Janice Peterson - Daily herald | Posted: Friday, October 17, 2008 11:00 pm
Mapleton Elementary School will be receiving a major national honor this month as one of only three Utah schools to be named a 2008 No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon School.
The award is handed out by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to schools that have made significant progress in testing and achievement for students.
"It's a huge, huge honor to receive an award like this," said Julie Warren, director of elementary education for Nebo School District and former principal of Mapleton Elementary.
Warren said the award is based on end-of-level testing for students, and officials are looking for progress at the schools to qualify for the award. The designation is important for the school, but Warren said the success is an indicator of the community effort supporting the school.
Warren said the school has a good PTA and dedicated parents who devote hours of time to helping in classrooms, while teachers have put in time targeting individual students and their needs. The success of the students is a result of a collective effort to adapt lessons to help those who do not understand the material and to reinforce students that are achieving.
"It's not the award that makes us happy," Warren said. "It's the students' progress."
Warren said it is exciting for Utah to have three schools make the list.
Knowing how well other schools perform and the dedication teachers around the state have, Warren said being chosen is a big honor.
"It's humbling to know that you're being recognized," she said.
Celeste Gledhill, the current principal of Mapleton Elementary, said the school has always done well on testing. However, it has been a goal for years to keep improving.
"Our school qualified because we scored in the top 10 percent of the nation in end-level testing," she said.
Gledhill said improved test scores are a result of adapting programs such as math instruction to fit the children's needs.
Teachers have put in a lot of extra time in order to help students succeed and parents have spent hundreds of hours in volunteer time at the school.
"We have great community support," she said. "Our parents are highly involved."
Nebo School District spokeswoman Lana Hiskey said the award is important for Mapleton Elementary because the school has done so well on testing in the past and still made a major improvement.
Hiskey said the entire district generally does well on testing, so it is hard to improve enough to be honored.
"It's interesting because they usually give it to schools that are doing poorly and are raising [testing scores] significantly in one year," she said.
Gledhill, Warren and facilitator Darlene Christensen will be traveling to Washington, D.C., next week to receive the award during a two-day celebration starting on Oct. 20. The other two Utah schools that received the awards this year were Mona Elementary School in Mona and Oakridge Elementary School in Salt Lake City.