Academy for Innovative Education, Miami Springs FL

Original Research by School Decision on Academy for Innovative Education

Academy for Innovative Education is a kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade charter school in Miami Springs, a small residential municipality in Miami-Dade County. The school sits on La Baron Drive and draws students across a wide span of grades, making it one of relatively few schools in the area that a family could theoretically stay with from kindergarten through graduation.

The school's enrollment is substantial for a charter serving the full K-12 range. The student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic, reflecting the demographics of the surrounding Miami-Dade community. A majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, meaning the school serves a population with meaningful economic need. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs was not available in the provided records, so parents with children who need specialized services should ask the school directly about those supports.

On Florida's FAST assessments, the school's results vary noticeably by grade and subject. In third-grade math and seventh-grade math and ELA, proficiency rates are strong, sitting well above what many Miami-Dade schools post. Fourth and fifth grade show more middling results in both reading and math, and science proficiency at the fifth- and eighth-grade checkpoints sits below the school's reading and math figures at those same grades. The pattern is worth examining if you have a child entering the upper elementary grades, and a conversation with school leadership about instructional supports at those levels would be reasonable. Multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible from this data to say whether results are improving or declining over time.

No graduation rate data appeared in the provided records, so how the school performs at the end of the K-12 pathway cannot be characterized here. This is worth asking the school about directly given the significant drop-off in enrollment between the middle grades and eleventh and twelfth grade that the enrollment data shows.

On programs, the school offers a range of arts courses including dance, music, and theater. The clubs list is reasonably wide for a school of this type, with offerings that span academic preparation, creative interests, and civic engagement, including a robotics program, National Honor Society, FBLA, and student council. AP course availability and dual-credit or career-and-technical pathways were not part of the provided data, so the depth of the high school academic track is a gap worth exploring with the school.

Miami Springs itself, as publicly reported, is a walkable community by South Florida standards, with neighborhood parks including a recreation center, Prince Field, and Triangle Park accessible from the school's address. Home values in the zip code run considerably above both the state and national medians, and rents are high enough that housing costs consume a meaningful share of income for renters. The local market showed a slight year-over-year softening in home values at the time this data was compiled.

At the district level, Miami-Dade County Public Schools is managing a period of enrollment decline that has prompted proposals to close or consolidate schools across the county. While Academy for Innovative Education is a charter and operates separately from the traditional district assignment system, families should be aware of the broader context: the district voted in late 2022 to raise the property tax rate to fund teacher pay and school safety, and that higher rate is set to expire in 2027 unless renewed. State-level policy on school cell phone use is also in motion, with Florida moving toward a full school-day restriction, though Miami-Dade as of 2024 had taken a softer approach centered on parental involvement programs.

For a family in Miami Springs seeking a single school to carry children from kindergarten through twelfth grade within a charter setting, Academy for Innovative Education offers that continuity. The academic picture is mixed enough in certain grades and subjects that parents with students in the elementary-to-middle transition years should probe what targeted support looks like, and those with high schoolers should get a clear answer on what the academic track and graduation pathway actually include.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 381%

School 81% · District 69% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 463%

School 63% · District 68% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 570%

School 70% · District 62% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 668%

School 68% · District 64% · ▲ 4 pts above district

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

Grade 789%

School 89% · District 54% · ▲ 35 pts above district

▲ 40 pts above state median · ▲ 36 pts above county median

Grade 868%

School 68% · District 60% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 371%

School 71% · District 60% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 466%

School 66% · District 59% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Grade 569%

School 69% · District 60% · ▲ 9 pts above district

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

Grade 670%

School 70% · District 63% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 782%

School 82% · District 62% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Grade 870%

School 70% · District 60% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 16 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Science

Grade 553%

School 53% · District 56% · ▼ 3 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 861%

School 61% · District 46% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above 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-income65%Higher-income80%15 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income65%Higher-income68%3 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income58%Higher-income80%22 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income62%Higher-income78%16 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income75%Higher-income88%13 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income65%Higher-income77%13 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income77%Higher-income87%10 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income60%Higher-income68%8 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income63%Higher-income77%14 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income63%Higher-income72%8 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income84%Higher-income94%9 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income75%Higher-income60%15 pp gap