Original Research by School Decision on Medical Academy at D.w. Waters
The Medical Academy at D.W. Waters sits in Tampa's North Highland Avenue corridor and operates as an alternative school within Hillsborough County Public Schools. Its grade span on record runs from pre-K through twelfth grade, but enrollment data tells a more specific story: the active student body is concentrated almost entirely in ninth and tenth grade, with a handful in tenth and none reported in any other grade. This is a very small program by any measure, serving a student population closer in scale to a single homeroom cohort than to a conventional high school. Parents should weigh that size carefully, both for what it may mean in terms of peer community and for what the data does and does not show.
The school is classified as an alternative school, and that designation matters here. Alternative schools in Florida typically serve students who need a different structure than a traditional campus, whether due to credit recovery, scheduling needs, or other circumstances. The narrow, ninth-and-tenth-grade-heavy enrollment pattern is consistent with that kind of function, though the data does not spell out the specific purpose of this program, and a parent would want to ask the school directly.
On academics, almost nothing can be reported. The only state assessment on record is a single suppressed result from Florida's science test, suppressed likely because the group tested was too small to report. No multi-year trend data exists. No proficiency index, no graduation rate, no chronic absenteeism rate. The comparison framework relative to districts in Hillsborough County found none of these metrics applicable because the school's values were absent. This is common for very small alternative programs, where tested populations often fall below the reporting threshold, so the absence is not itself a red flag, but it does mean a parent cannot use test scores to evaluate academic outcomes here.
Program information was not available in the data. Whether the school offers career coursework connected to its "Medical Academy" name, dual enrollment, or other pathways is not something the data addresses. The name suggests a medical or health-sciences focus, and that is publicly reported in the school's own name, but the specific curriculum offerings were not in the data provided.
The student body is majority Hispanic and Black, with a smaller share of white students and a small multiracial group. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places this among the higher-need populations in the district. Data on English learners and students with IEPs was not reported, so those dimensions of the support environment are unknown.
The surrounding Tampa context is worth knowing. The school sits near downtown Tampa, a part of the city experiencing rapid development through projects like Water Street Tampa and the Gasworx district. Tampa's economy is anchored by healthcare, defense, and financial services, which gives a medical-themed academic program some natural connective tissue to local industry, though whether the school has formal relationships with those employers was not in the data.
Housing near the school runs well above the Florida state average, and rents in the zip code are substantial relative to income. Hillsborough County voters approved a property tax increase in late 2024 to fund teacher pay, running through 2029, which is a real cost for homeowners to factor in. The district also completed a major boundary rezoning for the 2024-2025 school year affecting many campuses, though how that affects an alternative school like this one is unclear from the available information.
For a parent considering this school, the core questions that the data cannot answer are: what specific population does this program serve, what does the medical academy curriculum actually include, and what are the outcomes for students who complete it. Those answers require a direct conversation with the school.
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