The top reported proficiency rate is 22% in Science. The lowest is 17% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Kimbell Elementary School
Kimbell Elementary School sits in Tampa's northeast quadrant, serving children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school within Hillsborough County Schools. The enrollment is modest for an elementary serving that full grade span, and the school draws from a neighborhood where the large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is predominantly Black and Hispanic, with smaller shares of white students and students of two or more races. Data on English learner identification rates and students with IEPs was not available in what we reviewed.
Academic performance is the most consequential thing a parent will want to understand, and the state assessment results from Florida's FAST exam tell a clear story: proficiency rates across reading, math, and science are low, and a parent should take that seriously. In third grade, only a small fraction of students tested at proficient or above in both reading and math. Fourth grade results were similarly low, with math showing the thinnest proficiency of any tested group. Fifth grade showed somewhat higher shares reaching proficiency in both ELA and math, and science results for that grade followed a similar pattern, but even those figures remain well below what Florida's statewide assessments would consider typical performance. There is no multi-year trend data available in what we reviewed, so it is not possible to say whether results are improving, declining, or holding steady. A parent who wants to understand the trajectory of academic growth at this school would do well to ask the school directly about year-over-year progress and any intervention programs in place for students who are reading or doing math below grade level.
Because Kimbell serves only pre-K through fifth grade, there are no graduation rates or high school course access figures to report; those measures simply do not apply here.
The housing market in the zip code shows home values that are modestly below Florida's statewide median and roughly in line with the national median, having dipped slightly year over year. Rents have edged up slightly in the same period. With current mortgage rates where they are, the monthly carrying cost of a home in this area represents a meaningful share of a typical household's income, and the rent-to-income ratio sits right at the level commonly cited as the affordability boundary. Families renting or buying near the school are entering a market that has cooled somewhat from recent peaks but remains far from inexpensive.
Two district-level changes are worth knowing. Hillsborough County voters passed a property tax referendum in November 2024 that takes effect July 2025 and runs through 2029; it raises homeowner costs annually in exchange for teacher and staff pay supplements meant to address staffing shortages. Separately, the district enacted a large-scale school boundary rezoning for the 2024-2025 school year, shifting student assignments across many schools countywide. Families moving into the area should verify current attendance boundaries directly with the district, as those lines may not match what was in effect even a year or two ago.
Tampa itself is a large, internally varied city. The neighborhood around Kimbell is residential and sits well removed from the downtown development corridors and walkable districts that have gotten considerable attention. Day-to-day life near the school is shaped more by neighborhood streets and local services than by the Water Street towers or Riverwalk amenities that define Tampa's downtown growth story. The city's transit network runs through the area, though walkability in this part of Tampa is considerably lower than in the urban core.
For a family weighing Kimbell, the proficiency data points to a school that is serving a high-poverty population and producing results that are substantially below state norms. The reasons behind those results, and what the school is doing about them, are questions worth putting directly to school and district staff before making an enrollment decision.
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