About Our School

General Information

Our History

Built in 1999, Sandhill Elementary was established to meet the growing educational needs for students on the ridge in Polk County. The school name and mascot comes from the Sandhill Cranes, large birds that inhabit Northeast Polk County. A pair of Cranes often make Sandhill their home, and students and staff alike are delighted when a crane chick joins them! Situated among the fruitful orange groves, Sandhill is a large campus that increased in size in 2007, when an additional building of classrooms was constructed. Sandhill Elementary encompasses and serves a large population of students from the surrounding areas of Haines City, Dundee, Lake Wales, Lake Hamilton, and Poinciana.

What Makes Us Different?

Sandhill Elementary is an innovative school, touting the only Dual Language program in any Polk County School. Students are immersed in English and Spanish beginning in Kindergarten and continuing through 5^th grade. Our Dual Language approach allows students who are not currently fluent in Spanish to learn it as a second language while still accessing curriculum in their home language of English.

Sandhill Elementary is proud of our innovative Library! Our Librarian is consistently searching out new titles that will interest our budding and fluent readers alike. We place a strong emphasis on being a striving reader and have the highest Library circulation rate in our district!

At Sandhill, we are proud of our staff and how they reach out to our surrounding community and families. Our staff are recognized by Polk County Schools as exceptional because of our community outreach. In the 2018-2019 school year one of our staff members earned the high honor of School Related Employee of the Year for our District. Most recently, one of our staff members was recognized as a School Related Employee of the Year District finalist in the 2020-2021 school year.

Our school mascot, the Sandhill CRANE, is an essential part of our unique school culture. We begin every day with reciting our CRANE pledge:

I am a member of the Sandhill Family

I am productive

I allow others to be productive

I respect others and their property

And I will do my best today!