Charter Schools — Palm Bay, Florida

Six public charter schools carry Palm Bay addresses in the federal school directory: Odyssey Charter, Odyssey Preparatory, Palm Bay Academy, Royal Palm, and two Pineapple Cove Classical Academy campuses.

The NCES public school search for Palm Bay lists Odyssey Charter School at 1755 Eldron Blvd SE, Odyssey Preparatory Charter Academy at 1350 Wyoming Dr SE, Palm Bay Academy Charter School at 2112 Palm Bay Road NE and Pineapple Cove Classical Academy at 6162 Minton Road NW (NCES, Palm Bay page 1). The second page adds Pineapple Cove Classical Academy at Lockmar, 720 Emerson Drive NE, and Royal Palm Charter School on Babcock Street NE at number 7145 (NCES, Palm Bay page 2).

The City of Palm Bay gives a smaller count. Its new resident page says Palm Bay has three charter schools, without naming them (City of Palm Bay new resident information). The federal list is the one that names and counts each Palm Bay campus, so this page follows NCES and notes the city figure. A third Pineapple Cove campus, at 3455 Norfolk Pkwy in West Melbourne, serves KG to 11 with 832 students and sits outside Palm Bay (NCES, Pineapple Cove search).

Two Palm Bay charters run from kindergarten through grade 12, Odyssey Charter and the Minton Road Pineapple Cove campus, three stop at grade 8 and Odyssey Preparatory stops at grade 5.

Together the six Palm Bay charter campuses enrolled 4,877 students in the 2024-2025 federal count (1,917 plus 1,065 plus 724 plus 462 plus 370 plus 339). Odyssey Charter on Eldron Blvd SE is the largest by far, with 93.50 full-time-equivalent classroom teachers and a ratio of 20.50 students per teacher (NCES school detail, Odyssey Charter). Its classes shrink in the upper grades: NCES counts 236 seventh graders but 157 ninth graders and 88 twelfth graders.

Odyssey Preparatory Charter Academy, the elementary campus on Wyoming Dr SE in Palm Bay, had 462 students, 29.00 full-time-equivalent teachers and a ratio of 15.93 (NCES school detail, Odyssey Preparatory). NCES marks both Odyssey campuses Charter: Yes and lists them under the Brevard district.

In the 2025-26 Florida school grades, Odyssey Charter and Pineapple Cove Classical Academy each earned an A with 68 percent of points; Lockmar, Odyssey Preparatory and Royal Palm earned a B; Palm Bay Academy earned a C at 47 percent.

The state released the Palm Bay results as of September 1, 2026 (FLDOE 2025-26 school grades). Most of these campuses are graded as combination schools, where an A takes 65 percent of points and a B 60 to 64 percent; Odyssey Preparatory is graded as an elementary, where a B runs from 54 to 61 percent (FLDOE grading scale). Odyssey Preparatory's 61 percent sat one point below the elementary A line (FLDOE, Odyssey Preparatory).

The two Palm Bay charters that run through grade 12 also carry high school components. Odyssey Charter posted a 2024-25 graduation rate of 99 and a college and career acceleration score of 69, with 810 points over 12 components (FLDOE, Odyssey Charter). Pineapple Cove Classical Academy on Minton Road posted a graduation rate of 97 and acceleration of 64, with 814 points over 12 components (FLDOE, Pineapple Cove).

Pineapple Cove at Lockmar earned 64 percent, one point short of an A (FLDOE, Lockmar), and Royal Palm on Babcock Street earned 61 percent (FLDOE, Royal Palm). Palm Bay Academy on Palm Bay Road scored 47 percent, inside the 45 to 59 percent C band for combination schools (FLDOE, Palm Bay Academy).

Palm Bay Academy and Odyssey Charter both have state grades back to 2003; Palm Bay Academy has been graded C or D since 2018, while Odyssey Charter has earned three straight A grades.

Palm Bay Academy earned an A in every year from 2003 through 2014 except a B in 2011 (FLDOE, Palm Bay Academy 2002 to 2014). It was graded C in 2022, D in the 2023 informational baseline and C again in 2024, 2025 and 2026 (FLDOE, Palm Bay Academy 2022 to 2026). Odyssey Charter went from an A in 2021 to B in 2022 and 2023, then back to A from 2024 through 2026 (FLDOE, Odyssey Charter 2021 to 2026).

The younger Palm Bay campuses started lower and climbed. Odyssey Preparatory's first grade in the file is an F in 2014, followed by C in 2015 and 2016 and B in 2017 (FLDOE, Odyssey Preparatory); it has held a B since 2023. Pineapple Cove Classical Academy on Minton Road opened its record with a C in 2016, then earned an A in each graded year from 2017 through 2021 and a B in 2022 (FLDOE, Pineapple Cove), with A grades since. The Lockmar campus on Emerson Drive has a B in each of its four graded years, 2023 to 2026 (FLDOE, Lockmar), and Royal Palm moved up to B in 2026 after C grades in 2023, 2024 and 2025 (FLDOE, Royal Palm).

Palm Bay charter schools are tuition-free, nonsectarian public schools under Florida's charter law, and an oversubscribed campus must admit by random selection (Florida charter school law).

Under section 1002.33 a Palm Bay charter may not charge tuition or registration fees beyond those normally charged by other public schools, and it must be nonsectarian in its programs, admission policies, employment practices and operations.

Section 1002.33 lets a district school board sponsor a charter school in its own county, and NCES lists both Odyssey campuses in Palm Bay under the Brevard district. When applications at a Palm Bay charter exceed the capacity of a program, class, grade level or building, the statute requires that all applicants have an equal chance of admission through a random selection process.

The same law allows enrollment preferences, so a lottery at Odyssey, Pineapple Cove or Royal Palm does not start every family on equal footing. A charter school may give preference to siblings of enrolled students and to children of members of its governing board, among other groups named in section 1002.33 (Florida Statutes s. 1002.33). Palm Bay's six campuses are a small share of a large state sector: the Florida Department of Education counts over 739 charter schools in 2025-2026, with charter enrollment topping 408,481 students (FLDOE, Charter Schools).

Three Palm Bay charters are Title I in the 2025-26 state file, Odyssey Charter, Odyssey Preparatory and Palm Bay Academy, while both Pineapple Cove campuses and Royal Palm are not.

The share of economically disadvantaged students varies widely across Palm Bay charters. Palm Bay Academy on Palm Bay Road reports 98.2 percent (FLDOE, Palm Bay Academy), Odyssey Preparatory 76.4 percent and Odyssey Charter 65.3 percent. Royal Palm reports 63.9 percent without the Title I flag. The two Pineapple Cove campuses report the lowest shares, 40.5 percent at Lockmar and 25.2 percent at the Minton Road school (FLDOE, Pineapple Cove).

Those figures line up with the Palm Bay grade table: the campuses with the smallest economically disadvantaged shares, Pineapple Cove on Minton Road and Lockmar, are graded A and B, while Palm Bay Academy, with the highest share, is the only Palm Bay charter graded C in 2026. Last verified: October 13, 2026, on the National Center for Education Statistics website.