Mater Palms Academy, Hialeah Gardens FL

Original Research by School Decision on Mater Palms Academy

Mater Palms Academy is a charter school in Hialeah Gardens, a small, densely settled city in northwest Miami-Dade County, serving kindergarten through eighth grade. It sits on NW 103rd Street in a suburban campus setting typical of the area, where schools occupy standalone sites rather than clustering around any walkable civic core. The school is part of the Osceola charter district, though it draws from and serves the Hialeah Gardens community.

The student body is predominantly Hispanic, reflecting the surrounding neighborhood, which is broadly a Spanish-speaking, working-class community anchored by retail, warehousing, and light manufacturing along the Okeechobee Road corridor. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is a meaningful piece of context for reading the academic numbers below.

On Florida's FAST assessments, the picture is uneven and worth examining grade by grade. In math, third and sixth graders posted strong proficiency rates, and seventh graders were stronger still. Fourth and fifth grade math results were more modest, sitting roughly in the middle range. The eighth-grade math result was notably low, well below what the school achieved in every other grade, and that gap is significant enough that a parent sending a child into the upper middle school years would want to ask the school directly about its eighth-grade math program. In ELA, the pattern is more consistent: third through fifth grade results were in the mid-range, sixth and seventh graders showed genuine strength, and eighth grade landed in solid territory. Science scores, tested in fifth and eighth grade, were below the midpoint in both cases. No prior-year trend data was available, so it is not possible from this data to say whether results are improving, holding, or declining.

The school's enrollment is spread fairly evenly across grades, making it a mid-sized school for its grade band. Data on students with IEPs and English learner rates were not reported, so families of students with disabilities or English language needs would want to ask the school directly how those supports are structured and staffed. No information on specific program offerings, course access, or extracurricular activities was in the data, and the district brief returned no recent parent-relevant changes, so those pieces were left out rather than guessed at.

The Hialeah Gardens housing market provides important context for families considering a move. Home values in the area have declined year over year by a meaningful margin and now sit below both the state and national medians. Rents have been roughly flat over the same period. Estimated monthly mortgage costs on a typical home would consume a substantial portion of a household's income at current rates, and rent already approaches a third of median household income, placing real pressure on family budgets. The city is car-dependent, with modest walkability, limited bus service, and no Metrorail stop within the city limits. Nearby retail anchors include a Walmart Supercenter and a BJ's on Okeechobee Road, and a recently rebuilt branch library at Westland Gardens Park offers a YOUmedia studio, auditorium, and meeting space.

Hialeah Gardens is in a period of residential growth. Lennar has purchased former farmland tracts and begun building new communities, so the neighborhood around the school may look different over the next several years than it does today. Regional affordable-housing pressure is real, with adjacent Hialeah actively adding units and adopting new housing policy, and families should factor that dynamic into any longer-range housing decision.

For a family weighing this school, the key variables are the grade-level academic variation in math, the strong ELA results in the middle grades, and the unanswered questions about eighth-grade math and student support services. Those are the threads worth pulling in a conversation with the school before enrolling.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 369%

School 69% · District 54% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 20 pts above county median

Grade 445%

School 45% · District 49% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 551%

School 51% · District 42% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 670%

School 70% · District 49% · ▲ 21 pts above district

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

Grade 776%

School 76% · District 38% · ▲ 38 pts above district

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

Grade 819%

School 19% · District 52% · ▼ 33 pts below district

▼ 32 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 354%

School 54% · District 51% · ▲ 3 pts above district

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

Grade 445%

School 45% · District 47% · ▼ 2 pts below district

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

Grade 554%

School 54% · District 48% · ▲ 6 pts above district

even with state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 667%

School 67% · District 52% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 767%

School 67% · District 49% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 861%

School 61% · District 49% · ▲ 12 pts above district

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

Science

Grade 540%

School 40% · District 46% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 835%

School 35% · District 43% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · even with county median

This schoolOSCEOLA, 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-income52%Higher-income58%5 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income45%Higher-income45%0 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income54%Higher-income54%1 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income66%Higher-income72%6 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income64%Higher-income74%11 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income60%Higher-income63%3 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income71%Higher-income67%4 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income48%Higher-income38%10 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income46%Higher-income58%12 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income66%Higher-income84%18 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income70%Higher-income88%18 pp gap