Fellsmere Academy — Fellsmere, Florida

Fellsmere Academy, which Indian River County still labels as formerly Fellsmere Elementary, is the public school at 50 N Cypress Street in Fellsmere run by the School District of Indian River County.

The school's own home page sums it up in one line: 8:10 am to 2:51 pm, Grades PreK-7, phone 772-564-5970, and the label A Dual Language School, with the Spanish motto Aquí galopamos hacia el éxito beside its English version (Fellsmere Academy). The page lists the Cypress Street campus with a fax number of (772) 564-6020. The district's 2026-2027 Parent Guide lists Fellsmere Academy among its schools as Prek-7th, K-8th by 2027-2028, with the tag #MyFAM (SDIRC Parent Guide, page 14).

Federal and state records have not caught up with the new name. The NCES directory for the 2025-2026 school year still lists Fellsmere Elementary School, NCES ID 120093001058 and state ID FL-31-0101, as an open regular school that is not a charter, with a grade span of PK to 6 and a Rural, Fringe locale (NCES school record). The Florida Department of Education's 2026 grade file also uses Fellsmere Elementary School, school number 0101 (FLDOE 2026 school grades file). Other pages of the district Parent Guide still use the old name for VPK and Extended Day at the Fellsmere campus.

Fellsmere Academy added sixth grade in the 2025-26 school year and is adding one grade a year until the Fellsmere campus serves kindergarten through grade 8 in 2027-28.

Vero News reported on January 30, 2025 that the School Board had approved sixth-grade classes at Fellsmere Elementary and at the Rosewood and Osceola magnet schools, starting in August (Vero News, January 30, 2025). The district's own 2026-2027 Parent Guide sets the end point for the Cypress Street campus as K-8th by 2027-2028 (SDIRC Parent Guide, page 14).

The district confirmed the start on August 28, 2025, in a post naming Pelican Island Classical Magnet, Fellsmere Elementary, Osceola Magnet and Rosewood Magnet as each beginning with sixth grade that school year and expanding one grade level annually until full K-8 implementation (School District of Indian River County, August 28, 2025). By the 2026-27 school year the Fellsmere home page showed Grades PreK-7, one grade short of the goal.

No school choice transfer seats were open at the Fellsmere campus for the 2026-27 year. The district's June 2026 list of school choice openings for 2026-27 showed Fellsmere Academy (K-7) with 0 openings in every grade from kindergarten through grade 7 (SDIRC choice openings, June 2026).

NCES counts 605 students on the Fellsmere campus in the 2024-25 school year, with 34.00 full-time-equivalent classroom teachers and a ratio of 17.79 students per teacher.

Those 2024-25 figures predate sixth grade, so the NCES grade table for Fellsmere Elementary stops at grade 5 (NCES). Grade 4 was the largest class, with 115 students, and prekindergarten the smallest, with 43.

The same NCES record counts 310 boys and 295 girls at the Fellsmere school, and by race and ethnicity 500 Hispanic students, 69 white, 27 Black, 8 of two or more races and 1 Asian. It lists 602 students as eligible for free lunch and 0 for reduced-price lunch, which means about 99.5 percent of the 605 students (602 divided by 605) qualified in 2024-25. The FLDOE 2026 grade file flags the Fellsmere school as Title I and puts its economically disadvantaged share at 100 percent (FLDOE).

The Florida Department of Education graded the Fellsmere school an A for 2025-26, its third A in a row after A grades in 2024 and 2025.

FLDOE posts the results on its school grades page, and its 2026 spreadsheet is dated as of September 1, 2026 (FLDOE file title). The file sets the Fellsmere school's elementary scale at A for 62% of points or greater (FLDOE grading scale note). Fellsmere Elementary School earned 541 points across 8 components, 68 percent of the points possible, with 100 percent of students tested (FLDOE row for Fellsmere). Its component scores were 64 in grade 3 English language arts, 70 in ELA achievement, 70 in ELA learning gains, 70 in ELA gains of the lowest 25 percent, 81 in math achievement, 73 in math gains, 57 in math gains of the lowest 25 percent and 56 in science.

The same Fellsmere row shows how recent the run of A grades is: an informational baseline C in 2023, a B in 2022, and C grades in 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016. The math achievement score of 81 is higher than at Pelican Island, Sebastian Elementary or Treasure Coast Elementary in the same file, while the science score of 56 is the lowest of the six schools below.

Rows for the comparison come from the same FLDOE file: Pelican Island Classical Magnet (row), Sebastian Elementary (row), Treasure Coast Elementary (row), Osceola Magnet (row) and Rosewood Magnet (row). Fellsmere is the only one of the six with every student counted as economically disadvantaged.

In 2026-27 every Fellsmere Academy student is served both breakfast and lunch at no charge, and Fellsmere Academy is the only district school listed for free lunch as well as breakfast.

The district's Notification of Free Meals for 2026-2027 lists Breakfast and Lunch at Fellsmere Academy, and Breakfast ONLY at Pelican Island Classical Magnet, Dodgertown Elementary, Citrus Elementary, Indian River Academy and Vero Beach Elementary, under the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs (SDIRC Notification of Free Meals 2026-2027).

Fellsmere Academy's posted 8:10 am to 2:51 pm day matches the district's Middle School and K-8 bell schedule: start 8:10 a.m., dismissal 2:51 p.m., and modified days from 8:10 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (SDIRC Parent Guide, page 13). That is about 50 minutes earlier than the 9:00 a.m. start the same guide gives elementary schools.

The Fellsmere campus is one of seven district sites with full day VPK of 540 hours, listed in the Parent Guide as Fellsmere Elementary; the guide sets the VPK day at K-8 sites from 8:30am to 2:30pm, says the program does not include transportation or before/after care, and requires a child to be 4 on or before September 1, with applications started through Early Learning Programs at 772-564-6091 (SDIRC Parent Guide, page 42). Extended Day online registration for the Fellsmere school is also listed under its old name, with questions to 772-564-4999 (SDIRC Parent Guide, page 45).

Indian River County lists Fellsmere Academy at 50 N Cypress Street as a Wave 1 shelter for the north county, with a capacity of 490.

The county shelter layer names the Cypress Street school as Fellsmere Academy (formerly Fellsmere Elementary), places it in the North County area and gives it the first opening wave (Indian River County shelter layer). It is the only shelter on that list with a Fellsmere address.

The county's Recreation and Open Space Element also counts the Fellsmere school grounds among school recreation facilities. Appendix D lists Fellsmere Elementary as a School Board site of 10 acres (Indian River County Recreation Element, Appendix D).

Last verified: October 12, 2026, on the Fellsmere Academy and School District of Indian River County websites.