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Best Charter Middle Schools

Independent rankings of Charter Middle schools, built from director interviews and verified data — never from school payments.

68 schools indexed

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We track 68 charter middle-level schools across our active markets in Florida and New York. All schools on this page are tuition-free charter campuses. 4 of these schools accept Florida Step Up / FES scholarships — roughly 6% of the list — so families using state-funded scholarships have real choice here.

Charter schools are publicly funded, tuition-free, and admit by lottery when over-subscribed. Most accept applications via a single window in late winter; siblings, in-district residents, and prior-year applicants typically get preference. Every school is re-verified through direct outreach to admissions teams; data is refreshed on a 180-day cadence and timestamped on each profile.

See also: Private.

Showing 10 of 68 schools
How we rank

We rank by how well each school fits your family — academics, cost, distance, and values. Never by size, popularity, or payment (schools can’t pay for rank). The coarse admission-likelihood band is always free.

  1. 1
    Winthrop Charter School

    Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades K-8·~1,344 students

    DOE 2026 · NCES

    SecularCo-ed
    Likely · general · by school type · free

    Open-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.

    TuitionFree
    TypeSecular
    Students~1,344
  2. 2
    Pinecrest Academy Wesley Chapel

    Wesley Chapel·Pasco County·Grades K-8·~1,259 students

    DOE 2026 · NCES

    Co-ed
    Likely · general · by school type · free

    Open-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.

    TuitionFree
    TypeCharter
    Students~1,259
  3. 3
    Dayspring Academy

    New Port Richey·Pasco County·Grades K-12·~1,259 students

    DOE 2026 · NCES

    SecularCo-ed
    Likely · general · by school type · free

    Open-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.

    TuitionFree
    TypeSecular
    Students~1,259
  4. 4
    Slam Academy at Apollo Beach

    Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades K-12·~1,235 students

    DOE 2026 · NCES

    Co-ed
    Likely · general · by school type · free

    Open-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.

    TuitionFree
    TypeCharter
    Students~1,235
  5. 5
    Southshore Charter Academy

    Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades K-8·~1,230 students

    DOE 2026 · NCES

    Co-ed
    Likely · general · by school type · free

    Open-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.

    TuitionFree
    TypeCharter
    Students~1,230
  6. 6
    Waterset Charter School

    Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades K-8·~1,169 students

    DOE 2026 · NCES

    Co-ed
    Likely · general · by school type · free

    Open-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.

    TuitionFree
    TypeCharter
    Students~1,169
  7. 7
    Henderson Hammock Charter School

    Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades K-8·~1,151 students

    DOE 2026 · NCES

    SecularCo-ed
    Likely · general · by school type · free

    Open-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.

    TuitionFree
    TypeSecular
    Students~1,151
  8. 8
    Bell Creek Academy

    Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades 6-12·~1,131 students

    DOE 2026 · NCES

    SecularCo-ed
    Likely · general · by school type · free

    Open-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.

    TuitionFree
    TypeSecular
    Students~1,131
  9. 9
    Sunlake Academy of Math and Sciences

    Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades K-8·~984 students

    DOE 2026 · NCES

    Co-ed
    Likely · general · by school type · free

    Open-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.

    TuitionFree
    TypeCharter
    Students~984
  10. 10
    Navigator Academy of Leadership Valrico

    Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades K-8·~925 students

    DOE 2026 · NCES

    Co-ed
    Likely · general · by school type · free

    Open-enrollment charter — most applicants are admitted when seats remain; oversubscribed grades use a lottery. General signal, not personalized.

    TuitionFree
    TypeCharter
    Students~925
How we rank these schools

Built relationships, not scrapers. AdmitCompass ranks schools using a composite score that blends four signals: enrollment size (a proxy for stability and program breadth), tuition reasonableness within the local market, freshness of our most recent verification, and a small bonus for schools with full admissions detail published on their profile.

Public data comes from the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE), the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and each school's own admissions pages. The information that actually matters to most families — acceptance rates, deadlines, what a director cares about — comes from direct interviews with school directors and admissions coaches across our active markets.

We do not publish scoring weights or per-axis thresholds. That keeps the moat intact: the rankings reflect actual conversations with people inside schools, not a formula anyone with a crawler could clone. Every profile is re-verified on a 180-day cadence, and the "last updated" date is timestamped on every school page.

Read the full methodology.

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Frequently asked questions

Are these schools tuition-free?
Yes. Every school on this page is publicly funded — either a charter or a tuition-free public-school-of-choice option. Families pay no tuition; standard public-school district enrollment rules and lottery procedures apply.
How competitive is admission to charter schools?
Charter schools admit by lottery when applications exceed seats. Application windows typically open in November-January for the following August. Siblings of current students and in-district residents are usually given preference; out-of-district applicants enter a separate pool.
Do these schools accept Step Up / FES scholarships?
4 of the 68 schools on this page accept Florida's Step Up For Students / FES-EO / FES-UA scholarships. That covers most or all of tuition for income-eligible families. Each school's detail page lists the specific scholarship programs accepted.
What's the smallest and largest school on this list?
Pinellas Preparatory Academy is the smallest with 10 students; Winthrop Charter School is the largest at 1344. Smaller schools tend to offer more direct teacher contact and tighter community; larger schools usually have more elective and extracurricular breadth.
Is this list updated?
Yes. We re-verify school data on a 180-day cadence through direct contact with admissions teams, plus cross-checks against FLDOE, NCES, and published school sources. Each school profile shows the date of its most recent verification.

Related lists

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See your child's personalized match

Our 2-minute quiz factors in grades, budget, location, and goals to surface the best-fit schools from this list.

Data last updated June 9, 2026. Rankings reflect director interviews and public DOE/NCES data. How we verify and rank.