North County K-8 Center, Miami Gardens FL

Original Research by School Decision on North County K-8 Center

North County K-8 Center is a traditional public school in Miami Gardens serving prekindergarten through eighth grade, part of Miami-Dade County Public Schools. The school sits in a residential neighborhood in the northern part of Miami Gardens, a large suburban city that spans roughly twenty square miles and is home to Hard Rock Stadium, two universities, and a growing industrial and commercial base. The city is car-dependent and auto-oriented in its built form, but publicly reported plans describe a sustained development push that includes a new city center, logistics facilities, and a performing arts district.

The school is small for a K-8 campus. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing it firmly in a high-need economic context. The student body is predominantly Black, with a meaningful Hispanic population and very small numbers of students from other racial groups. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs were not available in the data provided.

Florida's FAST assessments give a grade-by-grade picture of where students stand. In English language arts, proficiency rates across the tested grades run below the majority in the earlier elementary years, rise more noticeably by sixth grade, and fall back to roughly half in the upper middle school grades. In math, the pattern is uneven: fourth and eighth grade results are markedly stronger and sit above half, while third, fifth, sixth, and especially seventh grade results are weaker, with seventh grade math showing less than a third of students performing at the proficient level. On the statewide science assessment, both the fifth-grade and eighth-grade results sit in the lower third of the scale. Taken together, the academic proficiency picture is mixed and leans below average across most grades and subjects, which a parent would want to discuss directly with the school and follow across years. Trend data across prior years was not available in what was provided, so it is not possible to say whether results are improving, holding, or declining.

No information was available on special programs, course offerings, extracurriculars, staffing levels, chronic absenteeism, or discipline. The comparison fact-set for Miami-Dade County did not yield a usable proficiency ranking because the comparison pool was too small to draw valid comparisons. A graduation rate does not apply here because the school ends at eighth grade.

The Miami-Dade district context matters for any family considering this school. Publicly reported coverage notes that the district is navigating a sustained enrollment decline, and in spring of this year it proposed closing or consolidating up to nine schools across its regions, with new grade configurations including K-8 schools among the options under consideration. Families moving into the area should be aware that school assignments can shift and that the school's current structure is not guaranteed to remain unchanged. The district also passed a property-tax referendum that funds teacher pay and campus security staffing; that levy is set to expire unless renewed, which is relevant both to homeowners thinking about carrying costs and to anyone tracking what resources the school can expect.

Housing near the school reflects the broader Miami-Dade market: home values are well above the Florida statewide median and above the national median, having edged slightly downward over the past year. Rents, by contrast, have moved upward and consume a large share of a typical household's income. The rent-to-income ratio sits at a level that would be considered stretched by most financial benchmarks. Anyone pricing a move to this part of Miami Gardens should treat both ownership and rental costs as meaningfully high relative to income.

Miami Gardens itself offers municipal parks, Tri-Rail access along its southeast edge, the county's North Dade Regional Library, and proximity to both downtown Miami and Fort Lauderdale. For families whose children are rooted here through the K-8 years, the transition to high school will eventually require a separate enrollment decision within Miami-Dade's system, and exploring those options early is worth doing given the district's ongoing boundary adjustments.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 339%

School 39% · District 69% · ▼ 30 pts below district

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 30 pts below county median

Grade 461%

School 61% · District 68% · ▼ 7 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 546%

School 46% · District 62% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 639%

School 39% · District 64% · ▼ 25 pts below district

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 24 pts below county median

Grade 727%

School 27% · District 54% · ▼ 27 pts below district

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 26 pts below county median

Grade 864%

School 64% · District 60% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 329%

School 29% · District 60% · ▼ 31 pts below district

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

Grade 435%

School 35% · District 59% · ▼ 24 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

Grade 540%

School 40% · District 60% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 16 pts below county median

Grade 658%

School 58% · District 63% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Grade 746%

School 46% · District 62% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 853%

School 53% · District 60% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Science

Grade 537%

School 37% · District 56% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

Grade 827%

School 27% · District 46% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

This schoolMIAMI-DADE, 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-income30%Higher-income27%2 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income54%Higher-income70%16 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income41%Higher-income36%4 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income39%Higher-income40%2 pp gap