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Educational Environment

K-12

Public school performance breaks down on a county-by-county basis in some possibly surprising ways.

  • Lee County ranks 6 out out of 10. There is a wide variance in individual school rankings. If you go to the list, “ALC” in the name stands for “Alternative Learning Center.”  Most of the Cape Coral and the Pine Island schools are at a 7 or above.  The Fort Myers schools run the gamut from 2 or 3 to a coveted 10 for Fort Myers High School. The County employs a busing system, which means that you would not necessarily be locked into a poorly performing school. However, these statistics make it pretty clear you’d want to look carefully at the schools if this is important to you.  There are a number of private schools, too.
  • Collier County ranks 6 out of 10. As with Lee County, the scores for individual schools are all over the place, with most between 3 and 6. The county has a large number of private schools, which do not show up in these rankings. As with Lee County, look carefully at the schools if this is important to you.

I think the large number of private schools in Lee and Collier counties may have the effect of siphoning off some of the better students.

Objectively rating private schools is difficult. A large number of these schools are religiously affiliated, possibly coloring a parent’s evaluation (which might be where you’d look first) of their child’s academic achievement; some of these schools are academically outstanding, some aren’t.

Here are a few suggestions on choosing a school, either public or private:

  • Interview several schools. Listen carefully to what they tell you. If the private school does not seem to place academic achievement as a high priority, this might not be the best choice.
  • Be observant when you visit. Are the students polite? Do they seem happy? Nervous? How are they dressed (sloppy, neat)? How do they interact with one another? Speak to some of them, if you can do it without being intrusive (ask directions or something). Notice how they respond. Peer pressure being what it is, eventually your own child is going to look like these kids if you enroll him/her here.  Is that what you want?
  • A good test at the high school level is to determine the college admission rate for its graduates. The school would have  hard time fudging that.
  • Also take a look at the suggestions here.

Post Secondary Education

There are two state-supported, four-year colleges in Southwest Florida:

The main campuses of both are located in Fort Myers; however, ESC  maintains satellite campuses in Charlotte, Collier, Hendry, and Glades counties as well.

  • ESC began as a community college, offering associate degrees in a variety of vocations. It is now a four-year institution offering degrees in education (with emphasis on the academic specialty to be taught), business, nursing, and public safety. It still offers a wide range of associate degrees in a number of vocational fields.
  • FGCU opened its doors for classes in 1997. It offers a wide range of four-year, undergraduate programs, as well as graduate studies in several fields.  FGCU is the home of the public broadcasting service, WGCU, broadcasting on both FM radio (9o.1) and television (the PBS network).
  • The Lee County School District also offers adult courses. Check it out, especially if you’re interested in culinary arts.  I’m not talking flipping burgers here, either. You’ll find their graduates in the better restaurants.
  • Private post-secondary schools abound; most offer vocational certificates or associate degrees. There are too many to list here and we haven’t found a link that does so. Frankly,  these kinds of schools tend to come and go; one year’s list may not be accurate in successive years. Some are religiously affiliated, most are not.  Generally, the religiously affiliated schools are nonprofit, while the others are for profit. Accreditation of these schools might be an issue and should be thoroughly checked.