Southwest Elementary, 2650 Southwest Ave.: kindergarten to grade 5, 376 students (2024-25), a B in Florida's 2026 school grades. 863-499-2830.

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

Southwest Elementary is a Polk County Public Schools elementary school on Southwest Avenue, inside the Lakeland city limits. About 7% of the city addresses we checked in the district’s zoning tool for 2026-27 are zoned for it.

Who to call
Address 2650 Southwest Ave., Lakeland, FL 33803
Phone 863-499-2830
Grades Kindergarten to 5
Principal Julie Sloan
2026 state grade B (57% of points)
Mascot Spurs

Principal. Julie Sloan is the principal, according to the school’s staff page.

Enrollment and teachers

  • Federal count: 376 students in the 2024-25 school year, with 31 full-time-equivalent classroom teachers, according to the NCES directory. That is about 12 students per teacher.

State report card

Florida gave Southwest Elementary a B in its 2026 school grades, its third B in a row, with 57% 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 (57% of points)
Grade 3 English language arts achievement 54%
English language arts achievement 55%
English language arts learning gains 57%
Math achievement 51%
Math learning gains 64%
Science achievement 62%

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 an elementary school, A is 62% of points or more, B is 54% to 61% and C is 41% to 53%, the state’s file says.

Attendance zone and feeder schools

Polk County assigns elementary 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 7% were zoned for Southwest Elementary.

Feeder schools. The district does not publish a feeder list; each grade is zoned by address. Among the sampled city addresses zoned for Southwest Elementary, the district’s tool assigns middle school to Southwest Middle (64%), Sleepy Hill Middle (31%) and Lakeland Highlands Middle (5%). For high school, the same addresses are zoned for Lakeland High (64%), George Jenkins High (24%), Tenoroc High (9%) and Kathleen High (3%).

Rezoning. The elementary zone did not change for 2026-27 in our sample. The School Board’s Jan. 27, 2026, vote set new high school boundaries, according to the district’s announcement, and it moved many addresses in this zone: in our sample, about two-thirds switched high schools, most of them to Lakeland High from Kathleen or George Jenkins.

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 first bell rings at 7:50 a.m., the tardy bell at 8 a.m. and dismissal is at 3 p.m., according to the school’s about page. Students who eat breakfast at school need to arrive by 7:45 a.m.; breakfast is not served to students who arrive tardy, the page says.

Programs

The school’s home page calls it a PBIS model school and lists an ITV program.

More on Lakeland schools

Frequently asked questions

What grades does Southwest Elementary serve?

Southwest Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade. It is at 2650 Southwest Ave. in Lakeland, and its main line is 863-499-2830.

What is Southwest Elementary’s school grade?

Southwest Elementary earned a B in Florida’s 2026 school grades, with 57% of possible points, its third B in a row.

Which middle and high school does Southwest Elementary feed into?

The district zones each grade by address. Among sampled city addresses in its zone, 64% are zoned for Southwest Middle and 31% for Sleepy Hill Middle; for high school, 64% are zoned for Lakeland High and 24% for George Jenkins High.

What time does Southwest Elementary start?

The first bell rings at 7:50 a.m., the tardy bell at 8 a.m. and dismissal is at 3 p.m., according to the school’s website.