Lakeland High School, 726 Hollingsworth Road: grades 9-12, 1,985 students (2024-25), a B in Florida's 2026 school grades. 863-499-2900.

Last checked Oct. 9, 2026. Sources: Polk County Public Schools, its Address Zoning tool and school zones page, the school’s website, the Florida Department of Education’s 2026 school grades, the federal NCES school directory and the Florida High School Athletic Association.

Lakeland High School is the Polk County Public Schools high school on Hollingsworth Road, inside the city limits. More of Lakeland is zoned for it than for any other high school: about 43% of the city addresses we checked in the district’s zoning tool for 2026-27.

Who to call
Address 726 Hollingsworth Road, Lakeland, FL 33801
Phone 863-499-2900
Grades 9 to 12
Principal Alain Douge
2026 state grade B (62% of points)
Mascot Dreadnaughts

Principal. Alain Douge is the principal, according to the school’s staff page.

The school traces its history to 1898, its website says, and its 1927 building on North Florida Avenue now houses Lawton Chiles Middle Academy. Harrison School for the Arts is at 750 Hollingsworth Road, and its students take their academic classes through Lakeland High, Harrison’s site says.

Enrollment and teachers

  • Federal count: 1,985 students in the 2024-25 school year, with 103 full-time-equivalent classroom teachers, according to the NCES directory. That is about 19 students per teacher.

State report card

Florida gave Lakeland High a B in its 2026 school grades, its third B in a row, with 62% of the points possible, according to the Florida Department of Education’s 2026 school grades file. The school’s state report card has results by student group; it is an interactive dashboard that could not be read for this page.

2026 school grade measure Result
School grade B (62% of points)
English language arts achievement 64%
English language arts learning gains 61%
Math achievement 37%
Math learning gains 44%
Science achievement 70%
Social studies achievement 74%
Graduation rate, 2024-25 95%
College and career acceleration, 2024-25 71%

Florida grades schools A to F on the share of possible points earned across these measures. Achievement is the share of tested students on grade level; learning gains is the share who improved from the year before. For a high school, A is 65% of points or more, B is 60% to 64% and C is 45% to 59%, the state’s file says.

Attendance zone and feeder schools

Polk County assigns high schools by home address. We ran a random sample of 1,817 current address points from the City of Lakeland’s address layer through the district’s Address Zoning tool for 2026-27. About 43% were zoned for Lakeland High, against 28% for Kathleen, 16% for Tenoroc, 8% for George Jenkins and 6% for Lake Gibson.

Feeder schools. The district does not publish a feeder list; each grade is zoned by address, and the zones are not nested. Among the sampled city addresses zoned for Lakeland High, the district’s tool assigns middle school to Southwest Middle (48%), Crystal Lake Middle (27%), Lakeland Highlands Middle (14%) and Sleepy Hill Middle (11%). The most common elementary zones for those addresses are Philip O’Brien, Dixieland, Carlton Palmore, Cleveland Court and Southwest.

Rezoning. The Polk County School Board approved new high school attendance boundaries on Jan. 27, 2026, effective with the 2026-27 school year, the district announced. Students already enrolled at a high school may stay there, with bus service if eligible; rising freshmen enroll at their new zoned school. In our sample, Lakeland High’s share of city addresses rose from 39% under the 2025-26 zones to 43%, mostly addresses that had been zoned for Kathleen or George Jenkins; some addresses moved the other way, from Lakeland High to Kathleen.

Check any address on the district’s GeoZone map for 2026-27.

Calendar and bell times

From the district’s 2026-27 calendar (PDF), which the district labels tentative:

  • Friday, Oct. 16: no school for students
  • Friday, Oct. 30: early dismissal
  • Wednesday, Nov. 11: Veterans Day, no school
  • Nov. 23-27: fall break
  • Monday, Dec. 21: winter break begins; students return Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2027

Bell times. School hours are 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., with the first bell at 6:55 a.m. and dismissal at 2 p.m., according to the school’s about page.

Sports and activities

In football, Lakeland plays in Class 5A, Region 2, District 6 for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 seasons, with Auburndale, Bartow, Lake Gibson, Osceola (Kissimmee) and Sebring, according to the Florida High School Athletic Association’s finalized football classifications (spreadsheet).

Home games are at Bryant Stadium, and Thomas Sasser is athletic director, according to the school’s athletics page. Athletes need the FHSAA’s EL2 and EL3 forms on file and three online courses (concussions, heat-related issues and sudden cardiac arrest) before conditioning, the page says. Follow the season on our Friday night football page and scoreboard.

Programs. The school lists four academies (Veterinary Academy, Style! LHS Fashion Academy, Multimedia Communication Academy and Fine Arts Academy) and JROTC on its home page.

More on Lakeland schools

Frequently asked questions

What grades does Lakeland High School serve?

Lakeland High serves grades 9 through 12. It is at 726 Hollingsworth Road, and its main line is 863-499-2900.

What is Lakeland High School’s Florida school grade?

Lakeland High earned a B in Florida’s 2026 school grades, with 62% of possible points, its third B in a row. Its 2024-25 graduation rate was 95%.

How much of Lakeland is zoned for Lakeland High?

In our sample of city addresses run through the district’s 2026-27 zoning tool, 43% were zoned for Lakeland High, the largest share of any high school, up from 39% before the 2026 high school rezoning.

What time does Lakeland High start?

School hours are 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., with the first bell at 6:55 a.m., according to the school’s website.