PHILIP O'BRIEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

PHILIP O'BRIEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is an elementary campus of mid-tier scale in LAKELAND, Florida, part of POLK, teacheing 625 students in grades pre-K through 5.

POLK runs 163 schools in total, collectively educating 116,552 students. PHILIP O'BRIEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is one of those campuses.

For racial and ethnic makeup, PHILIP O'BRIEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL logs that 37% of students identify as Hispanic, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. Other groups include 31% White, 26% Black, 5% multiracial. By comparison, Polk County as a whole is about 29% Hispanic, so the school skews noticeably more Hispanic than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, PHILIP O'BRIEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL lists 31 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 20.2:1. The state averages around 17.5:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. About 80% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, Polk County runs at roughly 65%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully above the surrounding baseline.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), PHILIP O'BRIEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 40.9%; this one delivers 29.7%.

In the surrounding community, the surrounding county (Polk County) shows that the typical household earns roughly $65,978 per year, 24% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 11%. PHILIP O'BRIEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is one of 172 public schools in Polk County (combined enrollment of about 117,004 students).

PACE CENTER FOR GIRLS is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.2 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 8 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), PHILIP O'BRIEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ranks 8th on composite proficiency, behind the local average of 62.0%.

The campus sits in a metropolitan setting.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at PHILIP O'BRIEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL has shrank 6%, going from 667 students in 2018 to 625 in 2025. Hispanic enrollment moved from 29% to 37% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio rose from 16.3:1 in 2018 to 20.2:1 today.

On this page, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.