By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
Arnold Drive Elementary School on Little Rock Air Force Base was one of just four Arkansas schools designated last week as a Blue Ribbon School by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
The announcement came hot on the heels of the announcement by the University of Arkansas that Arnold Drive was the third-highest achieving elementary school in the state.
“We’re in third place, including charter and magnet schools,” principal Julie Davenport said Tuesday of the recognition by the University of Arkansas. “We have some very strong teachers who have been here quite a long time and some new.”
Nationally, 304 schools received the designation as 2010 Blue Ribbon schools for academic achievement. The four in Arkansas all were elementary schools, and only Arnold Drive was in central Arkansas.
“We were notified last year that we had been nominated so we did the pretty extensive paperwork,” said Davenport. “We went ahead and were waiting. If we made our average yearly progress then we knew we would qualify.”
The Blue Ribbon schools program honors schools that are either academically superior or that demonstrate dramatic gains in student achievement, according to Duncan.
“Blue Ribbon schools are models of improved student achievement from which others can take inspiration,” she said.
Blue Ribbons schools are recognized and honored for helping students achieve at high levels, Davenport said. “Ours have been achieving proficient and advanced on benchmark exams. It also takes into account progress on closing the achievement gap on subpopulations. Our scores are pretty much the same for all economic, race and gender subpopulations,” she said. “Across the board, our children show progress.”
Arnold Drive Elementary has about 250 students and about half are on free or reduced lunch. The average percentage of students on free or reduced lunch on the top 20 list is 32 percent.
Free or reduced lunches are markers for economic distress.
Davenport said it was a poor reflection on the way the military is paid if 97 percent of her students have parents in the Air Force and half of those qualify for the free and reduced lunches.
“We have absolutely outstanding teachers and staff and cooperative parents,” she said. A learning community supports staff and masters goals and skills at each level.
Two school representatives will be honored in Washington on Nov. 15-16, she said, although the designation doesn’t fund the trip to the nation’s capital.
“Last year, our fifth-graders were 100 percent proficient or advanced in math and 92 percent in literacy. That’s the top of the district and top of the state,” Davenport said.
“Fourth-graders scored 96 percent (proficient or advanced) in math and literacy,” she said, and “third-graders were 96 percent in math and 87 in literacy. It is consistent from year to year.
“Teachers really honing in on what the children need and making sure they master the skills they need,” Davenport said. “I’d pit these teachers against any and they come out on top every time.”
Davenport said this is her second year as principal at Arnold Drive but her 20th year as a principal in four states, at eight different elementary schools.
Arnold Drive also led the Pulaski County Special School District in volunteer hours worked last year, she said.
“This is a wonderful recognition which honors the high level of commitment the administrators and teachers at these four schools have made to help students achieve academic success,” Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell said recently.
The other three schools were Calico Rock Elementary School in Calico Rock, Kingston Elementary School and Salem Elementary School in Salem.
The website Schooldigger.com gives Arnold Drive a five-star rating, placing it 16th among the state’s 457 elementary schools, but the same website give PCSSD just one star and ranks it 172nd out of 236 state school districts.
