About Our School

Initial Development

Jesse Keen Elementary School is built on a part of the 1866 original homestead of the early Lakeland settler, Mr. Jesse Keen. The school retains an antique bench which belonged to the family and a picture of pioneers, Jesse and Elizabeth Keen. The school was erected in 1962 and is 57 years old. Jesse Keen has been a Title I school for over 20 years. Jesse Keen is a Pre-kindergarten through grade 5 school situated on the west side of Lakeland, located in a warehouse district and consists of rent support properties, mobile home parks and older single family wooden and cement structure homes.

Recent History

The JKE facility includes 5 buildings, 7 portables for student instruction and 2 portables for family services/offices. The school’s main building houses the administrative offices, dining room, cafeteria, ESOL, Kindergarten, First and Second grades. Building two houses the media center, art, music, an ESE classroom, ESE offices and resource classes.

Buildings three and four house the Third grade, plus two computer labs. Building six houses the Fourth and Fifth grade classrooms. The portables house two ESE Pre-K, 2 Head Start program classrooms, AmeriCorps Resource center and Physical Education Classroom. We have three technology labs which contain approximately 100 student computers as well as a tech office, ITV studio and lab, as well as a room for the school servers. Each teacher has a computer and the classrooms have 4 student stations. All classrooms presently have ceiling hung computer projectors smart-boards and use document cameras for innovative and exciting instruction. Our school has integrated the use of laptops and now iPad/tablets within all instructional classrooms.