Rural campus is only one in the county to earn designation
Spring Grove School, designated just a few years ago as a
program improvement school for not meeting statewide proficiency
goals, was selected as a 2010 California Distinguished School. It
was the only school in San Benito County and one of 484 schools
statewide to receive the honor.
Rural campus is only one in the county to earn designation
Spring Grove School, designated just a few years ago as a program improvement school for not meeting statewide proficiency goals, was selected as a 2010 California Distinguished School. It was the only school in San Benito County and one of 484 schools statewide to receive the honor.
“It’s an honor,” said Principal Jenny Bernosky, who put the news on the electronic school marquee and announced the honor to students, teachers and parents on Monday. “It’s great for the community around us.”
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said the schools on the distinguished list have persevered despite state budget cutbacks and should be examples for other schools that are looking to improve.
“I had the privilege to call all the winning schools and personally shared the good schools and personally shared the good news with each principal,” O’Connell said in a release. “These dedicated educators I spoke to clearly share a school-wide vision of excellence where every student can succeed and achieve at the very highest levels of performance.”
Eligible schools were nominated by the state based on their Academic Performance Index and Adequate Yearly Progress results, which are state and federal measurements, respectively. Applicants such as the K-8 Spring Grove were also identified for narrowing the achievement gap between lower- and higher-performing students.
“We had to write a 20-page application,” said Bernosky, noting that eight of those pages explained the academic strategies used to close the school’s achievement gap over the past two years. “We spent 30 to 40 hours proving what we wrote in our application. Hands down, everybody shared the same positive attitude and experience that we wrote about in our application.”
Bernosky credited a dedicated staff, administration, school board and parents for the honor, noting Superintendent Evelyn Muro’s leadership throughout.
To emerge from the program improvement status, Bernosky said school officials looked more closely at various data about student achievement – or lack thereof.
“We did extra-intensive teaching of those standards for 10 to 15 minutes per day and we did pre- and post-testing along the way for those students who needed it,” she said. “We brought in benchmark testing, which we never had before, and we brought in pacing guides to keep us on focus with standards. Teachers also improved their collaboration.”
Spring Grove has experienced increased enrollment over the past three years, with approximately 740 students, close to half of whom are Hispanic, attending the rural school in northern San Benito County off of Fairview and Spring Grove roads.
“Our challenges included closing the academic achievement gap with our English learners and really focusing on our migrant students while keeping our proficient and advanced students motivated as well,” Bernosky said. “All of the teachers work together and everybody does a little of everything. A lot of the decisions at the school are made, not just at the administrative level. They start at the school site council meetings and I meet with teachers once a month.”
As other school districts weigh program cuts and try to balance deficits, the North County School District “is in good shape because our finance person (Shannon Hansen) and our board have helped us,” Bernosky said. “We’re not in the red. We didn’t have to make drastic changes and for next year we’re good. We’ll still have our same staff and probably our class sizes will be the same.”
Spring Grove class sizes are 23 or 24 in the primary grades and 28 to 32 in the fourth through eighth grades.
The school likely will fly a flag denoting its distinguished school status and may paint a seal on a building to note the honor.
