The top reported proficiency rate is 72% in English language arts. The lowest is 58% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Harbordale Elementary School
Harbordale Elementary sits on SE 15th Street in Fort Lauderdale's southern urban core, close to the waterways and established neighborhoods that define this part of Broward County. The school serves prekindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school within the Broward district, and its enrollment puts it in a mid-sized range for an elementary school in its grade band.
The school's tested academic results, from Florida's FAST assessments in the most recent school year, tell a generally strong story. Math proficiency across the tested grades runs well above what most families would consider a baseline for solid performance, with third and fifth graders scoring particularly high and fourth grade coming in somewhat lower but still in positive territory. ELA results follow a similar shape: fourth grade stands out as the strongest, with third and fifth grade both comfortably above the midpoint. The one area where results are more modest is fifth-grade science on the Florida Statewide Science Assessment, where proficiency dips noticeably below the math and reading levels. A parent wondering whether science preparation is keeping pace with the rest of the curriculum might want to ask the school directly about how it approaches science instruction in the upper grades.
Multi-year trend data was not available in the data provided, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement, stability, or decline over time.
The student population is racially and ethnically mixed. White students make up the largest share, Hispanic students the second-largest, with smaller Black, Asian, and multiracial populations also represented. A substantial minority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, though the majority do not. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs was not reported, so those dimensions of the school's support environment are a gap worth exploring directly with the school.
Program-specific offerings were not included in the data provided, so details about enrichment, gifted services, arts, or after-school programming are missing here.
The neighborhood around the school reflects the broader Fort Lauderdale mix. The SE 15th Street corridor is close to the Intracoastal waterway and sits near neighborhoods like Rio Vista, with tree-lined streets and residential character, alongside the denser development pushing outward from downtown. Fort Lauderdale as a city is in the middle of a high-rise building cycle concentrated downtown, publicly reported as producing a large wave of new residential units over the coming years. That growth is reshaping the city's population composition and density, which over time may affect enrollment patterns at schools across the city.
Housing in the zip code around Harbordale is expensive. Home values are well above both the Florida and national medians, and rents have been rising. The price-to-income ratio is quite high by national standards, and rent as a share of income is stretched. Families weighing this school alongside a housing decision are looking at one of the more expensive pockets in Broward County.
The Broward district brief was searched but no parent-relevant recent changes were confirmed before the research budget ran out, so that piece is left as a gap rather than a guess.
The comparison data for positioning Harbordale relative to other schools in Broward County did not produce a usable result because the county's comparison set collapsed to a single district, making a relative ranking meaningless. The academic data above, drawn from state assessments, is the most grounded basis for judgment.
What Harbordale offers is a neighborhood public elementary with reading and math results that are clearly above a worry threshold, a genuinely diverse student body for a school in an expensive urban zip code, and a setting embedded in one of South Florida's most actively evolving urban environments. The science results and the missing special-populations data are the two areas where a prospective family would benefit from a direct conversation with the school before drawing conclusions.
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