Arnco-Sargent Elementary School was named a 2006 Georgia Schools of Excellence in Overall Improvement for the 8th Congressional District, at the state Board of Education meeting in Atlanta March 9.

The west Coweta elementary school is one of only 20 schools state-wide honored as a School of Excellence. It is the second year in a row that a Coweta County school has been named a Georgia School of Excellence, following an identical honor last year for Jefferson Parkway Elementary School.

On Friday, Arnco-Sargent Principal Karen Barker thanked her students and her staff for the school’s honor. “This certainly is reflective of our students’ hard work and our teachers’ efforts to make Arnco-Sargent a wonderful place to be,” she said.

“It certainly is a great thing,” said Coweta County Board of Education Chairman Mitch Powell. “It reflects what the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools just said just this past week - that are schools are excellent in general. We are of course very proud of them. I know Mrs. Barker and her teachers are proud, and it shows that hard work reaps good results,”

The honor for Arnco-Sargent is also a unique honor for Coweta County, said Powell, since it follows Jefferson Parkway Elementary School being named a 2005 School of Excellence.

It places both schools as unique among more than 1,800 Georgia public schools, and distinguishes Coweta County for having two honored schools in two years. “These are also two very different schools, with very different demographics, in very different parts of the county, and they were both named Schools of Excellence, which is amazing,” said Powell.

The 20 2006 Schools of Excellence come from all over the state, including 17 elementary schools, two middle schools and a high school named as either a School of Excellence for student achievement and overall improvement. There are up to two Schools of Excellence (one in each category) for each of Georgia’s 13 Congressional districts, though not all districts contained schools which met all criteria.

One school from each state Congressional District was honored by the state Board for demonstrating the greatest gains in reading/language arts and math over the previous three-year period and one from each district that is within the top 10 percent in reading/language arts and math.

The program has evolved from a subjective application process to a more objective data-driven model that uses test scores as its foundation. Schools do not apply, but are recognized solely on the basis of test scores and other indicators of student and teacher performance.

Arnco-Sargent was among several Coweta elementary schools recognized last year for significant academic improvements, after 94 percent of Arnco-Sargent students met state testing standards.

Principal Barker said that her school’s teachers and staff deserve the credit.

“Arnco-Sargent has an incredible staff, and they always willing to look at what can we better or what new approaches we can try.”

Among the strategies that Arnco-Sargent has used is the use of Title I funds to provide free tutoring in to students who qualify, so that students can have even greater attention to individual academic needs during the school year.

The whole school staff also provides tutoring to students before testing in something called the “Tool Time” approach. In the weeks before major standardized test administration, every staff members takes 30 minutes to tutor students in areas they need help or to provide higher-achieving students with enrichment.

“Everyone pitches in,” said Barker. “Everyone gets a group of students to tutor in specific subjects each morning - the teachers and TA’s, the custodians, our cafeteria manager, my nurse and our office secretaries, our PE and music teacher… and I have my 10 students.”

The 2006 Schools of Excellence annual banquet will be held Friday, May 5 at the Georgia World Congress Center.

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