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 almost 160 school sites and centers including 65 elementary schools, 19 middle schools and 16 high schools. Also included are charter schools, career centers, adult schools and alternative schools. Nearly 95,000 students are enrolled. The district is the largest employer in Polk County with more than 12,000 employees. About 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 general fund portion of the 2007-2008 budget is $ 798.4 million. Approximately 82 cents of every dollar of the general fund goes to teaching, transporting and counseling students. Fifteen 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 (63 percent) and local sources (24 percent).
Bartow High's International Baccalaureate School was ranked by Newsweek magazine in 2007 as number 167 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 December 3 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. 93 percent of Polk schools are at or above the state standard with a grade of A, B or C. Two thirds of Polk schools, 68 percent, exceed the state standard with a grade of A or B. 82 percent of elementary schools exceed the state standard with a grade of A or B. 95 percent of middle schools are at or above the state standard with a grade of A, B, or C.
Nearly 28,000 community members provided assistance in schools last year as volunteers. More than 1.1 million hours were volunteered.
The student body is approximately 52 percent white, 23 percent black and 22 percent Hispanic. There are more than 8,000 students whose primary language is other than English.
Polk County, with more than 1,850 square miles, uses 550 school buses. Buses transport more than 47,000 students traveling 45,000 miles daily. That's the equivalent of driving roundtrip from New York to Los Angeles more than six times.
Page last updated on November 5, 2007.