State Honors 8 Elementary Schools

Teachers and students at campuses from Oak Park to Ventura were celebrating Monday as eight elementary schools in Ventura County were designated as California Distinguished Schools.

“We’re pretty excited around here,” said James Baird, principal at Maple School in Newbury Park, which was selected for the state honor for the first time. “This is great.”

The east end of the county dominated the awards category locally by picking up six of the top honors from the state Department of Education.

The annual competition evaluates schools based on test scores, curriculum, use of technology and campus safety. The 15-year-old honors program alternates between secondary and elementary schools, and this year focused on the elementary level.

Four in the Conejo Valley Unified District--Cypress, Maple, Meadows and University--won the coveted designation, while Oak Hills Elementary in Oak Park and Vista Fundamental in Simi Valley also were chosen.

In the west county, Lincoln School in Ventura and Los Primeros Structured School in Camarillo received the honor.

“We discovered we have a pretty special school, and I guess others thought so, too,” said Bill McGovern, who teaches a combination fourth- and fifth-grade class at University School in Thousand Oaks. University was last selected a Distinguished School in 1989.

Across the state, 681 elementary schools applied for the honor in 2000, and 233 were picked as winners. In Ventura County, 14 schools applied.

Though the winning schools do not receive monetary awards, administrators said the honor has value in the respect and recognition it generates.

“These awards really put Newbury Park on the map,” said Melanie Turquand, a kindergarten teacher at Maple School who assisted with the application process. Cypress School, also in Newbury Park, was another first-time winner.

Baird, who is Turquand’s boss, said the extensive involvement of parents and the community in school activities probably put the campus over the top.

Valerie Chrisman, principal at Ventura’s Lincoln School, said the designation shows that schools with a high percentage of low-income students, such as hers, can be regarded as exemplary.

“Some people in the higher-income areas of the city view [Lincoln] as not distinguished because of the poorer students,” said Chrisman, in her second year as principal of a school where 22% of the students receive government assistance. “We wanted the recognition of an outside agency.”

She credited the school’s performance to its small population of 263 students, an active teaching staff and a fine arts curriculum component.

“The value of an arts education . . . is that you use all the senses of a child,” she said. “You tap their multiple intelligences, and they have stronger retention abilities and higher achievement.”

School officials described the months-long application process as grueling. Teachers and administrators at each campus split into groups to work on different sections in the 10-part application. Parents were also brought in for consultation, officials said.

“This has been going on since November, and we’ve been waiting all that time to find out if we would win,” said Turquand, who has taught at Maple School for three years.

Conejo Valley Unified provides up to $1,000 for teacher overtime and photocopying expenses, said Assistant Supt. Richard Simpson. The 29-school district has only four elementary schools that have not yet received the Distinguished School award: Banyan, Conejo, Lang Ranch and Westlake.

“It’s one thing when you have the superintendent saying we have quality schools,” said Simpson. “But here are people who have no connection to our schools--who have nothing to gain validating our evaluation--[saying] that these are quality schools.”

In addition to Vista Fundamental School’s distinguished status, Simi Valley Unified--whose schools have frequently been winners in the past--is also celebrating Valley View Middle School’s nomination for a national Blue Ribbon award. The U.S. Department of Education will announce those winners next month.

“We’ve worked hard; we know students are achieving,” said Kathryn Scroggin, assistant superintendent for educational services. “That feels good to everybody.”

Blue Ribbon awards are given annually to a few hundred schools nationwide. The Blue Ribbon has the most rigorous criteria of all widely available public school awards, judging schools based on curriculum, teaching techniques, community partnerships and student achievement on a variety of tests.

Eligible schools must first be selected as Distinguished Schools, then perform above the 63rd percentile for several years on a national standardized test, such as the Stanford 9.

Although Los Primeros Structured School was Pleasant Valley Unified School District’s lone Distinguished School winner, Principal Julie Cavaliere said she was in good company with other schools in the district that have won in previous years.

“We got the millennium one, that’s all,” she said.

The alternative school, which educates students in kindergarten through eighth grade, has a waiting list of 50-65 applicants, and has many children who have been identified as gifted, Cavaliere said.