School is usually the first question for a family thinking of moving to the coast, and the last one to be settled. In Itapema and Porto Belo, the answer involves both towns at once, because many people live in one and study or work in the other.
How schools are organized in the two towns
Basic education in both towns follows the standard Brazilian design. City governments run early childhood education (educação infantil, from daycare to preschool) and elementary school (ensino fundamental, nine grades, split into the early years, grades 1 to 5, and the late years, grades 6 to 9).
The Santa Catarina state government runs most public high schools (ensino médio, three years). Private schools cover everything from nursery to high school. For a family, that can mean up to three different doors before enrollment.
Municipal system
This is the system of daycare centers, preschools and elementary schools.
A place depends on registering with each town's Education Department and, in general, on how close home is to the school. In Itapema, demand is organized through a single waiting list run by the Education Department, as coverage of the school accreditation opened in 2026 showed.
State system
The state system has basic education schools in both towns and is the main door to free high school. Enrollment follows the calendar published each year by the State Education Department.
Private schools
Both towns have private schools of different sizes, from neighborhood preschools to schools covering every stage. Two examples, with the stages checked on each school's own website in October 2026:
- Colégio Atlântico, in Itapema, founded in 1994, which states it serves students from nursery to high school;
- the Porto Belo campus of Colégio Bom Jesus, a network of Franciscan origin, which lists early childhood education and the early and late elementary years.
There are other private schools in both towns, with different sizes and approaches. The full list, with addresses and stages, comes from INEP's School Census. INEP is the federal institute that runs Brazil's education statistics and assessments.
What IDEB 2025 shows
IDEB, the Basic Education Development Index, is calculated by INEP every two years. It combines student scores in the Portuguese and math tests of SAEB, the national assessment, with the pass rate. The scale runs from 0 to 10.
The numbers below come from the IDEB 2025 spreadsheets published by INEP, by municipality and by state, checked on October 4, 2026:
| Stage and system | Itapema | Porto Belo | Santa Catarina |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early elementary (grades 1 to 5), public | 6.4 | 6.0 | 6.5 |
| Late elementary (grades 6 to 9), public | 5.2 | 4.9 | 5.2 |
| High school, state system | 4.0 | no result | 4.3 |
Compared with the previous edition, from 2023, in the same INEP spreadsheets, Porto Belo rose from 5.8 to 6.0 in the early years and stayed at 4.9 in the late years.
Itapema held 6.4 in the early years, fell from 5.5 to 5.2 in the late years and rose from 3.7 to 4.0 in state high school, according to the late elementary and high school spreadsheets.
In Porto Belo, high school had no published result in IDEB 2025. A missing result happens, for example, when the number of students assessed or the participation rate falls below INEP's minimum, and it says nothing about the quality of the schools.
How to read these numbers
A system's IDEB is an average of several schools. Within the same town, some schools sit well above it and others well below, and what matters to a family is the score of the school near home.
The index also has limits. It does not measure English, science, sports, arts, pastoral care or facilities, and it arrives with a lag: IDEB 2025 portrays students assessed in 2025. Use the number to ask questions, not as a final grade.
On the Santa Catarina average, private schools scored 7.8 in the early years and 6.7 in the late years in IDEB 2025, according to INEP's state spreadsheet. Not every private school takes part in the assessment, so most of them have no individual result.
Twenty years of change
INEP's historical series shows the trend. In the same municipal spreadsheets, public schools in both towns improved a lot between 2005 and 2015 and have hovered around the same level since:
| Public schools | 2005 | 2015 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Itapema, early years | 4.3 | 6.4 | 6.4 |
| Porto Belo, early years | 4.5 | 6.1 | 6.0 |
| Itapema, late years | 4.3 | 5.0 | 5.2 |
| Porto Belo, late years | 2.7 | 4.4 | 4.9 |
Porto Belo's jump in the late years is the biggest in the table. Even so, the town remains below the Santa Catarina public average at that stage, and fast population growth puts new pressure on the same schools.
How to find a school's IDEB
To go from the town average to the school in your neighborhood takes two steps. First, find the school in INEP's School Catalog and note its code. Then look up that code in the results by school published on the IDEB page.
Sites such as QEdu reproduce the same INEP data in an easier format. Always check which edition year is shown. All of these pages are in Portuguese, so a browser translator helps.
Places, waiting lists and the timing of a move
Fast growth in both towns is pressuring the public system, especially daycare. In 2026 Itapema opened an accreditation of private schools to take municipal students at no cost to families, as Jornal dos Bairros reported on April 1, 2026.
According to the report, the accreditation, provided for in Municipal Law 4,713/2025, opened up to 300 monthly places for children from 6 months to 5 years and 11 months, 100 for students in grades 1 to 5 and 10 for children with special needs. The places are for those on the Education Department's single waiting list.
For anyone moving, the message is to plan ahead. A public daycare place can take time, and popular private schools fill their classes early. Three precautions help:
- Register your child with the Education Department as soon as you have an address, even before the move if the town allows it.
- Request the transfer letter and school records from the current school well in advance. If your child is coming from another country, ask the new school and the State Education Department which documents they require and whether transcripts need a sworn translation.
- Mid-year moves are possible, but the choice gets smaller.
What to ask before enrolling
On the visit, a few questions say more than the brochure:
- what was the school's IDEB in the last edition and what has changed since;
- how many students per class at each stage;
- how the full-day schedule works and what it costs, when offered;
- what the total cost of the year is, including materials, uniform and activities;
- how the school supports students arriving from another town or another country, including help with Portuguese.
Choose the school before the apartment
Families who leave school for last often find that the available place is far from home, that daycare has a waiting list or that the chosen private school has closed its class. In Itapema and Porto Belo, towns growing fast, that order matters even more.
Three principles sum up what to take from this:
- IDEB is for comparing and asking, looking at the school and not only the town average.
- The public system has waiting lists at some stages, so register early.
- At a private school, what matters is the total cost of the year, requested in writing.
The practical step is to map the schools you like and overlay them with the neighborhoods where you are thinking of living.
To understand daily life on each side, read our guides to Porto Belo neighborhoods and Itapema neighborhoods, and see where the off-plan apartments in Porto Belo are.
If you want to cross school, neighborhood and development in a single conversation, the online investment consultation builds that map with you, and a visit to the show unit and the site can include a drive past the schools nearby.
School and the daily commute first; the floor plan second.
Run the numbersOff-plan or fixed income? Compare the same money in Porto BeloCDI: 13.65% a year (Central Bank of Brazil, 01/10/2026)Open the calculator
