Schools
OCPS has used an attendance model of Kindergarten through Grade 5 for elementary schools, Grades 6–8 for middle school and Grades 9–12 for high school since 1988. Before then, Grade 6 was part of elementary school and Grade 9 was part of middle school (called Junior High in OCPS prior to 1988). As now required by Florida law, virtually all elementary schools have Pre-Kindergarten programs.
OCPS has 178 regular-attendance schools as of the 2009–10 school year: 125 elementary, 34 middle and 19 high. Three of the middle schools are really K–8 schools, but are classified by OCPS as middle schools. In addition, one high school (Lake Nona High) currently houses middle school students as well. The district also has an adult education system with six dedicated campuses and night classes at most high schools, four dedicated special education schools as well as a hospital/homebound program, and dozens of alternative education centers, including charter schools. Six of the high schools in OCPS have separate ninth-grade centers, three of them off-site of the main campus, built after the shift from K–6/7–9/10–12 to K–5/6–8/9–12. One more elementary schools is scheduled to open for the 2010–11 school year.
The schools of OCPS are divided into six areas called Learning Communities: North, East, West, Southeast, Southwest and Central. Central was known as the "Urban Cohort" until 2005. Southeast and Southwest were split from a larger South Learning Community in 2006.
The district is in an aggressive expansion and school improvement project being fueled by a 0.5% sales tax option passed by the voters of Orange County in 2002. Skyrocketing land and materials costs, however, has outpaced faster-than-expected sales tax revenue increases and slowed progress. Many projects have been pushed back, and some have been cancelled altogether. The district is currently working on extending the half-penny option tax in 2012, when it is set to expire.
Most paperwork distributed to students and parents by OCPS is available in both English and Spanish. Many such documents are also available in Portuguese, Vietnamese and Haitian Creole, due to the significant populations in Orange County that speak each language.
Read more about this topic: Orange County Public Schools
Famous quotes containing the word schools:
“Absolute catholicity of taste is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“To be a Negro is to participate in a culture of poverty and fear that goes far deeper than any law for or against discrimination.... After the racist statutes are all struck down, after legal equality has been achieved in the schools and in the courts, there remains the profound institutionalized and abiding wrong that white America has worked on the Negro for so long.”
—Michael Harrington (1928–1989)
“If Jesus, or his likeness, should now visit the earth, what church of the many which now go by his name would he enter? Or, if tempted by curiosity, he should incline to look into all, which do you think would not shut the door in his face?... It seems to me ... that as one who loved peace, taught industry, equality, union, and love, one towards another, Jesus were he alive at this day, would recommend you to come out of your churches of faith, and to gather into schools of knowledge.”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)