2 Oahu schools Teacher Mary Beth Beale knows the recipe for an award-winning school.
earn honors
Holy Family and Noelani
receive National Blue Ribbon
awards for excellence
By Lisa Asato
Star-Bulletin"Put God in, add parents, the kids and other ingredients for a big blue ribbon," said Beale, a language arts teacher at Holy Family Catholic Academy.
The Catholic academy and Noelani Elementary School were named yesterday as National Blue Ribbon Schools. They were among the 264 elementary schools recognized by the U.S. Department of Education for the 2000-2001 school year as excelling in school leadership, teaching, curriculum, student achievement and parental involvement.
"Right now, everybody in school is floating on air," said academy Principal Tony Boquer. He said the school is celebrating triple wins this year in which one of their teachers, Angela Perez Baraquio, won the Miss America title and the school earned six more years of accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
"It's been an awesome year," he said. "It's like lightning strikes the same place three times."
In Manoa, Noelani Elementary Principal Clayton Fujie said the school applied for the national blue ribbon 12 years ago but failed.
This year, it had more things going for it, like project-based learning, which broadens the school's resources by involving parents; and increased grant writing, which pays for computers, professional artists to visit the classrooms, and "staff development time," in which teachers meet to discuss teaching strategies. "All these strategies go back into the classroom," he said.
Both schools -- one private, the other public -- share at least one common ingredient: parental involvement.
"Parents are told from the very first day (of school), they become role models for their children," Fujie said. "Sometimes they may not understand that for their kids to see them here on campus is very important. Like everything else, there has to be collaboration. When parents are around, accountability goes up."
Boquer of Holy Family concurs.
"Any school is a secondary educator. The primary educators are the parents. That should never change."
Although there is no money involved in the national recognition, Fujie said, "everyone works hard, every school works hard ... and this award validates that we're on the right track."
The national selection was the first for both schools, which are headed for a ceremony in Washington, D.C., in the fall.