The top reported proficiency rate is 54% in English language arts. The lowest is 37% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Constellation Charter School of Gainesville
Constellation Charter School of Gainesville occupies a genuinely unusual position: a small charter school housed in the historic Waldo Community School building, serving first through eighth graders in a rural northeast Alachua County community that has struggled for decades to hold onto a local school at all. Any family researching this school should know at the outset that, according to publicly reported local coverage, the Alachua County School Board voted in May 2025 to terminate the school's charter, leaving Waldo once again without a neighborhood school. Whether the school remains open, is appealing the decision, or has closed entirely is something a family would need to confirm directly before making any enrollment decision.
With that essential context stated, here is what the data shows about the school as it operated.
The enrollment is quite small, even for a school spanning first through eighth grade, and grades seven and eight had no students enrolled in the most recent data. The student body reflects the surrounding community in meaningful ways: a majority white, with Hispanic students making up a substantial share, a small number of Black students, and a modest share identifying as two or more races. More than half of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, consistent with Waldo's broadly documented economic hardship. Data on English learner status and special education rates were not available.
State assessment results exist only for third and fourth graders, the grades Florida tests under the FAST assessment. The picture is mixed. In reading, fourth graders performed noticeably better than third graders, with the fourth-grade result approaching a majority of students scoring proficient or above. Math results were weaker across both grades, with third-grade math proficiency notably low. Because the tested groups are very small, a handful of students either way shifts these figures substantially, so they reflect a moment in time more than a durable trend. No multi-year trend data was available to compare across years.
Placed against the two districts in Alachua County, the school's overall proficiency index sits in the bottom quartile of that comparison set. That is a fair characterization, though again the tiny tested population means these figures carry wide uncertainty. Graduation rate data does not apply here because the school serves only through eighth grade. Chronic absenteeism data was not available.
No information on specific programs, course offerings, staffing, or discipline was available in the data.
The community around the school is Waldo itself, a small rural city along US Highway 301 in eastern Alachua County, roughly a short drive northeast of Gainesville. Publicly reported sources describe a town with deep railroad-era roots that declined after the rails left and a series of economic blows contracted local life. The flea market along the highway is the community's most prominent commercial anchor; major employment, hospitals, and services are concentrated in Gainesville. Housing in the area is meaningfully more affordable than the Florida statewide median, and recent home values have dipped modestly year over year. The built environment is predominantly single-family and mobile homes, and residents at a 2025 county planning session described a desire to grow while preserving the small-town character.
The district that authorized this charter, Alachua County Public Schools, renewed its One Mill property tax in 2024, sustaining funding for arts, libraries, counselors, nurses, and career programs across county schools through 2029. That renewal matters for families considering other Alachua County schools, though whether it had bearing on this particular charter's operations is not clear from the data.
For a family considering Constellation Charter School of Gainesville, the first and most pressing question is whether it is still operating. Beyond that, the academic performance data shows a school with room to grow, particularly in math, and the very small enrollment means the experience would be intimate but the program offerings necessarily limited. A parent would want to ask the school directly about its instructional approach, special education services, and what pathway it provides for middle school students.
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