Summary:
Zip code 33441 in Deerfield Beach, Florida, is home to one middle school, Deerfield Beach Middle School, which serves grades 6 through 8 and is part of the Broward County school district.
Deerfield Beach Middle School presents a striking paradox. On one hand, it achieves near-perfect proficiency rates in advanced high school coursework, with 99% of students scoring proficient in Algebra 1 and 97% in Geometry on End-of-Course (EOC) exams. On the other hand, the majority of students in standard grade-level classes perform significantly below state averages. For example, only 32% of 8th graders are proficient in grade-level math, compared to the state average of 61%. This suggests the school excels at preparing a select group of students for advanced classes while the general student body struggles. The school has consistently ranked in the bottom 25% of Florida middle schools over the last three years, earning a 1-star rating.
Despite spending $10,623 per student, the school has a high student-teacher ratio of 21.3:1 and a chronic absenteeism rate of 32.6%, meaning nearly one in three students is chronically absent. Over half of the students (51.15%) qualify for free or reduced lunch. There is some positive news: the school showed notable year-over-year improvement from 2024-2025 to 2025-2026, including a 17-point jump in Civics proficiency (to 73%) and a 13-point jump in 7th-grade math proficiency (to 52%). However, the 8th-grade math score is artificially low because the highest-performing students take the Algebra 1 EOC instead of the grade-level test. Overall, the school's performance raises questions about how its resources are allocated, given the high spending and low core subject results.
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