Orlando Gifted Academy, Orlando FL

Original Research by School Decision on Orlando Gifted Academy

Orlando Gifted Academy sits on North Fern Creek Avenue in the 32803 zip code, one of Orlando's older inner neighborhoods where 1920s bungalows and tree-lined streets sit close to the urban core. The school serves grades two through eight, runs as a regular public school within Orange County Public Schools, and carries no charter or magnet designation in the data. Admission is tied to a gifted identification process, so the student body reflects that selection: every child who walks in has already been evaluated and qualified.

The academic results are among the most striking in the comparison set available for Orange County. Across every tested grade in math on Florida's FAST assessment, proficiency runs at or near the ceiling, with the same pattern holding in science at both grade five and grade eight. English and language arts scores are similarly strong from grades three through seven, and grade eight, while still very high, shows the only modest dip in the picture. Placed against districts in Orange County, the school's overall proficiency index sits well above the range seen elsewhere in the county, making it one of the highest-performing schools by this measure in the data available. A parent should understand this is a school built around a tested population of identified gifted students, so the comparison is useful for context rather than as a like-for-like peer benchmark.

The student body is a compact one for a school spanning seven grades. White students make up the plurality, with Asian and Hispanic students each representing a meaningful share, Black students a smaller share, and students of two or more races a modest portion. The share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch is notably low relative to what is typical for the broader Orlando-area public school population, which tracks with the demographics often associated with gifted programs. Data on students with IEPs and English learners was not reported in the available data, so those support dimensions cannot be described here.

No program offerings data was provided beyond what the school type and grade band imply. Because the school stops at grade eight, there is no graduation rate, and that absence reflects the grade band rather than any performance gap. Multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible to characterize whether results have been stable, improving, or declining across recent years.

The neighborhood around the school is part of inner Orlando's walkable, historically dense residential fabric. The Park Lake Highland area nearby carries a notably high walk score by Orlando standards and connects to the Orlando Urban Trail. Downtown Orlando, with its civic institutions, performing arts venues, SunRail stations, and the developing Creative Village district anchored by UCF and Valencia College, is close. The broader city is in an active growth phase: major mixed-use projects are under construction or planned near the urban core, and publicly reported development is expected to accelerate through the latter part of this decade.

Housing near the school carries a price tag meaningfully above both the Florida state median and the national median, and rents have ticked upward over the past year while home values have edged slightly down. The mortgage-to-rent calculus in this zip code runs close, with carrying a mortgage running slightly higher than renting, making the tenure decision a live question for families considering proximity.

For Orange County district-level strategic priorities, the research budget was exhausted before lasting changes could be confirmed, so that layer is left out rather than guessed at.

The picture that comes through is a school doing exactly what its name describes: a specialized setting for identified gifted learners, with test results that reflect that mission, in an established urban neighborhood that is neither sleepy nor overwhelming. The fit question for any family is less about academic quality, which the data supports strongly, and more about whether their child holds a gifted designation and whether the size, grade band, and proximity to a busy urban core match what they are looking for.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 3100%

School 100% · District 63% · ▲ 37 pts above district

▲ 37 pts above state median · ▲ 40 pts above county median

Grade 499%

School 99% · District 64% · ▲ 35 pts above district

▲ 38 pts above state median · ▲ 39 pts above county median

Grade 599%

School 99% · District 58% · ▲ 41 pts above district

▲ 44 pts above state median · ▲ 44 pts above county median

Grade 6100%

School 100% · District 60% · ▲ 40 pts above district

▲ 38 pts above state median · ▲ 45 pts above county median

Grade 8100%

School 100% · District 63% · ▲ 37 pts above district

▲ 49 pts above state median · ▲ 41 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 3100%

School 100% · District 59% · ▲ 41 pts above district

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

Grade 4100%

School 100% · District 59% · ▲ 42 pts above district

▲ 46 pts above state median · ▲ 44 pts above county median

Grade 596%

School 96% · District 58% · ▲ 39 pts above district

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

Grade 697%

School 97% · District 59% · ▲ 38 pts above district

▲ 37 pts above state median · ▲ 39 pts above county median

Grade 799%

School 99% · District 55% · ▲ 44 pts above district

▲ 44 pts above state median · ▲ 44 pts above county median

Grade 893%

School 93% · District 53% · ▲ 40 pts above district

▲ 39 pts above state median · ▲ 40 pts above county median

Science

Grade 599%

School 99% · District 62% · ▲ 37 pts above district

▲ 46 pts above state median · ▲ 39 pts above county median

Grade 898%

School 98% · District 52% · ▲ 46 pts above district

▲ 52 pts above state median · ▲ 50 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 4Lower-income100%Higher-income100%0 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income92%Higher-income97%5 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income80%Higher-income100%20 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income90%Higher-income100%10 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income100%Higher-income90%10 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income100%Higher-income98%2 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income92%Higher-income100%8 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income100%Higher-income97%3 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income100%Higher-income100%0 pp gap