West Boca Elementary School Grades: Morikami Park & Waters Edge Lead

ByWarren Redlich

Principal Diane Rivelli-Schreiber of Waters Edge and Stacy Quiñones of Morikami Park.
Principals Diane Rivelli-Schreiber of Waters Edge and Stacy Quiñones of Morikami Park.

Morikami Park and Waters Edge Elementary ranked #2 and #3 in the county in the latest school grades. Other West Boca elementary schools that performed well include Del Prado and Calusa. All of the schools in West Boca ranked in the top half of the county, with all earning “A” grades except Coral Sunset and Hammock Pointe which received B’s.
Grades were released statewide. We extracted the data for Palm Beach County and are breaking it down by school level. This is our report on the elementary schools.
Map of schools in greater Boca Raton. Image and map data by Google.
Map of schools in greater Boca Raton. Image and map data by Google.

Out of 106 elementary schools, Binks Forest in Wellington scored a total of 268 points, edging out Morikami Park (266) for the #1 spot. Morikami Park is in West Delray just north of the Delray-Boca line and draws many of its students from West Boca. In the testing Morikami had higher English and Math scores, by just one point, while Binks was four points higher in Science. Morikami has slightly higher numbers of minority and economically disadvantaged students, so this is really a tie.
Waters Edge Elementary was not far behind the other two in all three testing areas (256), with East Boca’s Addison Mizner (252) right behind in fourth place, and Del Prado elementary (242) only a little further behind in 7th place.
Morikami Park is exceptional in part because it is a choice school. All of its students come for its IB program, which requires application through the school district. Most of the top scoring schools have full-time gifted programs that draw kids from feeders schools that don’t have gifted programs. This causes a larger difference in the scores as the strongest students are shifted from weaker schools. Binks Forest, Waters Edge, Del Prado, Addison Mizner and Whispering Pines all have full-time gifted programs. Calusa is a mix, with full-time gifted for Kindergarten through 2nd grade, and part-time from 3rd to 5th. Verde has part-time K-5th, which means some kids are still fed into the full-time programs. Sunrise Park, Sandpiper Shores, Coral Sunset and Hammock Pointe are all feeders into the other schools. See feeder document at bottom.
Other West Boca schools graded as follows:

  • Calusa Elementary, 229 points, 14th place
  • Verde Elementary, 223, 18th
  • Sunrise Park, 216, 24th
  • Whispering Pines, 211, 27th
  • Sandpiper Shores, 205, 32nd
  • Coral Sunset, 177, 48th
  • Hammock Pointe, 174, 49th

The data reflects that schools with fewer “economically disadvantaged students” generally performed better. Wynnebrook Elementary in West Palm Beach is a noticeable exception to that pattern, placing 25th in test scores despite having 92% of the students facing economic challenges.
Our full elementary school spreadsheet is below. We will report on middle and high schools soon.
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/pbc-elementary.pdf”]
Below is the feeder plan for gifted elementary students.
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/FeederPatternbyElementaryGiftedCenter2015-16.pdf”]