Language & Literacy Academy for Learning, Winter Haven FL

Original Research by School Decision on Language & Literacy Academy for Learning

Language and Literacy Academy for Learning is a charter special education school in Winter Haven, Florida, serving students from pre-kindergarten through grade twelve. Its identity is defined by its population and its purpose: this is not a general-enrollment school that happens to have a special education program. It is a school built entirely around students who carry significant language and literacy disabilities, and that context shapes everything a parent needs to understand before reading any number on this page.

The school serves a relatively small student body spread across a wide grade span, which means individual grade levels and classrooms tend to be very small by design. Nearly all enrolled students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing this among the most economically disadvantaged student bodies in any school setting. The student population is multiracial, with Hispanic students making up the largest share, followed by Black students and white students. IEP and English learner rates were not reported in the data available to us, which is worth noting for a special education school where those figures would normally be central to understanding the student body. A parent would be well served to ask the school directly for that breakdown.

State assessment results are reported across grades three through eight in reading, math, and science. Across nearly every tested grade and subject, proficiency rates are very low, with most grades showing only a small fraction of students reaching the state's proficiency threshold and several grades showing none at all. A parent encountering those numbers cold might read them as a sign of academic failure, and that framing would be wrong. Florida's FAST and statewide science assessments are designed around grade-level content expectations for the general student population. Students enrolled here have been identified with language and literacy disabilities significant enough to require a specialized school setting, which means standard proficiency benchmarks measure something different than they do at a neighborhood school. The scores reflect the depth of the students' starting challenges as much as anything else. What those numbers cannot tell you is how much individual students are growing, what the school's therapeutic and instructional approach accomplishes for a given child, or how outcomes compare to similar specialized settings elsewhere in Florida. Those are the questions worth pressing on the school directly.

No graduation rate data was available in what we received, and no information about course offerings, AP or dual-enrollment access, career pathways, or staffing ratios was present in the data. A district brief for the Polk County school system was searched but yielded no confirmed recent changes relevant to parents. The neighbor comparison framework noted that the comparison pool across Polk County was too small to produce a meaningful proficiency index ranking, so no such positioning is available here.

Winter Haven sits within the Lakeland-Winter Haven metro area. Publicly reported employer information points to a local economy anchored in retail, healthcare, banking, logistics, and tourism, with Publix, Legoland Florida, a regional hospital system, and a locally headquartered bank among the named employers in the area. Housing in the zip code around the school has seen a modest year-over-year decline in values and sits well below the Florida state benchmark, which makes the area comparatively accessible for buyers. Rents have edged slightly upward but remain below the state average, and the rent-to-income ratio in the area sits at a level that most financial guidance would consider manageable. Those conditions may matter to families relocating to access this specialized program from elsewhere in the state.

The core question for any family considering this school is not how it performs relative to general-enrollment schools. It is whether its specific approach to language and literacy instruction matches what a particular child needs. The data available here is thin on program detail, so a visit and a direct conversation with staff about methodology, caseloads, IEP processes, and transition planning for older students would be the most productive next step.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

Not publicly reportedCohort of 3 students · Class of 2021

The federal source does not publish a graduation rate for cohorts this small. The cohort size is shown for context.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

867 schools plotted. 183 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Math

Grade 30%

School 0% · District 53% · ▼ 53 pts below district

▼ 63 pts below state median · ▼ 51 pts below county median

Grade 410%

School 10% · District 53% · ▼ 43 pts below district

▼ 51 pts below state median · ▼ 40 pts below county median

Grade 510%

School 10% · District 46% · ▼ 36 pts below district

▼ 45 pts below state median · ▼ 34 pts below county median

Grade 60%

School 0% · District 50% · ▼ 50 pts below district

▼ 62 pts below state median · ▼ 48 pts below county median

Grade 70%

School 0% · District 33% · ▼ 33 pts below district

▼ 49 pts below state median · ▼ 33 pts below county median

Grade 824%

School 24% · District 37% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 35%

School 5% · District 50% · ▼ 45 pts below district

▼ 51 pts below state median · ▼ 44 pts below county median

Grade 420%

School 20% · District 47% · ▼ 27 pts below district

▼ 34 pts below state median · ▼ 24 pts below county median

Grade 510%

School 10% · District 47% · ▼ 37 pts below district

▼ 44 pts below state median · ▼ 35 pts below county median

Grade 614%

School 14% · District 53% · ▼ 38 pts below district

▼ 46 pts below state median · ▼ 38 pts below county median

Grade 74%

School 4% · District 46% · ▼ 42 pts below district

▼ 51 pts below state median · ▼ 40 pts below county median

Grade 80%

School 0% · District 44% · ▼ 43 pts below district

▼ 54 pts below state median · ▼ 41 pts below county median

Science

Grade 520%

School 20% · District 45% · ▼ 25 pts below district

▼ 33 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 80%

School 0% · District 36% · ▼ 36 pts below district

▼ 46 pts below state median · ▼ 30 pts below county median

This schoolPOLK, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.