Ocps Academic Center For Excellence

Ocps Academic Center For Excellence (ACE) is a public school in Orlando, FL, serving 824 students in grades PK through 8 within the Orange district, where over 81% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. This school has faced significant challenges, ranking in the bottom 5% of Florida elementary schools for the past seven years and receiving a 0-star rating from Schooldigger, which starkly contrasts with nearby top performers like Hillcrest Elementary (98th percentile) and Orlando Science Elementary Charter (95th percentile).

The most critical issue at ACE is a chronic absenteeism crisis: in the 2023-2024 school year, 60.3% of students were chronically absent, nearly double the district average of 35.2% and far exceeding the state average of 31.4%. This rate has remained above 50% for four consecutive years, creating a fundamental barrier to learning. For example, in 5th Grade Math, ACE had a 27% proficiency rate, while Hillcrest Elementary achieved 91%—a 64-percentage-point gap. Interestingly, ACE spends $14,150 per student, which is higher than Hillcrest ($12,273) and Orlando Science Elementary Charter ($9,970), suggesting that funding alone isn't the issue.

Despite these struggles, there are some positive signs. A small group of students taking the Algebra 1 End-of-Course exam achieved 83% proficiency in 2024-2025, outperforming the district and state averages. Additionally, recent data shows slight improvements, such as 3rd Grade Math rising from 22% to 47% and 4th Grade Math from 13% to 51% between 2023-2024 and 2025-2026. A compelling comparison is with Rock Lake Elementary, just 1.06 miles away, which serves a similar high-poverty population (82.9% free/reduced lunch) but ranks in the 82nd percentile with a lower chronic absenteeism rate of 38.9%. This shows that high poverty doesn't have to mean low performance, and addressing absenteeism could be key to ACE's improvement.