Winthrop Charter School, Riverview FL

Original Research by School Decision on Winthrop Charter School

Winthrop Charter School sits on Scholars Hill Lane in Riverview, a fast-growing unincorporated suburb southeast of Tampa that has been reshaping itself for over a decade. The school serves kindergarten through eighth grade and draws from a community organized around master-planned subdivisions, with Winthrop Village, the new-urbanist mixed-use neighborhood the school shares a name with, providing a walkable pocket of shops and front-porch streetscape nearby. Most of daily life in Riverview otherwise runs by car, along highway corridors and through conventional subdivision neighborhoods, though the Alafia River and county parks anchor outdoor recreation and the Hillsborough County Public Library branch in Riverview is a well-equipped community resource.

As a charter school, Winthrop operates within Hillsborough County Public Schools but with its own governance. One thing families should know: the district's voter-approved property tax supplement, running through mid-2029, raises teacher and support staff pay and, publicly reported, charter schools receive a share under state law. A separate district rezoning that shifted boundaries for dozens of traditional public schools took effect for the 2024-2025 year, but charter enrollment is by choice rather than geography, so that boundary change does not directly determine whether a child attends Winthrop.

On academics, Florida's FAST assessment results for the most recent school year show generally solid proficiency across most grades. In math, results are strong through the middle grades, with the upper elementary and early middle grades posting proficiency rates well above what most Florida schools achieve, before a notable drop at eighth grade where fewer than two-thirds of students reached proficiency. That eighth-grade math figure is the clearest soft spot in the data and worth asking the school about directly. Reading and language arts tell a similar story: proficiency in the early and upper elementary years is solid, sixth grade dips, then recovers through seventh and eighth. Science proficiency at both the fifth and eighth-grade testing points sits in a range that is respectable but not exceptional relative to the state.

Taken together, the picture is a school that tends to perform well in the earlier grades and maintains adequate proficiency through middle school, with math at eighth grade the area where a parent may want to ask more questions about curriculum, support, and course sequencing.

The student body is racially and ethnically diverse. Hispanic students form the largest single group, followed by white students, then Black students, with Asian students and students of two or more races each representing a meaningful share of enrollment. A substantial minority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, though the majority do not, reflecting the school's position in a growing middle-income suburban community. Data on students with disabilities and English learners were not available in the records provided.

The school is large for a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade campus, with enrollment spread fairly evenly across all grade levels from kindergarten through eighth. No information on specific program offerings, course access, staffing ratios, or attendance patterns was included in the data, so those dimensions would need to be explored directly with the school.

The housing market surrounding Winthrop reflects Riverview's growth trajectory. Home values in the school's zip code are slightly below both the state and national medians, and both home values and rents have edged downward modestly over the past year, a mild correction in a market that climbed sharply during the broader Florida growth surge. The estimated monthly mortgage on a median-priced home in the area would consume a meaningful share of income at current rates, and rent as a share of income runs close to the conventional threshold, so the area is accessible by Florida standards but not inexpensive. New construction continues, and Riverview's population keeps growing, meaning the school's enrollment context may shift as more families arrive.

Winthrop Charter School fits a family seeking a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade charter option in a diverse, suburban, actively growing community, with generally strong elementary proficiency and a path worth examining more carefully in eighth-grade math.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 373%

School 73% · District 58% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 482%

School 82% · District 59% · ▲ 23 pts above district

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 28 pts above county median

Grade 570%

School 70% · District 54% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Grade 676%

School 76% · District 54% · ▲ 22 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

Grade 779%

School 79% · District 36% · ▲ 43 pts above district

▲ 30 pts above state median · ▲ 42 pts above county median

Grade 852%

School 52% · District 58% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 370%

School 70% · District 53% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Grade 473%

School 73% · District 53% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 25 pts above county median

Grade 570%

School 70% · District 53% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 16 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Grade 662%

School 62% · District 55% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 770%

School 70% · District 55% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 876%

School 76% · District 52% · ▲ 24 pts above district

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Science

Grade 565%

School 65% · District 50% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Grade 863%

School 63% · District 48% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 18 pts above county median

This schoolHILLSBOROUGH, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income63%Higher-income75%12 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income68%Higher-income76%8 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income61%Higher-income77%17 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income53%Higher-income69%16 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income59%Higher-income79%20 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income59%Higher-income89%30 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income60%Higher-income83%23 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income74%Higher-income88%15 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income62%Higher-income75%14 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income65%Higher-income84%20 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income71%Higher-income87%17 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income41%Higher-income67%26 pp gap