The top reported proficiency rate is 32% in English language arts. The lowest is 20% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Brucie Ball Educational Center
Brucie Ball Educational Center sits in a residential section of southwest Miami, part of Miami-Dade County Public Schools. It is classified as a special education school, serving students from pre-kindergarten through grade twelve. That designation is the essential context for everything else here: the students enrolled are those whose IEPs or educational needs place them in a specialized setting, not a general-education neighborhood school. A parent considering this school is almost certainly doing so because their child requires or qualifies for this kind of placement.
The student body is a mix that reflects Miami broadly, with Hispanic students making up the large majority and Black students the next largest group. Roughly half of enrolled students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, signaling a substantial economically disadvantaged population. Enrollment spans every grade level from pre-K through twelfth, with the senior class notably larger than any other single grade, which may reflect the extended timelines many students with disabilities follow toward graduation. IEP and English learner data were not available in the data provided, which is an unusual gap for a school of this type; a parent would want to ask the school directly about the composition and range of disability categories served.
On state assessments, most grade-level results were suppressed, which is typical for a special education school. When group sizes fall below a threshold, Florida withholds the figures to protect student privacy, and at a school this size serving students across a wide range of needs, many cohorts will be small. The two results that were reported, in eighth-grade math and in ELA at seventh and eighth grade, show proficiency rates that are low by conventional standards. A parent should interpret those numbers carefully: they reflect a population specifically placed here because general-education settings were not the right fit, and straightforward comparison to neighborhood school benchmarks is not meaningful. What matters more is whether the school's programming and support match a particular child's needs, and that is a question best answered directly with the school's team.
No program offerings data was available, and no graduation rate data was returned. For a school of this type, those would be meaningful things to explore in a family meeting: what vocational, transition, or life-skills programming exists for older students, and what pathways lead to diploma or certificate completion.
The school is located in a part of Miami where housing costs are well above both the state and national midpoints, with prices that have edged slightly lower year over year and rents that have held nearly flat. Renting currently runs to a substantial share of a typical household's income at this price level, and buying requires a mortgage payment that is considerably higher than renting. Miami-Dade broadly is experiencing enrollment decline, and the district is publicly reported to be weighing closures and consolidations of up to nine schools heading into the next school year. Brucie Ball, as a specialized placement, may be less directly affected by boundary changes than a typical neighborhood school, but families should ask the district what the school's status looks like in that planning process.
Miami itself offers dense urban amenities, a strong public transit system through Metrorail and the free Metromover, and walkable access to services in many neighborhoods. The district passed a property-tax referendum a few years ago to fund teacher pay and school safety, and that levy is set to expire in 2027 unless voters renew it, which is worth tracking as it affects school funding across the system.
For a family whose child has been referred or assigned to Brucie Ball, the central questions are whether the specific disability services, staffing ratios, transition planning, and therapeutic supports align with what the child's IEP requires. The data here provides the setting and demographic context; the substance of whether this placement fits a particular child has to come from direct conversation with the school.
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