Somerset Parkland Academy, Miami FL

Original Research by School Decision on Somerset Parkland Academy

Somerset Parkland Academy is a Broward County charter school serving kindergarten through eighth grade, located in the South Miami area. Its address places it at the edge of a dense, walkable urban environment, with Metrorail and the broader Miami transit network accessible to families who live nearby. The school draws from a community where housing costs are substantially above both Florida and national medians, with rents also running well above what national affordability benchmarks would suggest is comfortable relative to local incomes. This is an expensive market, and families considering the school should plan accordingly.

The academic picture from Florida's most recent FAST assessments is genuinely strong in most areas. Math proficiency in the earlier elementary grades is particularly high, with third and fourth graders performing at levels well above what most Florida schools report. Seventh grade math follows a similar pattern. Fifth and sixth grade math, and eighth grade math, are still solidly above the midpoint for Florida schools, though the results are somewhat lower than the school's own peak grades. ELA results tell a comparable story: fourth grade, sixth grade, and seventh grade reading proficiency are all high, while fifth grade ELA is the one spot where performance dips closer to the Florida average. Eighth grade ELA is in solid territory. Science, tested in fifth and eighth grade, comes in somewhat lower than the ELA and math results at those same grade levels, a pattern worth asking the school about directly.

No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement, stability, or a decline. Families who care about trajectory may want to ask the school for its own longitudinal data.

A small but meaningful share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, meaning the school is relatively less economically diverse than many Florida charter and traditional public schools. The student body is racially mixed, with white and Hispanic students each making up a large portion of enrollment and Asian, Black, and multiracial students also represented. Data on students with IEPs or English learner status was not available in the records we reviewed, so families with children who need specialized services should contact the school directly about the nature and scale of those supports.

The school does not serve high school grades, so graduation rates do not apply here. AP courses, dual enrollment, and career pathways are high school-level offerings; they are not relevant to a K-8 school, and no such programs were listed in the data.

The Broward County district brief yielded little usable information about system-level changes affecting the school, so that context was left out rather than guessed at. Publicly reported demographic data suggests Miami-Dade County as a whole has recently experienced a slowdown in population growth at the county level, with school enrollment declining modestly compared to prior years. Somerset Parkland Academy sits in Broward County rather than Miami-Dade, but the broader South Florida housing and demographic context is the same.

For a family seeking a charter school with strong tested academic outcomes across most subjects and grade levels, in a high-cost urban setting, this school presents a compelling case. The science results and the fifth-grade ELA dip are the two areas worth probing further. The relatively low share of economically disadvantaged students means the peer environment skews toward more affluent families, which is simply a characteristic of the school rather than a judgment on it.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 386%

School 86% · District 68% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 483%

School 83% · District 69% · ▲ 14 pts above district

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 574%

School 74% · District 63% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Grade 671%

School 71% · District 63% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 783%

School 83% · District 59% · ▲ 24 pts above district

▲ 34 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

Grade 872%

School 72% · District 47% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 374%

School 74% · District 61% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Grade 479%

School 79% · District 62% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 25 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Grade 569%

School 69% · District 62% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 683%

School 83% · District 65% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 22 pts above county median

Grade 782%

School 82% · District 60% · ▲ 22 pts above district

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Grade 876%

School 76% · District 59% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Science

Grade 564%

School 64% · District 57% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 863%

School 63% · District 45% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

This schoolBROWARD, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income46%Higher-income81%35 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income68%Higher-income83%15 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income50%Higher-income75%25 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income86%Higher-income83%3 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income75%Higher-income84%9 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income67%Higher-income78%12 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income50%Higher-income95%45 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income71%Higher-income88%17 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income67%Higher-income76%9 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income82%Higher-income69%13 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income81%Higher-income84%2 pp gap