A Blue Ribbon For a Handful Of Va. Schools That Succeed

One morning this month, more than an hour before the first bell, Graham Road Elementary School Principal Molly Bensinger-Lacy met with a parent whose child kept falling asleep in class.

The 7:15 a.m. meeting came at the only hour the parent could make it, Bensinger-Lacy said, and the child's problem was not unusual for the small Fairfax County school. About 78 percent of its students come from families whose incomes are low enough that they qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Some live in crowded townhouses where they don't have their own space to sleep, let alone study, she said.

"Our children go home to situations that we may not even be able to imagine," Bensinger-Lacy said. "That's what makes this so hard. The kids' job and the teachers' job takes more effort than in a school where the kids have all the advantages before they get to school."

This month, Graham Road became one of only 10 schools in the Washington region to be awarded the Blue Ribbon, the highest academic honor bestowed upon a school by the U.S. Department of Education. It was the first public school in the county to receive the award, which has been given annually since 1982. The only other public school in Northern Virginia to receive the honor this year was Springwoods Elementary School in Prince William County.

"These schools share a commitment to instruction and accountability that is grounded in the belief that all children can succeed," Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction Billy K. Cannaday Jr. said in a news release last week.

Under the No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon Schools Program, states nominate schools, private and public, that perform at the highest levels or make significant progress in closing student achievement gaps. This year, 320 schools were recognized nationwide and will be celebrated at a ceremony in the District next month.

"I'm just exhilarated because we've proven high-poverty schools can be high-performing as well," Bensinger-Lacy said. "I've known it, but we know how to do it now. And it's hard. It's real hard."

Of the school's 363 students, about 60 percent are Hispanic, 17 percent are Asian, 14 percent are black and 6 percent are non-Hispanic white. Almost half of the students have limited English proficiency, and school officials estimate that 80 percent speak a language other than English at home. Bensinger-Lacy said the teachers work with literacy and math coaches and do frequent testing throughout the year to gauge where each student stands.

State data show that 92 percent of the school's students passed the 2008 Standards of Learning reading tests, and 97 percent passed the math tests.

"Our teachers work harder than other teachers in other schools. I can tell you that," Bensinger-Lacy said. She added that the teachers' goal was never recognition, "but that we would make the lives of our children better. That we would help them break that cycle of poverty."

"This," she said of the Blue Ribbon, "is just icing on the cake."

Blessed Sacrament School in Alexandria, a Catholic school that also received the honor, shared the excitement.