The top reported proficiency rate is 62% in Math. The lowest is 52% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Meadow Park Elementary School
Meadow Park Elementary sits on Lake View Boulevard in Port Charlotte, a sprawling, car-dependent unincorporated community on Florida's Gulf Coast. The school serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade within Charlotte County Public Schools, which publicly reported a B grade from the Florida Department of Education for 2024-25, described as the district's highest rating in over a decade. For an elementary school in this district and setting, that broader context matters when reading Meadow Park's own results.
On Florida's FAST assessments, the school's third graders showed noticeably stronger math proficiency than their fourth and fifth grade peers, whose math results were more modest. Reading and ELA scores across all three tested grades were lower still, with fourth and fifth graders below the midpoint. Fifth grade science proficiency landed just above the halfway mark. These are reported statewide rates, and a parent who wants to understand how Meadow Park compares within Charlotte County specifically should ask the school directly, because the comparison data available covers only the county's single district and cannot produce a meaningful peer ranking. Worth noting: multi-year trend data was not available in the data provided, so whether proficiency is improving, flat, or declining cannot be determined here.
A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing this in the category of higher-need elementary schools. The student body is predominantly white, with Hispanic students making up the next largest group, and smaller shares of Black students, multiracial students, and other groups. Data on special education or English learner populations was not reported. These characteristics are facts about who attends the school, not judgments about it.
Port Charlotte itself is thoroughly suburban. Residents rely almost entirely on cars; the community lacks a traditional walkable center, with commercial life strung along US 41 and the Murdock area serving as the closest thing to a civic hub. Health care and public-sector employment anchor the local economy, with two large hospitals and the school district itself among the major employers. Centennial Park, a sizable county recreation facility with a competition pool and athletic fields, is a genuine community asset. Public transit exists but operates as a shared-ride, curb-to-curb service rather than fixed-route buses, which shapes what is accessible without a car.
Charlotte County is growing actively. A large master-planned community called West Port is under construction nearby, aging retail centers are being redeveloped into mixed-use projects, and thousands of new housing units are forecast countywide in the next few years. Home values in Meadow Park's zip code have declined year over year, a meaningful shift from the rapid appreciation the Gulf Coast saw in prior years, and rents have also edged down slightly. For a family buying, local prices sit below Florida statewide benchmarks, though monthly carrying costs at current mortgage rates still represent a real commitment relative to typical household incomes.
At the district level, a voter-approved property tax measure funds teacher salaries, school security, and arts programming not covered by state formula funding. That measure runs through the 2026-27 school year and is expected to return to the ballot in November 2026, making its renewal a live question for families thinking about the medium term. Hurricane Ian in 2022 damaged multiple district facilities, and decisions about rebuilding Port Charlotte Middle School, the school these students would eventually feed into, remain unresolved as a capital matter.
Program details for Meadow Park were not available in the data provided, so the breadth of enrichment, intervention supports, or specialty offerings at the school specifically is not something that can be assessed here. A visit or conversation with the school would fill that gap. What the data shows is a school with a high share of economically vulnerable students, mixed proficiency results that are stronger in early math than in upper-grade reading, and a community in active physical and demographic change around it.
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