The top reported proficiency rate is 28% in English language arts. The lowest is 12% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Mclaughlin Academy of Excellence
McLaughlin Academy of Excellence is a public middle-to-early-high school in Lake Wales, serving grades six through ten. It sits on South Fourth Street, southeast of the historic downtown core, and draws from a community that is in an active growth phase while carrying real economic strain. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school among those serving a high-need population. The student body is racially diverse, with Hispanic students making up the largest group, followed by white and Black students in roughly comparable shares. Data on English learner rates and students with IEPs were not available in the materials we reviewed.
The academic picture, as measured by Florida's FAST assessments in the most recent school year, is one a parent should look at closely. Math proficiency in sixth grade sits in roughly the lower third statewide, and in seventh and eighth grade it falls considerably lower than that. ELA follows a similar pattern: sixth grade is the strongest showing, and seventh and eighth grade results are meaningfully lower. Eighth grade science proficiency, on the statewide assessment, is the most concerning figure across all reported subjects. These are the school's own reported results; they are not a comparison against wealthier districts but a straight reading of where students land against state benchmarks. A parent would be right to ask the school directly how it is addressing these gaps, what intervention or tutoring structures are in place, and what the trajectory looks like from one year to the next. Trend data was not available in what we reviewed, so it is not possible to say whether things are improving.
The school extends to grade ten, which is less common for a school categorized in this grade band. That means some high school coursework is offered on-site, though details on specific course offerings, dual enrollment, or career pathways were not in the data we received.
The Lake Wales context matters for understanding who this school serves. The city is organized around a compact historic core with Olmsted-era bones, a pedestrian-friendly downtown that is being actively rebuilt through a federally funded streetscape project on First Street, Central Avenue, and nearby corridors. New home construction has accelerated sharply in recent years, with a large pipeline of approved residential projects concentrated in the southern and eastern sections of the city. The area's signature employer is Florida's Natural Growers, the citrus cooperative headquartered on US 27, which employs a substantial local workforce. Warner University and Bok Tower Gardens are also present. The housing market here sits well below the Florida statewide median, and the year-over-year trend has softened slightly, which makes the area relatively accessible for buyers by state standards. Renters pay a modest share of income on housing by national norms, though specific local rent figures carry their own variability.
Polk County's public school landscape includes both traditional district schools and a parallel charter school system in Lake Wales itself. McLaughlin Academy of Excellence is a traditional Polk County public school. The comparison set for this school within Polk County was too small to generate a reliable proficiency ranking, so we cannot place it against peer districts in a meaningful way.
No information on chronic absenteeism, discipline data, graduation rate, or staffing ratios was available for this school. Because it serves grades six through ten rather than a full high school span, a graduation rate is not applicable in the standard sense; students completing grade ten here would continue their high school pathway elsewhere, something worth clarifying with the school.
For a family enrolling a sixth or seventh grader, the honest picture is a school in a community with genuine momentum and a diverse student body, set against proficiency results that are well below state norms across tested subjects. The right questions to bring to the school are about specific academic supports, what happens at the grade-ten transition, and what the plan looks like for students who arrive behind grade level.
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