7 Junior High Schools Named as Contenders for State Award

All four junior high schools in the Conejo Valley Unified District, two junior high schools in Santa Clarita and a Burbank junior high have been nominated for the California Distinguished Middle School Award, it was announced Tuesday.

The schools were among 120 junior highs named as contenders for honors as among the most outstanding schools in the state. Sixty schools will be selected for the award.

If the area schools are among the finalists, they will compete in the Secondary School Recognition Program of the U.S. Department of Education.

Nominated from the Conejo school district were Sequoia Intermediate School in Newbury Park, and Colina, Los Cerritos and Redwood intermediate schools in Thousand Oaks.

It is unusual for any district to have all of its junior high schools nominated for the competition, state officials said. Conejo officials believe their schools were nominated because of a realignment of junior high curriculum in the district that emphasizes subjects tested in the California Assesment Program test of basic academic skills.

In Burbank, Muir Junior High School was nominated. Officials attributed the nomination to the improvement of test scores and innovative academic programs in math and computer literacy.

Arroyo Seco Junior High in Valencia and Sierra Vista Junior High in Canyon Country were nominated because of improved test scores, officials said.

No junior highs in the Los Angeles Unified School District were nominated this year.

If the nominated schools wish to participate in the competition, officials must submit applications to the state Department of Education with detailed information on the schools’ curriculums, instructional practices and extracurricular and enrichment activities.

A selection committee of state and local educators will review the applications and recommend semifinalists for site visitations, which are scheduled for March and April. The finalists will be named in April.