Dillard Street Elementary

Dillard Street Elementary in Winter Garden, FL, is a mid-sized school serving 466 students from Pre-K through 5th grade and is part of the Orange district. This school is a story of recent, promising improvement, having climbed from the 28th percentile in state rankings a decade ago to its current 48th percentile—its highest position in years. While it has historically been a 2-star school, this upward trend sets it apart from many nearby schools that are either consistently high-performing, like Lake Whitney Elementary (96th percentile) and Westbrooke Elementary (89th percentile), or consistently struggling, like Ocoee Elementary (24th percentile).

A key differentiator is that Dillard Street spends significantly more per student ($14,657) than many of its higher-scoring neighbors, such as Tildenville Elementary ($10,923) and Oakland Avenue Charter ($10,793), yet its overall test scores have not yet caught up. However, the school shows a fascinating "mixed bag" of grade-level performance. Its 5th grade class is a standout, outperforming the district in both English Language Arts (70% vs. 63%) and Science (70% vs. 67%), while its 4th grade scores lag behind. This suggests that success may be linked to specific teachers or cohorts, and the strong 5th grade results offer a promising model for the rest of the school.

Another major positive is the school's success in tackling chronic absenteeism, which dropped from a high of 33.9% in 2021-2022 to 24.9% in 2023-2024—now better than both the district and state averages. This improvement likely contributes to the recent uptick in academic performance. While Dillard Street is still outperformed by some nearby schools with similar student demographics, like William S Maxey Elementary, it provides a much more stable learning environment than its closest neighbor, Ucp West Orange Charter, which has a 46.8% chronic absenteeism rate. For parents, Dillard Street represents a school on the rise, with clear momentum and a recent track record of improvement worth watching.