Original Research by School Decision on Richard Milburn Academy
Richard Milburn Academy in Daytona Beach is a charter alternative high school serving students in grades nine through twelve. The designation matters for how a family should read this school: alternative schools typically serve students who have struggled in or disconnected from a traditional high school setting, so standard comparison measures like proficiency rates and graduation rates are either absent from the data here or carry different meaning than they would at a comprehensive neighborhood school.
State assessment data was not available in the payload. No chronic absenteeism rate was reported. No graduation rate was reported. The comparison framework used for Volusia County districts flagged all three metrics as not applicable due to missing entity values, so no placement relative to county districts can be offered. Whether those gaps reflect the nature of the population served, the school's reporting status, or something else, the data does not say. A parent would want to ask the school directly about completion rates and what outcomes look like for students who enroll.
What the data does show is the student body itself. The school enrolls a substantial number of students, and the grade distribution is noticeably top-heavy: far more students are enrolled in the upper grades than in ninth grade. That pattern is common in alternative settings, where students often arrive after struggling elsewhere and may take more time to reach graduation. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The racial and ethnic makeup spans white, Black, and Hispanic students in roughly comparable shares, with smaller representation of other groups. Data on English learners and students with IEPs was not reported.
Program offerings were not available in the data, so the academic pathway the school provides beyond the core diploma track is unclear from what was provided here.
The school sits on Mason Avenue in Daytona Beach, a coastal city with a mixed economy built around tourism, hospitality, and a cluster of larger employers including healthcare systems, a major insurance company, and several universities. Publicly reported information describes the city as seeing strong residential and commercial growth in recent years, particularly along corridors to the north and west, though that growth is now moderating. Home values in the zip code have softened slightly year over year and sit well below both the Florida and national medians, making the area more accessible than much of coastal Florida. Rents are also edging down slightly, and the rent-to-income ratio here runs close to the conventional affordability threshold. The downtown core along Beach Street and the Halifax River offers walkable civic life, though much of the broader city is car-dependent.
The Volusia district brief was searched but no lasting parent-relevant changes were confirmed before the research budget was exhausted, so that section is left out rather than guessed at.
For a family with a student who needs something other than a conventional high school structure, Richard Milburn Academy is worth a direct conversation. The school's type and enrollment shape make the picture clear enough in broad terms, but the absence of outcome data in what was available here means a parent should go to the school itself to understand what the academic program looks like, what supports exist for students with IEPs or language needs, and what the completion trajectory has looked like for recent students.
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