More than 300 Indiana schools rated Four Stars

By Erika Brock
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – More than 300 schools were named Indiana Four Star Schools for 2012-13 by the Indiana Department of Education Tuesday.

“I am honored to name these (311) schools as our Four Star Schools for this year,” Glenda Ritz, Superintendent of Public Instruction, said in a statement. “Winning this award required excellent work by teachers, administrators, students and parents throughout the year and on behalf of the entire Indiana Department of Education I send them my sincere congratulations.”

To achieve this designation, a school must rank in the top 25 percentile in three ISTEP-based categories. To be considered in the calculations, a school must have at least 10 students tested in each subject. Only students enrolled for 162 days during the 2011-2012 school year were included.

Karen White, principal at Saint Lawrence School in Lawrenceburg, said the quality of their teachers is what made them successful.

“The teachers have high expectations and they hold those students to those expectation,” White said.

Saint Lawrence has been an Indiana Four Star School in previous years, but for some schools – such as East Washington Elementary School in Perkins – this is the first time.

East Washington’s principal, Lisa Thomas, said the school had been working diligently at aligning curriculum to what students needed and to help them succeed.

Thomas said the school strives for a family atmosphere, so that “when a student comes to school they just aren’t a student of the school, but they are our student.”

The complete list of the 311 Four Star Schools for 2012-2013 can be found here.

Erika Brock is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.