Polk County Public Schools
The Mission of Polk County Public Schools is to ensure rigorous, relevant learning experiences that result in high achievement for our students.
In accomplishing this mission, we envision that students in the Polk County Public Schools will effectively:
These desired student outcomes and practices will be fostered and nurtured in schools and classrooms with an environment in which:
In order to effectively accomplish our mission, a Strategic Plan was developed to act as a guide for current and future decisions.
The school district is the eighth-largest in Florida among the largest 40 nationally. Polk has 160 school sites and centers including 65 elementary schools, 19 middle schools and 18 high schools. Also included are charter schools, career centers, adult schools and alternative schools. More than 90,000 students are enrolled. The district is the largest employer in Polk County with nearly 13,000 employees. More than half of those are employed as teachers. The mission of Polk County School Board is to ensure rigorous, relevant learning experiences that result in high achievement.
The School Board of Polk County, Florida, prohibits any and all forms of discrimination and harassment based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, marital status, age, homelessness, or disability or other basis prohibited by law in any of its programs, services, activities or employment. To file concerns, you may contact the Office of Equity & Compliance, Human Resource Services at 863-534-0513.
The general fund portion of the 2008-2009 budget is $ 759.9 million. Approximately 78 cents of every dollar of the general fund goes to teaching, transporting and counseling students. Nineteen cents of every dollar goes to operating and maintaining places of learning. Three cents of every dollar goes to central and fiscal services. The majority of operating revenue sources comes from the state (67 percent) and local sources (33 percent).
Bartow High's International Baccalaureate School was ranked by Newsweek magazine in 2008 as number 183 of the nation's top 1,000 public high schools. Rankings were based on the number of advanced placement or International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students divided by the number of graduating seniors.
The Harrison Center for the Visual and Performing Arts was recently ranked in the top six percent of all secondary art schools by New York's Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, one of the nation's oldest and most distinguished colleges of art.
Polk is ranked 17th in the nation for 45 teachers achieving National Board Certification in 2007 according to a news release issued from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Read the press release here.
FCAT is the state's accountability program for schools and measures student achievement. 95 percent of Polk schools are at or above the state standard with a grade of A, B or C. 59 percent exceed the state standard with a grade of A or B. 65 percent of elementary schools exceed the state standard with a grade of A or B. 100 percent of middle schools are at or above the state standard with a grade of A, B, or C.
Nearly 30,000 community members provided assistance in schools last year as volunteers. More than 1.2 million hours were volunteered.
The student body is approximately 51 percent white, 24 percent black and 22 percent Hispanic. There are more than 10,000 students whose primary language is other than English.
Polk County, with more than 1,850 square miles, uses 550 school buses. Buses transport 50,000 students traveling 52,500 miles daily. That's the equivalent of driving roundtrip from New York to Los Angeles more than eight times.
Page last updated on September 29, 2008.