Lincoln Park Academy is a public magnet school located in Fort Pierce, Florida. Commonly referred to as simply "LPA", the school is academically geared, offering Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, dual-enrollment, and pre-engineering course schedules. It was ranked 178th in the "Challenge Index" of United States high schools in the Washington Post in 2014.HistoryThe history of Lincoln Park Academy can be traced back to 1906 when families in the Woodbine area in Ft. Pierce requested a teacher. The first school, an old school supply building, was on North Eighth Street. The school had five teachers, eight grades and was open for seven months a year. It was rather poor with no teachers, including the principal having no more than a high school education. There were no teaching materials, not even a dictionary.The citizens were determined to have a high school. To understand how ambitious this was, there was no full four-year Negro high school south of Palatka, Florida. In 1921 there were only 18 Negro pupils listed in 12th grade in three unaccredited high schools. In September 1923 Lincoln Park Academy opened as a junior high school with five ninth graders. When a new superintendent, Mr. Riggs, was elected he met with a group of citizens at St. Paul AME Church. He told the crowd that they would need to pledge $1,600 to approve the senior high school. Although Superintendent Riggs was skeptical, the citizens paid more than $2,600 during the term. The school board approved the senior high school, thus Lincoln Park Academy was born. During the 1925–1926 term, a new building was completed at a cost of $10,000. It included four classrooms, an office, a library, and an auditorium. Principal Espy put partitions in the classrooms, doubling the capacity. The school year was also expanded to eight months.
