Magnolia Montessori Academy, Lakeland FL

Original Research by School Decision on Magnolia Montessori Academy

Magnolia Montessori Academy is a public charter school in Lakeland, Florida, serving students from kindergarten through eighth grade. It sits on South Central Avenue and operates under the Polk district's charter authorization. The school is small even by the standards of its grade band, with enrollment spread thinly across nine grade levels, and classes in the upper middle school years are quite small.

The academic picture is one of the school's clearest strengths. On Florida's FAST assessments, math proficiency across the tested grades from third through seventh is strong, with third grade reaching near-universal proficiency and the other tested elementary and middle grades all performing well. The one exception is eighth-grade math, where the state suppressed results, likely because the group was too small to report. ELA results follow a similar arc: solid proficiency through the elementary and early middle grades, with seventh grade performing especially well. Eighth-grade ELA is the one area where results dip noticeably, sitting meaningfully below the pattern seen in other grades, and parents of incoming eighth graders may want to ask the school directly about how it supports students in that final year. Science results, reported at fifth and eighth grade, are strong at both checkpoints. No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent an improvement or a plateau.

Because the comparison set in Polk County contained only a single comparable entity, no meaningful positioning against county peers is available for proficiency, graduation rates, or absenteeism.

The student body is small and predominantly white, with Hispanic students making up roughly a quarter of enrollment. The share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch is very low relative to most Florida public schools, which reflects the self-selecting nature of charter school enrollment broadly and is worth keeping in mind when interpreting the academic results. Data on English learners and students with IEPs was not reported, so it is unclear how the school serves those populations.

The Montessori model, which generally emphasizes self-directed learning, mixed-age groupings, and hands-on materials, is the core pedagogical commitment here. Whether that fits a given child is a matter of family and student preference. The school does not serve high school grades, so families will need to plan a transition at ninth grade.

On the housing side, the zip code around the school has seen home values pull back from recent highs, landing well below both the Florida state median and the national median. Rents have moved in the opposite direction over the past year, ticking upward. The rent-to-income relationship in this area is within a range typically considered manageable, and buying in this zip code is meaningfully more affordable than in most Florida markets right now. That context matters for families weighing whether to locate near the school.

Specific information about Lakeland's character, employers, and civic life was not available in the research gathered for this profile, so those details were left out rather than approximated. Similarly, no material about recent district-level changes in Polk was confirmed, so that section is absent.

The school's website was not provided in the data, and no program offerings beyond the Montessori designation were listed. Families will want to contact the school directly for details on curriculum scope, extracurriculars, middle school transition support, and the admissions or lottery process.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 396%

School 96% · District 53% · ▲ 43 pts above district

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

Grade 473%

School 73% · District 53% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Grade 585%

School 85% · District 46% · ▲ 39 pts above district

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

Grade 693%

School 93% · District 50% · ▲ 43 pts above district

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

Grade 793%

School 93% · District 33% · ▲ 60 pts above district

▲ 44 pts above state median · ▲ 60 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 389%

School 89% · District 50% · ▲ 39 pts above district

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

Grade 481%

School 81% · District 47% · ▲ 34 pts above district

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

Grade 589%

School 89% · District 47% · ▲ 42 pts above district

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

Grade 687%

School 87% · District 53% · ▲ 35 pts above district

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 35 pts above county median

Grade 793%

School 93% · District 46% · ▲ 47 pts above district

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

Grade 858%

School 58% · District 44% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

Science

Grade 584%

School 84% · District 45% · ▲ 39 pts above district

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

Grade 875%

School 75% · District 36% · ▲ 39 pts above district

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

This schoolPOLK, 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.