The top reported proficiency rate is 62% in Math. The lowest is 47% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on May Sands Montessori School
May Sands Montessori School sits on United Street in Key West, operating as a charter school within the Monroe County district and serving children from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. It is a small school by any measure, with enrollment spread thinly across ten grade levels, and the per-grade cohorts are quite small. That scale shapes almost everything about the experience here.
The pedagogical commitment is Montessori, which means multi-age groupings, child-directed learning progressions, and a classroom culture that differs structurally from a conventional K-8. For families drawn to that model, May Sands offers a relatively rare public-charter version of it in a remote island setting. For families who prefer a more structured, traditional classroom sequence, the approach is worth understanding before enrolling.
On state assessments, the picture is partial because small class sizes trigger Florida's suppression rules for most grade levels, protecting the privacy of students when cohorts fall below reporting thresholds. The grades that did produce reported results for the most recent school year show eighth-grade ELA proficiency at a solid majority of students, eighth-grade math somewhat below that but still carrying most of the class, and eighth-grade science at roughly half of students proficient. Third-grade ELA, the one lower-grade result available, came in around half of students. The remaining grades across math, ELA, and science were all suppressed, so a complete picture of academic performance across the school is simply not available from state data. A parent who wants to understand how students at each level are progressing would want to ask the school directly. Multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible to say whether results are improving, declining, or holding steady.
About a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is a meaningful but not dominant share. The racial and ethnic composition skews toward white students, with Hispanic students making up a substantial minority and small numbers of students from other backgrounds. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not reported, so it is not possible to characterize how the school serves those populations. That is a gap worth raising with the school if those services matter to your child.
Graduation rates do not apply here because May Sands does not serve high school grades. A child completing eighth grade would transition into the Monroe County district's high school system.
Key West as a place to live is its own particular context. It is an island city at the end of the Florida Keys, known nationally as a tourist destination, and that character pervades daily life. Housing costs are dramatically higher than the Florida state average and far above national figures, with typical home values running well above the statewide median. Rents are also well above average, and recent data shows a slight softening in home values year over year. The rent-to-income ratio in the area suggests housing absorbs a large share of household budgets. For a family relocating, the cost of living is the dominant practical constraint. The city itself is walkable and bikeable, with a free circulator bus running through the main tourist corridor and a broader municipal transit system connecting Key West to Stock Island and up toward Marathon, with on-demand service added in late 2023.
On the district side, Monroe County voters publicly renewed two longstanding school funding measures in late 2024, sustaining support for teacher compensation, school nurses, and school resource officers at every campus, as well as facility maintenance. District leaders had publicly warned that losing those measures would have meant significant position cuts. For the current fiscal year, the district separately adopted a property tax rate increase, directing those additional revenues toward capital projects including new construction, safety upgrades, and bus replacement. A family buying a home in Key West would carry that millage as part of their tax picture.
Comparison data for Monroe County was limited because the county has only one district, which means peer benchmarking against other local districts was not applicable.
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