The top reported proficiency rate is 47% in Math. The lowest is 29% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Young Middle Magnet School
Young Middle Magnet School sits on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Tampa, serving sixth through eighth grade within Hillsborough County Public Schools. The name includes "magnet" but the school's designation in the data is as a regular public school, and no magnet program details were available in what was provided, so a parent interested in the specific magnet theme or application process would want to reach out to the school directly.
The student body is small relative to what many families picture when they think of a middle school. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting a high-need population. The school is predominantly Black, with a meaningful share of Hispanic students and smaller shares of other groups. Data on English learners and students with IEPs was not reported, so those dimensions of support are worth asking about directly.
The academic picture from Florida's FAST assessments is the central thing a parent needs to sit with honestly. Math results are mixed by grade: sixth graders scored solidly above the midpoint of what Florida considers proficient, eighth graders were not far behind, but seventh-grade math proficiency came in very low, well below what the other two grades showed. That kind of dip within the same school is unusual and a parent would reasonably want to understand what's happening in the seventh-grade math program specifically. ELA proficiency in sixth and seventh grade landed roughly around the halfway mark statewide, and dropped notably in eighth grade. Eighth-grade science proficiency was also low. These are not the scores of a school where most students are on track by state standards, and that's worth weighing directly rather than looking past.
No multi-year trend data was available, so it's not possible to say whether these numbers reflect a school improving, holding steady, or sliding. The comparison data for Hillsborough County showed only one district in the comparison set, so a meaningful peer comparison across county districts wasn't computable. A graduation rate is not applicable here since the school ends at eighth grade.
The neighborhood around the school reflects the broader east-of-downtown Tampa context, which is lower-cost relative to Tampa's more affluent pockets. Housing values in the zip code sit well below the Florida statewide median, and rents in the area have been drifting down year over year. For families buying or renting near the school, this is one of Tampa's more accessible markets, and the price-to-income ratio, while still carrying a meaningful mortgage burden at current rates, is less stretched than in coastal or historic-district zip codes.
Tampa itself is a city with real texture and economic depth. Downtown, a short drive from the school's location, anchors corporate activity in finance, law, and technology, while major employers including MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa General Hospital, and the University of South Florida shape the broader job market. The city is in an active development cycle centered on Water Street Tampa and the emerging Gasworx district connecting Ybor City and Channelside, though publicly reported data suggests some cooling in the employment picture and housing values have ticked down in the school's zip code as well.
At the district level, Hillsborough County voters approved a multi-year property tax levy in late 2024 to fund teacher and staff pay increases, publicly reported to take effect beginning July 2025 and run through 2029. This means homeowners in the district are carrying a higher tax burden than before, and the district has committed to using those funds to address staffing shortages. The district also completed a significant boundary rezoning for the current school year, affecting a large number of schools and students across the county. Whether Young Middle's boundaries or enrollment were directly affected by that rezoning was not specified in the available data.
For a family choosing this school, the academic proficiency data is the hardest part of the picture, and the seventh-grade math result in particular is the kind of number that warrants a direct conversation with school leadership about what support looks like for students who arrive behind and how they track students across the three years.
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