Original Research by School Decision on Duval Academy
Duval Academy is a small alternative school in Jacksonville, Florida, serving grades six through twelve and operated as part of the Duval County public school system. Its enrollment is exceptionally small, concentrated primarily in the upper grades, with only a handful of students in eighth grade and the bulk of the population in grades ten and eleven. Sixth and seventh grades have no enrolled students. This is not a conventional middle or high school in the traditional sense; it is classified as an alternative school, a designation that typically signals a specialized purpose or population, though the data here does not specify what that purpose is. A parent considering this school should ask the school directly what it serves and who it is designed for.
Because of its alternative designation and very small size, standard comparative measures do not apply in the usual way. State assessment results were not reported. The four-year graduation rate is absent from the data. Chronic absenteeism data is not available. The comparison set for Duval County's districts lists these metrics as inapplicable due to missing values, so the school cannot be placed against neighboring districts on any of those dimensions. Whether this reflects the nature of the alternative setting, an untested or differently structured program, or simply incomplete reporting is not something the available data can answer.
The student body is racially diverse, with Black students making up roughly half the enrollment, white students making up most of the remainder, and a smaller share of Hispanic students. A small portion of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, though the enrollment is so compact that even a few students can shift those shares considerably. Data on students with IEPs and English learners was not available.
Programs and course access were not reported, so there is no basis to describe curriculum offerings, career pathways, or extracurricular life. The district brief search exhausted its budget before surfacing any lasting changes at the district level, so recent policy shifts or initiatives were left out rather than guessed at.
The school sits on Ricker Road on Jacksonville's westside, a largely suburban and car-dependent part of a sprawling city. Publicly reported sources describe Jacksonville as one of the faster-growing metro areas in the country, with a downtown undergoing substantial investment and a housing market that, relative to Florida and national benchmarks, remains comparatively affordable. Home values in the zip code have seen a modest decline over the past year, while rents have edged up slightly. The mortgage-to-rent tradeoff in this area is fairly close, with renting and owning sitting at roughly similar monthly costs. For families weighing a move to this part of Jacksonville, the area is not walkable in the way that Riverside or San Marco are; daily life here depends on a car. Jacksonville's major employers span health care, logistics, military, and financial services, which shapes the working-class and professional mix of the city overall.
Given how little academic data is available, a parent cannot draw conclusions about student outcomes here from the numbers alone. The school's alternative status and its very small population are the defining characteristics in evidence. Before enrolling, a family would want to understand directly from Duval Academy what population it serves, what its academic program looks like, and what outcomes students typically achieve.
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