The top reported proficiency rate is 70% in Math. The lowest is 63% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Big Cypress Elementary School
Big Cypress Elementary sits on Golden Gate Boulevard West in Naples, serving children from kindergarten through fifth grade, with a pre-kindergarten program listed in the grade band as well. The school is part of Collier County Public Schools, the sole district serving the county.
The academic picture for the most recent year is genuinely solid. On Florida's FAST assessments, math proficiency climbs across the tested grades, from a strong showing in third grade to an even stronger one by fifth grade. ELA tells a similar story, with third grade sitting a bit lower but fifth grade catching up to a range that most parents would call encouraging. Fifth-grade science results, from the Florida Statewide Science Assessment, land well above the midpoint of the scale. Trend data across prior years was not available in the payload, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement, stability, or a dip from earlier performance. A parent wanting that context would need to ask the school directly or check the Florida Department of Education's historical reporting.
About half of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which means the school serves a genuinely mixed-income community. Demographically, the enrollment is roughly split between Hispanic and white students, with smaller shares of Black, multiracial, and other students rounding out the community. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs was not reported in what was provided, so those dimensions are a gap here; families whose children may need those services would want to ask the school directly about its capacity and staffing.
The school itself is a mid-to-large elementary by Florida standards. Enrollment is distributed fairly evenly across the lower grades, with kindergarten through second grade running somewhat larger than the upper grades, which is typical for a growing-area school.
The surrounding community shapes the context considerably. Golden Gate Boulevard is an inland corridor rather than part of the coastal Naples neighborhoods that most publicity about the city tends to focus on. The publicly reported character of Naples more broadly is an upscale Gulf-coast city with a walkable historic downtown, civic anchors like Artis-Naples, the von Liebig Art Center, and Cambier Park, and an active cultural scene along Fifth Avenue South. That coastal core is some distance from this school's location. The zip code housing market is among the more expensive in southwest Florida, with typical home values well above both the state and national medians, though values have edged slightly downward over the past year while rents have crept up modestly. The rent-to-income ratio here is high by national standards, which is a real consideration for families deciding where to live within the district.
On the district side, a few things are worth knowing. Collier County voters renewed a tax-neutral referendum in late 2024, publicly reported as shifting a portion of millage from capital to operating funds without raising taxes; the measure runs through 2029 and is intended to sustain teacher pay, arts, and athletics. The district also publicly reported adopting a structured phonics program beginning in the 2023-24 school year for the early elementary grades, a science-of-reading approach that directly affects how students at Big Cypress are taught to read in kindergarten through second grade. A new high school opened in North Naples in 2023 with career academy offerings in engineering, health sciences, technology, entrepreneurship, and law, which gives families thinking about the longer K-12 pathway an additional option within the district.
Comparison proficiency data relative to other districts in Collier County was not applicable here because Collier has only one public district; there is no meaningful peer set to position this school against at the county level.
Programs offered specifically at Big Cypress were not in the data provided, so information about any enrichment, gifted, or after-school offerings would need to come from the school directly.
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