Lakeland Highlands Middle School, 740 Lake Miriam Drive: grades 6-8, 1,118 students (2024-25), a B in Florida's 2026 school grades. 863-648-3500.
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 and the federal NCES school directory.
Lakeland Highlands Middle School is a Polk County Public Schools middle school on Lake Miriam Drive, “in southwest Lakeland just off South Florida Avenue,” according to its website, and inside the city limits. Established in 1975 and known as Lakeland Highlands Junior High until 1993, it is “one of the largest middle schools in Polk County,” the school says. About 9% of the city addresses we checked for 2026-27 are zoned for it.
Who to call
- Front office: 863-648-3500, 740 Lake Miriam Drive, Lakeland, FL 33813
- School website: lakelandhighlands.polkschoolsfl.com
- Which school am I zoned for? Pupil Accounting, 863-519-7600, option 1, or the Address Zoning tool
- Buses: district Transportation Operations, 863-534-7300; transportation page
| Address | 740 Lake Miriam Drive, Lakeland, FL 33813 |
| Phone | 863-648-3500 |
| Grades | 6 to 8 |
| Acting principal | Jennifer Martinez |
| 2026 state grade | B (63% of points) |
| Mascot | Cougars |
Principal. Jennifer Martinez is the acting principal, according to the school’s staff page.
Enrollment and teachers
- Federal count: 1,118 students in the 2024-25 school year, with 61 full-time-equivalent classroom teachers, according to the NCES directory. That is about 18 students per teacher. The school’s own about page gives “over 1200 students”; it does not say for which year.
State report card
Florida gave Lakeland Highlands Middle a B in its 2026 school grades, with 63% of the points possible, one point below the cutoff for an A, after B’s in 2025 and 2024, 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 (63% of points) |
| English language arts achievement | 61% |
| English language arts learning gains | 59% |
| Math achievement | 63% |
| Math learning gains | 57% |
| Science achievement | 54% |
| Social studies achievement | 78% |
| Middle school acceleration | 86% |
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 middle school, A is 64% of points or more, B is 57% to 63% and C is 44% to 56%, the state’s file says.
Attendance zone and feeder schools
Polk County assigns middle 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 9% were zoned for Lakeland Highlands Middle.
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 Highlands Middle, the elementary zones are Carlton Palmore (50%), Highlands Grove (26%), Valleyview (12%), Cleveland Court (8%) and Southwest Elementary (4%). For high school, the same addresses are zoned for Lakeland High (70%) and Tenoroc High (30%).
Rezoning. The middle school zone did not change for 2026-27 in our sample. The School Board’s Jan. 27, 2026, vote set new boundaries for high schools only, according to the district’s announcement; it changed which high school some of these addresses are zoned for.
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. The school’s website does not publish its bell schedule; call the front office at 863-648-3500.
Programs
The school became a pre-academy in 2012, with tracks in fine arts, video game design, culinary arts, medicine, aviation/engineering/robotics and media design, according to its about page. Students wear uniform shirts by grade: charcoal gray for sixth, red for seventh and black for eighth, the page says.
More on Lakeland schools
- The district’s school listings, with every Polk County school
- Every public school in Lakeland, with zones and report cards
- Our Lakeland schools guide for the full calendar, enrollment steps and School Board meetings
Frequently asked questions
What grades does Lakeland Highlands Middle School serve?
Lakeland Highlands Middle serves grades 6 through 8. It is at 740 Lake Miriam Drive in Lakeland, and its main line is 863-648-3500.
What is Lakeland Highlands Middle School’s Florida school grade?
Lakeland Highlands Middle earned a B in Florida’s 2026 school grades, with 63% of possible points, one point short of an A. It also earned B’s in 2025 and 2024.
Which high school does Lakeland Highlands Middle feed into?
The district zones each grade by address. Among sampled city addresses zoned for Lakeland Highlands Middle, 70% are zoned for Lakeland High and 30% for Tenoroc High for 2026-27.
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