Polk County Public Schools

News Release

Elementary Is Named Title I Distinguished School, Bartow High Cited In BusinessWeek

March 4, 2009

Eastside Elementary Named Title I Distinguished School

Haines City’s Eastside Elementary was one of 14 Florida schools named as a Title I Distinguished School. Eastside received the honor from the National Association of State Title I Directors and the United States Department of Education. There are 1,365 Title I schools in Florida. Title I is a designation for schools with high percentages of students qualifying for free and reduced price school meals.

According to the Florida Department of Education, Eastside received the honor for its performance in the 2007-2008 school year. A letter to the school district from the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) states: “We are recognizing Eastside Elementary School for making the greatest progress in closing the achievement gap in reading and mathematics from 2006-2007 and 2007-2008.”

The letter, sent to the school district from FDOE Commissioner Eric Smith, also said that Distinguished Schools have demonstrated strengths in the following areas:

• Opportunity for all children to meet proficient and advanced levels of academic performance
• Strong professional development
• Coordination with other programs
• Curriculum and instruction to support achievement at high standards
• Partnerships among schools, parents and communities

Bartow High Mentioned In Business Week

Bartow High is named as Florida’s Best Improved high school in a BusinessWeek article titled “America’s Best High Schools.”

GreatSchools, a San-Francisco-based organization, compiled a state-by-state ranking of U.S. high schools for BusinessWeek. For each state, GreatSchools and Business Week identified the best overall academic performing high school, the most improved high school, the best high school serving a low-income population and a public and private high school that were rated the highest by visitors to the GreatSchools Web site.

Bartow High was cited in the rankings as Best Improved. The four other Florida schools cited in the article were from Key Biscayne, Osprey, Pensacola and Seffner.

Click here to see BusinessWeek’s Florida rankings.