Slam Academy at Apollo Beach, Apollo Beach FL

Original Research by School Decision on Slam Academy at Apollo Beach

SLAM Academy at Apollo Beach is a charter school serving kindergarten through twelfth grade, located on US Highway 41 in Apollo Beach, a fast-growing waterfront community in southern Hillsborough County. The school operates under the Hillsborough County district umbrella, which means it is subject to the newly approved one-mill property tax levy that homeowners in the district began paying in mid-2025 to fund teacher and staff pay increases. Publicly reported information indicates charter schools in Hillsborough County receive a share of those referendum funds under state law.

The enrollment picture here is distinctive in one important way: the grade distribution is heavily weighted toward the elementary and middle years. Kindergarten through eighth grade together account for nearly all of the students currently enrolled, while the ninth and tenth grade cohorts are quite small and eleventh and twelfth grade show no enrollment at all. For a school nominally serving K-12, that means the high school pathway is in the earliest stages of being built out. Families with students approaching or already in high school should ask the school directly what the current course offerings, staffing, and graduation timeline look like, because the data does not yet show a functioning upper high school program. A graduation rate was not available for this reason.

Every student enrolled qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which means the school is serving a population with widespread economic need. The student body is racially and ethnically mixed, with Hispanic students making up the largest group, followed by white students and then Black students, with multiracial students and smaller Asian and Pacific Islander populations rounding out the mix. Data on students with IEPs or English learner designations was not provided, so families with children in those categories would want to ask the school directly about support services.

On Florida's FAST assessments, the academic picture is uneven across grades and subjects. Third grade math is a genuine standout, with most students reaching proficiency, and seventh grade ELA and eighth grade ELA also perform solidly. But math proficiency drops sharply by fifth and sixth grade and stays low through eighth grade, with the eighth grade science result being particularly weak. ELA results in the elementary grades hover below half of students reaching proficiency. These are not numbers to dismiss. A parent with children in the middle grades, especially those heading into algebra and science at the secondary level, may want to ask the school what it is doing to address the gaps visible in the tested grades. No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether results are improving or declining.

Apollo Beach itself is a car-dependent, suburban, canal-laced community that has grown rapidly, driven largely by master-planned development like Waterset. It has a quieter pace than much of the Tampa metro, an orientation around boating and outdoor recreation, and civic anchors including a large recreation center, a manatee sanctuary at the TECO Big Bend Power Station, and library service from the SouthShore Regional Library in neighboring Ruskin. There is no traditional downtown. Families buying into the area will find home values noticeably above the Florida state median, with rents also running above average, and values have edged down modestly over the past year even as rents have risen. The community is still adding housing at a fast clip across a range of price points.

No information was available on the school's specific program offerings, AP or dual-enrollment access, course catalog, extracurriculars, or staffing levels, so those questions remain open. What the data does show is a school with a real academic need profile in the middle grades, a high school program that appears to still be in formation, and a community context of rapid growth where school capacity and quality are both in motion.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 372%

School 72% · District 58% · ▲ 14 pts above district

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

Grade 460%

School 60% · District 59% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 534%

School 34% · District 54% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 626%

School 26% · District 54% · ▼ 28 pts below district

▼ 36 pts below state median · ▼ 26 pts below county median

Grade 758%

School 58% · District 36% · ▲ 22 pts above district

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

Grade 826%

School 26% · District 58% · ▼ 32 pts below district

▼ 25 pts below state median · ▼ 27 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 356%

School 56% · District 53% · ▲ 3 pts above district

even with state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Grade 450%

School 50% · District 53% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 547%

School 47% · District 53% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 647%

School 47% · District 55% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 761%

School 61% · District 55% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Grade 861%

School 61% · District 52% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Science

Grade 542%

School 42% · District 50% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 814%

School 14% · District 48% · ▼ 34 pts below district

▼ 32 pts below state median · ▼ 31 pts below 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-income44%Higher-income75%31 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income41%Higher-income62%21 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income38%Higher-income56%18 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income31%Higher-income64%32 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income59%Higher-income62%3 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income60%Higher-income62%2 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income60%Higher-income91%31 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income51%Higher-income70%19 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income21%Higher-income48%27 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income17%Higher-income35%18 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income45%Higher-income68%24 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income21%Higher-income32%11 pp gap