TAMPA, Fla. — The Hillsborough County School District is celebrating its magnet schools after 18 of them were received the National Merit Award from Magnet Schools of America. 

Two magnet schools even received the highest honor from the organization.

What You Need To Know

  • 18 Hillsborough County magnet schools received the National Merit Award from Magnet Schools of America

  • Two Hillsborough County magnet schools received the highest honor, Orange Grove Middle Magnet and Walker Middle Magnet

  • Schools are judged based on a number of criteria, including high academic standards, curriculum innovation and diversity efforts

Schools submit an application showing things like their schools’ high academic standards, curriculum innovation and diversity efforts. A panel of educators then scores the applications.

Orange Grove Middle Magnet in Tampa is one of the two schools that received the top award.

At Orange Grove, the motto is “where every student is a STAR!” 

“Part of it is our diversity, not just our student body and staff, but in the arts you can have unity in diversity in performances and concerts and such,” said Michael Miranda, who is the proud principal there.

Miranda says while he’s known how special this school is ever since he came there six years ago, Magnet Schools of America recently recognized the visual and performing arts magnet school with the “excellence” award, and a perfect score on the rubric.

“It actually gives us the recognition the students, and the staff and teachers deserve. They work really hard every day and being an arts magnet, it’s really a beautiful thing,” said Miranda.

The school offers visual art, theatre, music and dance programs to sixth, seventh and eighth-grade students, and Miranda attributes a lot of the school’s success to the way they integrate academics with the arts.

“We, of course, teach the standards in the state of Florida, we follow the district curriculum guide, but beyond that, we try to integrate the arts whenever possible in instruction, which kind of makes us different than a traditional school,” he said.

Students Spectrum News spoke with say that makes learning fun. “The people here are just really, really amazing, and it’s just a genuine space, and everyone’s happy for each other, and I get to perform my passion during school,” said Maddy Debord, an eighth grader in the dance program.

The support students receive there, not only from teachers but also from their peers, is something Student Success Coach and Magnet Lead Teacher Altelio Moragne says he was sure to include in the school’s application to Magnet Schools of America.

“How the students interact together, how they share their own ideologies, bringing forth things from their ethnic background, they’re bringing that into the classroom, sharing that with their peers and colleagues, and I think that’s what makes Orange Grove a great school and what impacted the application,” said Moragne.

Now, even Magnet Schools of America recognizes every student there is a star.

Walker Middle Magnet School was also recognized as a top magnet school of excellence award winner. It’s an IB school.