Rock Island School earns prestigious ‘Blue Ribbon’ award

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By Rachel Schleif
World staff writer

Thursday, September 9, 2010

ROCK ISLAND — The U.S. Secretary of Education named Rock Island Elementary a National Blue Ribbon School today, which is a designation reserved for top-performing schools.

The local elementary was one of four Blue Ribbon schools in the state, and one of 304 nationwide.

“Everybody’s very excited, especially the teachers who worked so hard on the application,” said Rock Island Principal Sue Kane. “This staff really deserves it.”

To apply, schools must meet one of two criteria: the students achieve high marks on state tests for the last five years, or at least 40 percent of the students come from disadvantaged backgrounds and student performance has improved enough to reach high marks. Rock Island met both.

About 85 percent of the school’s 210 students qualified for free and reduced-price lunches last year. About 45 percent are still learning English.

Yet nearly 73 percent of Rock Island’s fourth-graders passed the new state tests for reading and math last spring. The results were even higher the year before, when nearly 90 percent passed the reading and math tests.

The state will pay for two teachers, Carolee Case and Dena Johnson, to fly to Washington, D.C., for the awards ceremony in mid-November. The school is planning a celebration sometime in the next two months, Kane said.

Chelan High School earned the Blue Ribbon Award in 2008.

Rachel Schleif: 664-7139

schleif@wenatcheeworld.com

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BarbS 1 year, 4 months ago

Heartiest Congratulations to Rock Island Schools! You can be justifiably proud. Good job!

douglas 1 year, 4 months ago

Can't blame them at all for holding a celebration event. Congratulations to Sue Kane and her staff, the parents and the kids at Rock Island School.

lobe 1 year, 4 months ago

What an honor. My brother Norman (RI class of 44) and I (class of 55 and 1960 grad of Eastmont) just had a wonderful tour by Ms Kane and met two of her teachers back in Aug. They were so proud of their school and past awards. Laurel Downs

Don 1 year, 4 months ago

I was in the last class to have 6th Grade at Rock Island. A lot of memories in that old school. . I am a little confused by this article though. I understand they earned an apparently rare honor, but what happens at a school where they go from a 90% passing rate one year down to 73% the next year? Did schools across the state average a 17% decrease on the new test? That is a pretty significant drop in a very short time for an award winning school.

Marshall 1 year, 4 months ago

Yes, all of the districts in the state went down because they developed a new test this year and this was the students' first exposure to it. It's very different from the WASL that they have been taking for the last ten years or more.

What's impressive about Rock Island is that they have the largest population of second language learners (learning English) so for them to always far surpass the rest of the district is really amazing.
Last week the WW reported on test scores for all of the districts in NCW and it didn't look so great, but to have 73% even though it went down, was far better than the rest from what I read.

AHeim 1 year, 4 months ago

YAY for the Rock Island School district. A small town, a small school.... we all know the regular "jokes" that go around. And BTW, these tests they use to place where children are academically, we need to get rid of them! Come up with something different to guage the progress our teachers and principles are facilitating. All children learn differently, and at different paces. Some kids have test anxiety, some kids can read and comprehend, but do it at a slower pace. What these tests do is add more stress and pressure in a day and age where 9 year olds stress day to day about adult problems. Isn't the job our schools are doing an adult problem and concern. There's a better option out there!