The top reported proficiency rate is 42% in Math. The lowest is 34% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Rolling Hills Elementary
Rolling Hills Elementary sits on Donovan Street in Orlando's 32808 zip code, a residential area in the northwest part of the city that sits well removed from both the downtown core and the theme-park corridor. The neighborhood is car-dependent in the way most of Orlando outside its older urban core tends to be, and housing costs in this zip code are meaningfully below the statewide median, with values that have slipped modestly year over year. Rents are also somewhat below the Florida average. For families weighing a move, this part of Orlando represents one of the more accessible price points in an otherwise pressured market, though the rent-to-income ratio still runs near a third of household income at typical local wage levels.
The school serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and is a conventional public elementary within Orange County Public Schools. Its enrollment lands at a mid-range size for an elementary of its grade band. The student body is predominantly Black, with Hispanic students making up most of the remainder and white students a small fraction. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places Rolling Hills among the higher economic need schools in the district. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs was not available in what was provided.
State assessment results from Florida's FAST exam paint a clear picture of where the school is academically right now, and the numbers warrant honest attention. In third-grade math, roughly half of students tested at the proficient level, which is a more encouraging starting point than what follows. By fourth grade, math proficiency slips below half, and by fifth grade it falls to well under a third of students. Reading and language arts follow a similar arc: third grade comes in just under half, while both fourth and fifth grade sit at a level where only about one in four students meets the proficiency standard. Fifth-grade science lands below the halfway mark as well. Placed against other districts in Orange County, Rolling Hills' overall proficiency index falls in the bottom quartile. A parent weighing these results should ask the school directly about reading intervention programs, math supports, and how individual student progress is tracked across the grade band, because the data alone does not tell you what is being done or how much is working.
Trend data was not available, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement, stability, or decline from prior years. That context matters and is worth requesting from the school.
Orange County Public Schools is one of the largest districts in Florida, publicly reported to serve several hundred thousand students across a sprawling urban and suburban geography. No specific recent district-level changes, strategic initiatives, or staffing shifts came through in what was researched for this profile, so that dimension was left out rather than guessed at. Families wanting to understand district priorities around schools like Rolling Hills would do well to look directly at the district's website or attend a school board meeting.
Orlando more broadly is in a sustained growth phase, with major development concentrated downtown and in tourist corridors that are geographically distant from the 32808 area. The regional job base spans tourism, healthcare, aerospace, and higher education, with employers including major hospital systems, the University of Central Florida, and large resort operators. That economic breadth can matter for families thinking about long-term stability in the region, even when a specific neighborhood sits outside the most active growth zones.
For a family with young children, Rolling Hills is a neighborhood school in an affordable pocket of Orlando, with a predominantly Black student body and high economic need, inside a large public district. The academic results are below the midpoint among Orange County districts, particularly in the upper elementary grades, and that gap is the clearest thing this data can tell you. What the data cannot tell you is what happens inside the classrooms, what the staff relationships with students and families look like, or whether current interventions are beginning to move the numbers. Those are the conversations worth having at the school itself.
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