The top reported proficiency rate is 56% in Science. The lowest is 46% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Royal Palm Elementary School
Royal Palm Elementary sits on the western edge of Lauderhill, a built-out, densely residential city in Broward County where the everyday texture is South Florida suburban: aging condo communities, strip plazas along Oakland Park Boulevard and State Road 7, a strongly multicultural population with a deep Caribbean presence, and dozens of languages spoken across the neighborhoods. The school serves children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, so there are no state testing results for the youngest grades, and no graduation rate applies here.
For the grades that are tested, Florida's FAST assessment results from the most recent school year present a mixed picture. In reading and language arts, the school lands below the majority of students scoring proficient across the tested grades, with the middle elementary grade posting the strongest showing and the early and late grades lagging. Math results follow a similar uneven pattern: the middle grade performs noticeably better than the others, while the fifth-grade math result is the softest number across all subjects tested. Science, assessed only at fifth grade through Florida's Statewide Science Assessment, is the relative bright spot, with the school landing above half of fifth graders scoring proficient. A statewide trend comparison is not available from the data, so it is not possible to say whether these figures are moving up, down, or holding steady. Parents with questions about momentum or intervention programming would be worth raising directly with the school.
The student body is large for a neighborhood elementary of its grade band. The school draws an overwhelmingly Black student population, with a smaller Hispanic share and very little demographic variety beyond those two groups. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing this among higher-need Title I-eligible populations. Data on English learner rates and students with IEPs was not available in what was provided.
On the community side, the housing market around the school is priced well below the Florida statewide median and has seen a meaningful decline in home values over the past year. Rents, on the other hand, have ticked upward over the same period. The rent-to-income burden in this zip code is high by any standard measure, reflecting the affordability squeeze familiar across South Florida. For families renting rather than buying, this is a real constraint on the household budget, and for those considering ownership, the local price-to-income ratio still sits above the national norm despite recent declines.
The neighborhood itself is car-dependent, with transit somewhat stronger than average for a city its size. Lauderhill runs free community shuttles connecting parks, libraries, the hospital, and shopping, and a transit center opened in recent years. The city's civic fabric includes two libraries, a network of parks, and Central Broward Regional Park with its internationally certified cricket ground. A performing arts center adds cultural programming. The commercial core is a work in progress: the city is actively converting its NW 38th Avenue warehouse corridor into an arts and entertainment district, and the long-stagnant Lauderhill Mall is publicly reported to be entering its first major redevelopment in decades, with a large mixed-use residential and retail project approved.
The Broward County school district brief produced no confirmed parent-relevant changes within the research available, so district-level programmatic shifts were left out rather than guessed at.
Royal Palm is a neighborhood public elementary serving a predominantly low-income, predominantly Black community in a city navigating significant economic pressures. The academic results, particularly in fifth-grade math and third-grade reading, are areas a parent would want to discuss further with the school to understand what supports are in place for children who enter behind grade level or struggle in the upper elementary years.
See more original research from School Decision →