Polk County Public Schools
The Polk County Public Schools were one of six Florida school districts chosen to present at Florida’s Education Summit and 18th Annual Sterling Conference held June 1 to 4 in Orlando. The summit and conference brought together educators throughout Florida and the nation to share best practices and benchmarks. School districts presented about innovative programs and processes implemented in their schools.
The title of Polk’s presentation was “Interactive Data Evaluation Assessment System (IDEAS) – From Data To Classroom Teacher.” The presentation, given by Associate Superintendent Sherrie Nickell, Ed.D., was about how Polk is using data to bolster academic achievement. Dr. Nickell presented about the topic on June 1. IDEAS is a collaboration between the school district’s Department of Assessment, Accountability and Evaluation and the Department of Information Systems and Technology. A panel of Education Summit judges reviewed IDEAS and selected Polk to present.
In addition to Polk, the Florida school districts of Hillsborough, Lee, Miami-Dade, Pinellas and Volusia presented about various topics. Florida has 67 school districts. Florida Virtual Schools also presented at the summit.
The Education Summit was sponsored by the Florida Lottery and was coordinated by the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Sterling Council.
The school district’s www.polk-fl.net Web site was voted sixth best nationwide in a 2010 contest that evaluated school district Web sites. The contest was coordinated by the Kansas-based All of E Solutions organization.
The contest generated more than 1,400 nominations from across the country. All of E then selected 15 Web sites as finalists for the title of best school district Web site. Polk was the only Florida school district to make the final 15. Other finalists were school districts in Delaware, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas.
Members of the public then voted for their favorite school district Web site during a four-day period in April. Polk tallied the sixth-highest number of votes among the final 15. The national winner was a school district in Texas. Click here to view final standings.
Criteria for contest included good design practices, clear, concise and complete content and the ability of a Web site to fulfill an audience’s needs.
