Rolling Hills Elementary

Rolling Hills Elementary is a public school in Orlando, FL, serving 515 students from Pre-K through 5th grade in the Orange district, where over 72% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

After a decade of being one of the lowest-performing schools in the state, Rolling Hills is showing a dramatic academic turnaround. In the 2023-2024 school year, the school ranked in the 6th percentile, but by 2025-2026, it jumped to the 20th percentile—its highest rank in nearly a decade. This is especially notable compared to nearby Ridgewood Park Elementary, which has been declining from the 45th to the 20th percentile over the same period. The most impressive improvement is in 4th Grade Math, where proficiency has more than tripled from 21% to 64%, now nearly matching the district and state averages. However, the school's progress is uneven: while math scores are soaring, English Language Arts (ELA) scores remain a significant weakness, with 5th Grade ELA proficiency at just 31%.

Rolling Hills spends $15,067 per student—the highest among all nearby schools—and maintains a favorable student-teacher ratio of 14.3:1, providing resources for individualized instruction. Chronic absenteeism, while improving from a peak of 44.9% during the pandemic to 27.7%, remains a challenge, though it is lower than at Lake Weston Elementary (51.5%). An interesting comparison is with Mollie Ray Elementary, just 1.34 miles away, which serves a similar high-poverty population but ranks in the 76th percentile with proficiency rates 20-40 percentage points higher. This suggests that factors like school leadership and teaching quality, rather than funding alone, are key drivers of success—and Rolling Hills can look to Mollie Ray as a model for continued improvement.