Southwest Middle School, 2815 Eden Parkway: grades 6-8, 746 students (2024-25), a C in Florida's 2026 school grades. 863-499-2840.

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.

Southwest Middle School is a Polk County Public Schools middle school on Eden Parkway, inside the Lakeland city limits. Founded in 1956 as a junior high that included ninth grade, it became a grade 6-8 middle school in 1992, its website says. It is zoned for about 27% of the city addresses we checked for 2026-27, the second-largest share of any middle school after Sleepy Hill.

Who to call
Address 2815 Eden Parkway, Lakeland, FL 33803
Phone 863-499-2840
Grades 6 to 8
Principal Jason Looney
2026 state grade C (54% of points)
Mascot Seminoles

Principal. Jason Looney is the principal, according to the school’s staff page.

Enrollment and teachers

  • Federal count: 746 students in the 2024-25 school year, with 32 full-time-equivalent classroom teachers, according to the NCES directory. That is about 23 students per teacher.

State report card

Florida gave Southwest Middle a C in its 2026 school grades, its third C in a row, with 54% 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 C (54% of points)
English language arts achievement 48%
English language arts learning gains 54%
Math achievement 46%
Math learning gains 54%
Science achievement 38%
Social studies achievement 69%
Middle school acceleration 79%

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 27% were zoned for Southwest 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 Southwest Middle, the elementary zones are mostly Dixieland (26%), Cleveland Court (19%), Southwest Elementary (17%), R. Bruce Wagner (13%) and Carlton Palmore (12%). For high school, the same addresses are zoned for Lakeland High (76%), Kathleen High (13%) and George Jenkins High (11%).

Rezoning. Southwest Middle’s zone did not change for 2026-27 in our sample. The School Board’s Jan. 27, 2026, rezoning set new boundaries for high schools only, according to the district’s announcement.

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 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; on early-dismissal days students leave at 1:30 p.m., according to the school’s about page.

Programs

The school’s home page says it has five pre-academies that prepare students for high school, a pre-academy kitchen classroom for culinary students and five intramural sports teams.

More on Lakeland schools

Frequently asked questions

What grades does Southwest Middle School serve?

Southwest Middle serves grades 6 through 8. It is at 2815 Eden Parkway in Lakeland, and its main line is 863-499-2840.

What is Southwest Middle School’s Florida school grade?

Southwest Middle earned a C in Florida’s 2026 school grades, with 54% of possible points, its third C in a row.

Which high school does Southwest Middle feed into?

The district zones each grade by address. Among sampled city addresses zoned for Southwest Middle, 76% are zoned for Lakeland High, 13% for Kathleen High and 11% for George Jenkins High.

What time does Southwest Middle start?

School hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with early dismissal at 1:30 p.m., according to the school’s website.