Christa McAuliffe Elementary — Palm Bay, Florida

Christa McAuliffe Elementary sits at 155 Del Mundo St. N.W., Palm Bay, FL 32907, a Brevard Public Schools campus in the northwest quadrant of the city.

The school page lists the main phone as (321) 768-0465 and the fax as (321) 877-0929 (McAuliffe Elementary, Brevard Public Schools). The federal directory gives the same Del Mundo Street address for both mail and the physical campus, records the school as open, regular and not a charter, and assigns NCES School ID 120015002485 and State School ID FL-05-2161 (NCES school detail, McAuliffe). NCES classes the Palm Bay location as City, Midsize.

McAuliffe is one of the elementary schools the City of Palm Bay counts when it tells new residents that Palm Bay has eleven public elementary schools, three middle schools and three high schools (City of Palm Bay new resident information). It shares the 32907 ZIP Code with Heritage High on Malabar Rd NW, Discovery Elementary on Glendale Ave NW and Port Malabar Elementary on Pioneer Ave NE, according to the NCES list of Palm Bay public schools (NCES Palm Bay school list, page 1; page 2).

The McAuliffe Elementary About Us menu carries a McAuliffe Parent Car Loop Route, a School Advisory Council (SAC) page and a page called The McAuliffe Way. Last verified: October 13, 2026, on the Brevard Public Schools website.

McAuliffe Elementary enrolled 687 students from prekindergarten through grade 6 in the 2024-2025 federal count, taught by 50 full-time-equivalent classroom teachers.

NCES reports a grade span of PK to 6 and a student/teacher ratio of 13.74 for the Palm Bay school in 2024-2025 (NCES school detail, McAuliffe). Kindergarten is the largest class at 107 students, and the counts taper toward grade 6, which had 80. The prekindergarten group of 42 lines up with the VPK page listed in the McAuliffe Elementary menu (McAuliffe Elementary).

Boys slightly outnumber girls at McAuliffe, 356 to 331 in the same NCES year. By race and ethnicity, NCES counts 288 White, 173 Hispanic, 153 Black, 63 multiracial and 10 Asian students at the Del Mundo Street campus (NCES enrollment characteristics, McAuliffe). NCES notes that its directory fields are preliminary 2025-2026 data, while membership and staffing come from the official 2024-2025 school file.

Christa McAuliffe Elementary earned a B in Florida's 2025-26 school grades, released as of September 1, 2026, with 61 percent of possible points, one point below the A line.

The state file shows McAuliffe at 61 percent of total possible points with 99 percent of eligible students tested, and a grade of B in 2026, 2025 and 2024 (FLDOE 2025-26 school grades, McAuliffe). Florida's elementary scale, printed at the top of that file, sets an A at 62 percent of points or greater, a B at 54 to 61 percent and a C at 41 to 53 percent (FLDOE grading scale note). The Palm Bay school earned 485 points across 8 components.

Math carried the McAuliffe score: mathematics achievement of 66 and math learning gains of 67 were the two highest components, while science achievement at 51 was the lowest (FLDOE components, McAuliffe). The grade 3 reading component of 66 comes from a rule in Section 1008.34 of the Florida Statutes: schools whose grades include grade 3 are also measured on the share of students who score achievement level 3 or higher on the grade 3 statewide English Language Arts assessment (Florida Statutes s. 1008.34).

McAuliffe Elementary in Palm Bay earned an A in every graded year from 2003 through 2011, slipped to C from 2016 through 2018, and has held a B in every graded year since 2019.

The FLDOE file carries the Palm Bay school's grades back to 1999, a year it earned an A (FLDOE grade history, McAuliffe). After a B in 2000, an A in 2001 and a B in 2002, McAuliffe posted nine straight A grades from 2003 to 2011. The record then turned uneven: B in 2012, C in 2013, A in 2014 and an informational baseline B in 2015.

Three C grades in a row from 2016 to 2018 were the low stretch for McAuliffe. The B in 2019 began the current run, which continued after the gap in the state file for 2020 and 2021, through the 2023 informational baseline and into 2026 (FLDOE grades 2022 to 2026, McAuliffe). Under Section 1008.34, a B marks a school making above average progress and an A one making excellent progress (Florida Statutes s. 1008.34), so the 2026 result leaves the Del Mundo Street school a single percentage point from the top grade.

McAuliffe's 61 percent of points placed it third among Palm Bay's eleven district elementary schools in the 2025-26 state file, behind Riviera Elementary and Port Malabar Elementary, the two Palm Bay elementaries graded A.

Riviera Elementary on Riviera Dr NE earned 72 percent and an A (FLDOE row, Riviera Elementary), and Port Malabar Elementary on Pioneer Ave NE earned 65 percent and an A (FLDOE row, Port Malabar Elementary). At 61 percent, McAuliffe had the highest score among the Palm Bay elementaries that earned a B. NCES lists McAuliffe's 687 students against 718 at Riviera and 628 at Port Malabar in 2024-2025 (NCES Palm Bay school list, page 2).

The McAuliffe ratio of 13.74 students per classroom teacher compares with 19.17 at Southwest Middle School on Eldron Blvd SE in the same NCES year (NCES school detail, Southwest Middle). Elementary schools in Palm Bay run through grade 6 under the NCES spans, and Southwest Middle serves grades 7 and 8.

McAuliffe Elementary lists after-school chorus, strings, Safety Patrols and an Art Club, a VPK program, Title 1 and Purple Star military-family pages, and a federal Title I status confirmed in the 2025-26 state file.

Chorus meets on Wednesdays from 2:30 to 3:30 PM and is open to 4th to 6th grade students, and strings students learn the violin, viola, cello or string bass on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 3:30 PM, according to the McAuliffe Elementary programs list (McAuliffe Elementary programs). Safety Patrols help in various areas of the Palm Bay campus, and the Art Club is open to 4th to 6th grade students. The menus also link a PTO page, Supply Lists, Lunch with Students and the Beanstack reading program.

The state marks McAuliffe as a Title I school and reports 99 percent of its students as economically disadvantaged in the 2025-26 file (FLDOE Title I and economically disadvantaged, McAuliffe). The NCES count for 2024-2025 shows 415 McAuliffe students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, 374 of them for free lunch (NCES lunch eligibility, McAuliffe).

The Palm Bay school carries the name of Sharon Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher to fly in space, chosen from more than 11,000 applicants from the education profession, according to NASA (NASA, the Challenger STS-51L crew). She was aboard Challenger when STS-51L ended 73 seconds after launch from the Kennedy Space Center on January 28, 1986. Educator astronauts Joe Acaba and Ricky Arnold filmed her planned science demonstrations aboard the International Space Station during the 2017-18 school year, and NASA and the Challenger Center present them as Christa's Lost Lessons (NASA, Christa McAuliffe Lost Lessons).