Coral Reef Senior High School placed 37th in Florida and 371st nationally in U.S. News & World Report's 2026-27 Best High Schools rankings, released Aug. 21.

The ranking arrives as families in Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay start a school year marked by shrinking budgets across the district. As we reported Aug. 29, Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) trimmed budgets at 80% of its campuses. Traditional public school enrollment districtwide has fallen from 352,000 in 2006-07 to about 217,000 for the 2026-27 school year.

State Ranking Fell Eight Spots From Last Year

Coral Reef's state placement slipped eight spots from its No. 29 Florida ranking in 2025. The national numbers are harder to compare: U.S. News evaluated 27,267 schools this cycle, according to the district's announcement.

Magnet School Pulls Students From Its Home Attendance Zone

The magnet school opened in the late 1990s inside the Killian Senior High attendance boundary and remains one of the most sought-after campuses in South Dade. The Miami Herald reported Aug. 29 that Coral Reef, TERRA Environmental Research Institute and Palmetto Senior High each enroll more students from Killian's boundary than Killian itself. All three are operating at or above capacity.

Six Miami-Dade Schools Crack the National Top 100

Across the district, six Miami-Dade high schools cracked the national top 100, second only to Maricopa County, Arizona, which had eight. Five are M-DCPS-run schools: MAST @ FIU (No. 31 nationally), José Martí MAST 6-12 (No. 55), iPreparatory Academy (No. 86), TERRA Environmental Research Institute (No. 87) and Design and Architecture Senior High (No. 96). The sixth, charter school Archimedean Upper Conservatory, ranked 39th nationally, the Herald reported.

Fifteen M-DCPS high schools landed in Florida's top 50.

How the Rankings Are Calculated

U.S. News weights six criteria: college readiness (30%), state assessment proficiency (20%), state assessment performance (20%), underserved student performance (10%), college curriculum breadth (10%) and graduation rate (10%). The Herald noted the rankings are imprecise and don't fully reflect everything students and parents weigh when choosing a school.

Coral Reef's Business Academy Earns National Recognition

Coral Reef picked up a separate honor this year. Its Academy of Business and Finance received the Academy of Excellence Award, the highest distinction from NAF (formerly the National Academy Foundation), according to the district.