine which programs a given student is eligible to apply to based on the high school attendance zone in which the family resides. The South County zone encompasses the Boca Ciega, Gibbs, Lakewood, Northeast, and St. Petersburg high school attendance zones. Fundamental programs, by contrast, are available to students from any part of the county.

Pinellas County Schools documents that the South County application area includes families residing in the attendance zones of five high schools: Boca Ciega, Gibbs, Lakewood, Northeast, and St. Petersburg. This geographic structure means that a St. Petersburg family's program eligibility at the elementary level is determined by which of those five high school zones they live in, not simply by being within the city limits.

The application process for most magnet programs requires submission of standardized test scores and multi-year report cards, as documented on the St. Petersburg High School IB application page. Transportation is a notable logistical element: the district documents that Thurgood Marshall Fundamental Middle School, which draws countywide, provides transportation provisions for eligible students. Magnet-specific transportation arrangements vary by program and are documented individually on the district's program pages.

The three-zone structure reflects the geography of the Pinellas Peninsula. Pinellas County is documented by the U.S. Census Bureau as the most densely populated county in Florida, with 1,326 residents per square mile as of the 2020 Census, which shapes the district's logistical approach to managing choice programs across a compact, water-bounded land area.

Three elementary magnet programs are specifically documented by PCS as available to South County applicants. Lakewood Elementary Center for Creative Arts, Health and Wellness is one of the most distinctively structured: the district documents its community partnerships with the St. Petersburg Ballet Conservatory and the Morean Arts Center, two St. Petersburg cultural institutions, as integral components of the school's programming. Bay Point Elementary operates as a Center for Advanced Science, Spanish, and Technology, offering a Spanish-language and STEM focus. Gulfport Montessori Elementary delivers a Montessori Program for its South County applicant pool.

Beyond these three, the district's elementary program catalog includes offerings such as the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP) and Centers for Gifted Studies, documented on the PCS elementary programs page. The IB Primary Years Programme represents the K–5 tier of the district's broader IB pathway, which continues through the high school Diploma Programme. The district documents 23 unique elementary magnet and fundamental programs in total, spread across the three application areas.

Two high schools serving St. Petersburg residents host the most prominent magnet programs in the South County area. St. Petersburg High School, founded in 1898 and with its main building constructed in 1926, hosts the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme — a two-year curriculum in grades 11 and 12 recognized by universities internationally. The IB programme at St. Petersburg High is supported by IB Boosters, a dedicated parent association documented on the school's PCSB page. Eligibility for the IB programme at St. Petersburg High is restricted to students within the South County application area, specifically those residing in the Lakewood, Boca Ciega, Gibbs, St. Petersburg, or Northeast high school attendance zones, as documented on the school's IB application page. Applicants must submit standardized test scores and multi-year report cards.

St. Petersburg High also hosts a Career Academy of International Culture and Commerce, listed in the PCS high school magnet directory. Lakewood High School, another South County school, is the site of the Center for Communications, Journalism and Multimedia (CCJAM), described by PCS as a career academy focused on journalism, communications, and technology. The Richard O. Jacobson Technical High School hosts an ISTEM program documented in the district's high school magnet listings, expanding the range of specialized technical pathways accessible to Pinellas students.

Alongside magnet programs, Pinellas County Schools operates fundamental programs that are available to students countywide, not limited to a specific application area. As documented on the PCS elementary programs page, fundamental programs share a set of common structural requirements: daily homework, a dress code, and mandatory monthly parent meetings. These requirements are uniform across fundamental school designations and distinguish them from standard neighborhood schools as well as from magnet programs, which are defined more by their academic specialization than by these behavioral and family-engagement conditions.

The countywide availability of fundamental programs means that St. Petersburg families are not restricted to the South County zone when applying to these schools — an important distinction from the geographic eligibility rules that govern most magnet programs. The district documents fundamental schools at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

In January 2026, Pinellas County Schools reported a district-wide graduation rate of 93.4% for the 2024–25 school year, described as a record high and an increase of nearly two percentage points over the prior year. The same district communications page documents that PCS high school students earned more than 11,500 dual-enrollment college credits during the 2024–25 academic year, a figure that reflects the reach of the district's advanced pathways — including IB, AICE, AP, and dual enrollment — of which magnet programs form a significant part.

St. Petersburg High School registered two notable competitive achievements in the 2024–25 and 2025–26 school years. The girls basketball team advanced to the Class 5A Final Four for the first time in the school's history during the 2024–25 season. In April 2026, St. Petersburg High students won the overall team award at the state Chemathon competition, as documented in a PCSB news release. These results occur in the context of a school that has hosted the IB Diploma Programme as a South County application-area magnet offering within the broader PCS District Application Programs framework.