Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : 2 Newhall District Schools Earn Blue Ribbons : Meadows: Parents join their children and staff members to celebrate national award. A second Santa Clarita elementary will follow suit next week.

At a time when good news for public schools is scarce, the Newhall School District has a double dose of it to celebrate.

On Wednesday, Meadows Elementary School in Valencia invited parents to the school to celebrate its being named a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education. This year, 220 public schools in the country--including 26 in California--received the designation, which is given by the agency on the basis of a school’s academics, activities and overall curriculum.

No school in the Newhall district has ever before been given a Blue Ribbon award. But this year, in addition to Meadows, Newhall Elementary School received one. Newhall’s students and faculty will celebrate Oct. 21.

Participating in the Meadows celebration were 840 students who waved small American flags, and 200 parents, many of whom were trying to capture snapshots of their children. All wore blue ribbons.

An evaluation by the Department of Education praised Meadows for having an environment where students identified “caring” as the most important characteristic of staff members.

“The school climate is such that the warmth and friendliness is felt immediately,” the report states. “People are sincerely friendly with each other. Students are not uncomfortable in school; they like being there.”

Meadows also received acclaim for its strong math, science and special education programs. The school’s ability to recover from setbacks, such as the Northridge earthquake, was also praised.

“I feel fortunate we’re in this district,” said Becky Gearing, a Valencia resident with two children at Meadows. “I work with a lot of people with kids in the L.A. Unified School District, and nothing there compares to this.”

Reginald Gillins said he and his wife, who is a public school teacher, enrolled their daughter in private schools until she reached kindergarten. Then they decided to try to give public schools a try.

“To be honest with you, we’re a little disillusioned with the public school system,” said Gillins, whose daughter goes to Meadows. “But this is a lot better than three private schools we’ve had our daughter in.”

Representatives of local politicians were on hand to present plaques and certificates to the school. Also among the speakers was Student President Ebony Lewis, 11, a sixth-grader who said she has seen the school improve each year she has attended it.

She called attention to a blue ribbon flag that was hoisted during the ceremony.

“As we come to school every morning and look at the flag it will remind us that it takes all of us to make this school great,” she said.

To give students an extra little reward, Principal Diane von Buelow declared that on this day of celebration the students would get a 30-minute recess instead of the usual 15 minutes.

“It seems like the least we can do,” she told the students.