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Ocoee High School is a public secondary school located in Ocoee, Florida, 12.5 miles west of Orlando. Ocoee High School serves students from the cities of Ocoee, Apoka, Winter Garden, and Pine Hills, since 2005. Ocoee High School is currently serving 2,479 students.

Mascot

The Ocoee High School's mascot is the knight. On the knight's gold tunic, there is a Cardinal rising up to represent the old Ocoee High School, where the mascot was a Cardinal. The knight was chosen to represent Ocoee High School because it symbolizes that Ocoee High School will always be around and never fall again, like the old Ocoee High School. The old Ocoee High school building became the home of a middle school in 1975 because West Orange High School opened, which provided students with new technology and a larger school.

Campus

Ocoee High School is on fifty-two acres near Lake Apoka. Ocoee High School was the largest of nine new schools opening in Orange County in 2005. Before the high school opened, instead of Ocoee High School the school board were thinking to name the high school Crown Point High, Platinum High or Unity High. The Orange County Public School (OCPS) decided on the name Ocoee High School in memory of the old Ocoee High School.

Ocoee High School is built on the Smaller Learning Communities Model. The Smaller Learning Communities Model is when a student is placed in one of the four sub-schools of Ocoee High School, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, for their core classes. Within each smaller school there are two counselors, a dean, and an assistant principal. Each smaller school has around one hundred and fifty students. Ocoee High School is built on this model because research shows that schools within schools decrease dropout rates and discipline issues. "The idea is to create a small learning community for students," explained former Principal Mike Armbruster. "Instead of mingling with 2,700 students, they'll be with 700, so they don't get lost between the cracks." Ocoee High School adopted the smaller learning community model (SCL) as a part of school reform. The school board wanted students to stop getting lost in the crowd. SCL allow students to get to know students and counselors, who push them to take more-advanced classes. "A kid who is connected...is more likely to graduate," said former principal Armbruster.

Music

The Ocoee High School band participates in concert bands, jazz bands, percussion ensemble, winter guard, brass and woodwind chamber ensembles, and the marching band. The marching band has participated in the Cotton Bowl Music Festival in 2007, The Florida Citrus Parade in 2009, The 2009 Ikea Thanksgiving Parade, and performed on Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) for the 2009 and 2010 Under Armour Football All-American Game.

Academics

For the class of 2009, there were 606 graduates. More then half of the class reported that they planned to attend a 2-year or a vocational college. On the SAT, Ocoee High School was below average on the Florida scale and National scale. Ocoee High Schools average SAT score for the verbal section was a 530, in math it was a 530 and writing was a 500.

The Sword in the Stone

The Sword in the Stone idea came from Matt Fitzpatrick, a former teacher at Ocoee High School. Fitzpartrick came up with the idea because he has seen this at another school called "You Rock." The Sword in the Stone is a hand sized rock, with a sword in it, which is passed among faculty, when a staff member does something special for them. The teacher giving the rock to another teacher would send out an e-mail to the entire faculty explaing why they passed it on. The recipient holds the rock for a week until passing it on. For example, Ms. Gillam, a teacher at Ocoee High School, passed the Sword in the Stone to Lina Thorpe because she received her freshman from last year as they came well prepared to Ms. Gillam. Ms. Gillam said, "They say that you can tell the quality of a teacher by the quality of the student and I can tell that she is a great teacher by the students that she has given to me."