The top reported proficiency rate is 61% in Math. The lowest is 51% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Gulfstream Elementary School
Gulfstream Elementary sits on the southwest side of Cutler Bay, a predominantly residential town along the western shore of Biscayne Bay in southern Miami-Dade County. The school serves prekindergarten through fifth grade and draws from a community that is largely single-family suburban in character, car-dependent, and organized around corridors like US-1 and Old Cutler Road rather than any traditional walkable core. For families considering a move into the area, that suburban texture extends to daily school logistics: getting to and from Gulfstream is a driving errand.
The student body is majority Hispanic, with a substantial share of Black students as well. A large proportion of the school's children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places this among Miami-Dade's higher-need elementary campuses on that measure. Data on English learner rates and students with IEPs was not available in the information we had.
On Florida's FAST assessments, the results across tested grades tell a mixed but readable story. In math, fourth and fifth graders perform meaningfully better than third graders, with upper-grade proficiency sitting in the mid-to-upper sixties range. Third-grade math proficiency is lower, landing in the low-to-mid fifties. ELA is a softer spot across all three grades: third-grade reading proficiency falls below half of students, and fourth and fifth grades show modest improvement but still land around or just above half. Fifth-grade science proficiency sits in the mid-fifties. Taken together, the math trajectory from third to fourth grade is encouraging, but the ELA results across the board reflect a real challenge that parents may want to ask the school about directly, specifically what reading support structures are in place and how the school tracks individual student progress through the grades.
Because the county comparison set contained too few districts to produce a meaningful ranking, no peer comparison of Gulfstream's proficiency against other Miami-Dade schools is available here. Graduation rate is not applicable since the school ends at fifth grade.
The surrounding community is in a genuine period of change. Cutler Bay, publicly reported as one of the faster-growing municipalities in southern Miami-Dade in recent years, is now midway through an extended buildout of the former Southland Mall site into a large mixed-use development, with residential construction underway as of early 2025. A planned civic campus on Old Cutler Road would eventually bring a town hall, police station, and community center to a single site. That combination of residential growth and commercial redevelopment is likely to affect school enrollment patterns, and families should be aware that Miami-Dade County Public Schools is simultaneously managing a district-wide enrollment decline that has prompted proposals to close or consolidate multiple campuses across the system's southern region. Whether any boundary changes would touch Gulfstream's attendance zone is something prospective families should verify directly with the district before committing to housing.
On housing, the zip code around the school carries home values well above both the Florida and national medians, with only modest year-over-year movement. Rents have climbed and represent a significant share of a typical household budget at current rates. The rent-to-income burden here, relative to national benchmarks, is on the higher end.
District families should also note that Miami-Dade passed a property-tax referendum in 2022, publicly reported as raising the school millage rate to fund teacher pay and campus safety, with that higher rate set to expire in 2027 unless renewed. That adds an ongoing cost for homeowners and is tied to a continued source of funding for compensation and school security staffing.
Program offerings specific to Gulfstream were not available in the data we had, so a direct inquiry to the school about enrichment, intervention tiers, after-school programs, and language support would fill that gap for any family weighing this placement.
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