Killarney Elementary, Winter Park FL

Original Research by School Decision on Killarney Elementary

Killarney Elementary sits on Wellington Boulevard in Winter Park, a city that reads as comfortably suburban on most streets but carries a genuinely distinctive character shaped by its origins as a planned residential community. Park Avenue, the city's main corridor, is brick-lined and walkable, lined with boutique shops, galleries, and restaurants opening onto Central Park. Away from that core, the city is largely car-dependent. The housing stock runs from historic bungalows to lakefront estates, with nearly all new homes coming from teardown-rebuilds and infill rather than new subdivisions. The area is firmly in the luxury tier of the regional market, with home values well above both the state and national medians and year-over-year appreciation continuing. Rents in the zip code have eased slightly in the past year, though the monthly cost of either renting or buying here sits meaningfully above typical Florida benchmarks. Families weighing a move to the Killarney zone should know they are entering one of Central Florida's most expensive neighborhoods.

The school is small relative to most elementary schools in the area, serving preK through fifth grade. What stands out immediately about Killarney's student body is its economic profile: a substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is an unusual characteristic for a school in a community with housing values at this level. The school's racial and ethnic makeup is diverse, with Black, Hispanic, and white students each representing a meaningful share of the enrollment. Data on English learners and students with IEPs was not available in what was provided.

On the most recent Florida state assessments, the academic picture is mixed and, in several areas, warrants a closer look. ELA proficiency in the tested grades runs from roughly half of students meeting the mark in third grade, declining somewhat in fourth, and holding near half in fifth. Math results are weaker across the board, with third and fifth grade below the reading scores and fourth grade in between. Science, tested only in fifth grade, is the strongest result in the data, with a clear majority of students proficient. When Killarney's overall proficiency index is placed against the districts serving Orange County, the school falls in the bottom quartile of that comparison set. A parent who wants to understand how the school's results compare to nearby options, and what specific supports are in place for students who are not yet proficient, would be well-served asking the school directly. Trend data across multiple years was not available, so it is not possible to say from this data whether performance has been improving, holding steady, or declining.

No information was provided on programs, course offerings, enrichment, staffing ratios, attendance patterns, or discipline climate, so those questions remain open. The district brief for Orange County Public Schools, which operates Killarney, produced no confirmed recent parent-relevant changes before the research concluded, so that context is absent here rather than invented.

What the data does describe is a small neighborhood elementary school in a high-cost, historically rich city, serving a student population that is economically and racially diverse in ways that differ from what the surrounding real estate market might suggest. Academic results are below the midpoint among Orange County districts in aggregate. Families for whom a school's tested proficiency levels are a primary consideration will want to weigh that carefully and ask the school what it is doing to move those numbers.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 339%

School 39% · District 63% · ▼ 24 pts below district

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

Grade 447%

School 47% · District 64% · ▼ 17 pts below district

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

Grade 532%

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

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 352%

School 52% · District 59% · ▼ 7 pts below district

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

Grade 443%

School 43% · District 59% · ▼ 15 pts below district

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

Grade 550%

School 50% · District 58% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Science

Grade 561%

School 61% · District 62% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

This schoolORANGE, 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-income53%Higher-income50%3 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income39%Higher-income50%11 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income43%Higher-income62%19 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income35%Higher-income46%10 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income36%Higher-income65%29 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income20%Higher-income52%32 pp gap