Polk County now has a second middle school offering an International Baccalaureate program.
The Union Academy magnet school in Bartow has been certified as an IB World School. It will a offer "framework of academic challenges that encourages students to embrace and understand the connections between traditional subjects and the real world, and become critical and reflective thinkers," the school said.
Students are required to study their first language, a second language, humanities, sciences, math, arts, physical education and technology.
Union joins Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Lakeland as the only Polk County public middle schools offering the program.