Page 4 - Kay Fields News Today

LAKELAND — Incoming Polk County Public Schools Superintendent Frederick Heid was on the job Wednesday afternoon as he transitions into the position after the School Board voted 5-1 Tuesday night to approve his contract. School Board member Lynn Wilson did not attend the meeting because he is self-quarantining with COVID-19 symptoms. Kay Fields was the lone dissenting vote. Her opposition, she said, was not against Heid — she successfully lobbied her colleagues to vote unanimously for hi...

BARTOW — The Polk County School Board, along with district staff, have a message for voters: “Thank you for renewing the half-cent sales tax in November 2018!”  Without the 15-year tax, they say the school district could not afford to build new schools, modernize old ones and do much-needed improvements on others. The initiative passed 68% to 32%.  As part of the district’s plan to keep people apprised of what the tax is paying for, on Tuesday, Assistant Superintendent for Fa...

LAKELAND — Frederick Heid is ready to bolt from the gate once he begins his tenure as the new Polk County Public Schools superintendent after being unanimously selected Tuesday night by the School Board.  One of his first priorities, he said, is to figure out who to hire for his executive leadership board – one that currently has several openings.  “I need to understand the vacancies and why those vacancies exist,” Heid said in an early morning telephone interview a little more than...

School Board members expressed some reservations about several things in the agreement IDEA Public Schools is one of five charter school companies designated as a “School of Hope” in Florida LAKELAND — Texas-based IDEA Public Schools has approval to open a kindergarten-through-12th-grade school in Lakeland in 2023 after the Polk County School Board unanimously passed the non-profit education company’s performance-based agreement Tuesday evening.  “The last time we were before...

LAKELAND — Polk County Public Schools are in negotiations with the Florida Department of Health’s Polk County office to put school district employees who are 65 or older near the front of the vaccination line.  “We did have some brief conversations about rolling out shots,” Deputy Superintendent John Hill said at Tuesdays School Board workshop in response to a question from School Board member Sarah Fortney. Hill said that he and Associate Superintendent for Human Resources Teddra Po...

Former Lakeland commissioner, husband memorialized in lakeside ceremony Ken Suarez reports LAKELAND, Fla. - Former Lakeland city commissioner Edie Yates and her husband, David Henderson, were remembered during an informal ceremony along the Lake Mirror Promenade Monday night. Their family held a small, socially distanced funeral shortly after the couple was killed last month. The Lake Mirror event was a chance for those who didn’t attend to remember the high-profile couple and give their cond...