Polk County’s school superintendent calls the district’s “B” grade an “affirmation” for his employees.
“It really does a lot to reinforce and reinvigorate our workforce,” Superintendent Frederick Heid said.
After receiving “C” grades since the pandemic, the district earned a “B” from the Florida Department of Education, which uses a grading system based on graduation rates, test results and other factors.
“There is no way to teach to the test, but we can make sure that our students get exposed to the level of rigor and the content that the benchmarks outline,” Heid said.
Other grades in Tampa Bay:
- Hillsborough County: B
- Pinellas County: A
- Pasco County: B
- Citrus County: B
- DeSoto County: C
- Hardee County: B
- Hernando County: B
- Highlands County: B
- Manatee County: B
- Sarasota County: A
Heid said, in order to receive an “A”, Polk County needs to get better at one subject specifically.
“Right now, what our data indicates is that we really need to focus on 9th-grade math. We’ve got to focus on algebra. We’ve got to focus on geometry,” Heid said.
While proud of the “B” grade, school board member Lisa Miller said individual school grades should not be looked at as a “final read” of the school.
“From our hospital homebound to our juvenile justice programs, all of those scores matter,” Miller said. “No matter the ability of the child or the circumstances, we take all kids and I’m most proud of that because it shows what it takes to raise expectations for all kids and outcomes.”
While some schools received a lower grade, 14 traditional schools in the Polk County system improved their grades over the last year, according to the school district.
In addition to addressing math scores, absenteeism and working with parents, Heid said the district also needs to provide more competitive wages for teachers.
“I’m proud of the hard work that our educators do every day and the learning that our students do every day,” said Stephanie Yocum, president of the Polk Education Association, the teachers’ union.
To Yocum, work in the classroom is more important than a grade from the state.
“The state could arbitrarily move these benchmarks next year and then all of a sudden, Polk could be a ‘D’ or Polk could be an ‘A’. It really is so arbitrary because the state sets these metrics every year,” Yocum said.
“It doesn’t tell the story of the teacher and knowing every family and the social worker and the kids going from our senior classes to boot camp or to Ivy League schools. It doesn’t tell the depth of who we serve,” said Miller.
Graduation rates in Polk County increased from 78% to 83%, according to state data.