Original Research by School Decision on Les Peters Academy
Les Peters Academy is a public alternative school in Tampa, Florida, operating under the Hillsborough County district and serving students in grades six through twelve. The school sits on West Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the 33614 zip code, a corridor in northwest Tampa.
The enrollment is very small, essentially a handful of students spread across middle and high school grades, with most of the population concentrated at the high school level. That size is the defining feature of the academic environment here. A student attends alongside a peer group measured in the tens, not the hundreds. The racial composition reported shows a majority white enrollment with a notable share of Black students and a smaller American Indian or Alaska Native representation; free-and-reduced-price lunch data was not available, so economic context for the student population is not fully visible.
State assessment results were not available for Les Peters Academy, and the school did not appear in the comparison metrics relative to districts in Hillsborough County. This gap is worth understanding directly. Alternative schools in Florida frequently serve students whose circumstances sit outside the standard testing pipeline, whether due to credit recovery needs, interrupted enrollment, or other factors that bring students to an alternative setting in the first place. The absence of proficiency data should not be read as a weak academic record; it more likely reflects the nature of whom this school serves. A parent wanting to understand the academic program, its structure, and any course offerings would do well to contact the school directly, as program details were not available in the data provided.
Similarly, graduation rate data was not reported. For a school serving grades six through twelve in an alternative setting, the graduation picture is often shaped by individual recovery trajectories rather than a conventional four-year cohort. Chronic absenteeism data was also absent.
For families weighing housing near this school, the zip code's home values are running modestly below the Florida state benchmark and close to national figures, with recent year-over-year prices showing a slight dip. Rents have also edged down in the most recent period. Homeowners in Hillsborough County are carrying a new property tax burden, passed by voters in late 2024, that runs through mid-2029 and is directed at raising teacher and support staff pay across the district. That is a concrete, ongoing cost for property owners.
Tampa itself is a large, economically layered city. The school's address sits in a working residential part of the city, northwest of downtown, separate from the walkable districts and cultural corridor along the Hillsborough River. The broader metro is in an active growth phase, centered on developments like Water Street Tampa and the Gasworx district near Ybor City, though recent employment data showed some cooling. The city's major employers span defense, healthcare, financial services, and higher education, and public transit via HART connects neighborhoods to the downtown core.
One district-level shift is worth flagging for any family in Hillsborough County: a substantial boundary rezoning took effect for the 2024-2025 school year, affecting assigned schools for a large number of students. Alternative school enrollment typically follows a referral or application process rather than residential zoning, but families navigating the broader district landscape should be aware the map changed recently.
What Les Peters Academy represents, at its core, is a very small alternative setting inside a large urban district. The small scale means individualized attention is structurally possible in a way it is not in a comprehensive school. Who this fits depends heavily on why a student is coming to an alternative program in the first place, and the school's specific approach to that work is something the data here does not illuminate. Reaching out to the school directly is the necessary next step for a family trying to understand whether this placement serves their student's needs.
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