Excelsior Prep Charter School of Hialeah, Hialeah FL

Original Research by School Decision on Excelsior Prep Charter School of Hialeah

Excelsior Prep Charter School of Hialeah is a public charter school serving kindergarten through eighth grade in a dense, working-class section of Hialeah, one of the largest cities in Florida. The school sits on East 10th Street in a part of the city shaped by compact housing, industrial corridors, and a Cuban-American cultural identity that runs through everyday neighborhood life. It is a small school for its grade span, and the student body is almost entirely Hispanic. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing this squarely in a high-need economic context. Data on English learner rates and students with IEPs was not available in the information provided.

The academic picture from Florida's most recent FAST assessments is mixed and deserves a careful look. Math results tell two distinct stories by grade band. In the upper middle school grades, math proficiency is genuinely strong, with seventh and eighth grade scores among the higher results one could expect from any school in the state. Sixth grade math also comes in well above the midpoint. But in the elementary grades, particularly fifth grade, math proficiency drops sharply, and a parent would be right to ask the school directly how it explains and is addressing that gap. ELA results are consistently lower across all tested grades, with fourth grade reading proficiency especially low. Science proficiency at both tested grade levels, fifth and eighth, is also well below what families would typically hope for. The school's trend data was not available, so it is not possible to say from the data whether scores are improving, holding steady, or declining.

No program offerings data was provided for this school, so information about enrichment, after-school programming, or specialized curriculum is a gap worth exploring directly with the school.

The school is authorized under Miami-Dade County Public Schools, a large district currently navigating sustained enrollment decline and the resulting school closures and boundary changes that publicly reported sources indicate are affecting the broader district. Charter schools can be somewhat insulated from those particular pressures, but families should confirm the school's own enrollment stability and charter renewal standing. Miami-Dade voters also approved a property tax measure supporting teacher pay and campus safety, and a statewide shift toward stricter cell phone policies is working its way through Florida law, a practical detail that will eventually affect classroom rules here as elsewhere.

Hialeah's housing market sits well above both state and national medians for home values, and rents have edged upward recently. The rent-to-income ratio in the area is on the higher end of affordability, a real constraint for families already stretching budgets. The city itself is undergoing substantial transit-oriented development near its Metrorail and Tri-Rail stations, with publicly reported large mixed-use residential projects bringing new residents into the corridor. For families who commute or rely on transit, the Hialeah station network connecting to Miami International Airport and downtown Miami is an asset that most South Florida communities cannot match.

Excelsior Prep is a choice a family makes deliberately, opting into a charter environment within a neighborhood where the cultural texture, language, and community character are distinctly Cuban-American. The upper middle school math trajectory is a real strength, and a family with a middle schooler who is already on grade level in math may find that context rewarding. The lower elementary and ELA results are factual soft spots that a parent should raise with the school before enrolling a younger child or a student who needs reading support, asking what interventions are in place and what progress the school has seen.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 352%

School 52% · District 69% · ▼ 17 pts below district

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

Grade 442%

School 42% · District 68% · ▼ 26 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 525%

School 25% · District 62% · ▼ 37 pts below district

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 36 pts below county median

Grade 669%

School 69% · District 64% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 771%

School 71% · District 54% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 18 pts above county median

Grade 888%

School 88% · District 60% · ▲ 28 pts above district

▲ 37 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 344%

School 44% · District 60% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 415%

School 15% · District 59% · ▼ 44 pts below district

▼ 39 pts below state median · ▼ 41 pts below county median

Grade 529%

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

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

Grade 638%

School 38% · District 63% · ▼ 24 pts below district

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

Grade 727%

School 27% · District 62% · ▼ 35 pts below district

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 34 pts below county median

Grade 842%

School 42% · District 60% · ▼ 18 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 56% · ▼ 27 pts below district

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 818%

School 18% · District 46% · ▼ 28 pts below district

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 26 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.