Three Northwest Arkansas schools earn Diamond status

Northwest Arkansas is growing richer in diamonds -- Diamond schools, that is.

Three more schools achieved the Diamond School to Watch designation this year: Bentonville's Barker Middle School, Fayetteville's Ramay Junior High School and Springdale's Sonora Middle School.

That means 11 of the state's 18 Diamond schools are in Washington and Benton counties.

"Certainly schools in Northwest Arkansas push each other. We push ourselves to be the best we can be," said Michelle Hayward, co-director of the Arkansas Diamond Schools to Watch program.

The National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform launched the Schools to Watch initiative in 1999 to draw attention to commonalities of high-performing middle schools. Arkansas is one of 19 states that participate in the program, but the only one that adds Diamond to the name of the honor.

The designation is good for three years; after that, a school may apply for re-designation.

School staff members complete a lengthy application that asks them to explain what they're doing relative to four domains: academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, social equity and organizational structure, said Charles Green, who co-directs the state program.

If the application is accepted, a team of Forum representatives visit the school for a day to determine if the application matches what's actually happening in the school.

"None of these schools are perfect," Green said. "But they are on the trajectory to address each of these criteria in the best way they possibly can."

Barker Middle School celebrated Wednesday with an assembly and Sonora Middle School did the same Thursday.

Eric Hipp, Barker's principal, told students about a certain species of bamboo that is farmed. Once planted, it takes a few years before anything even sprouts out of the ground; after that, it grows several feet per day.

Hipp compared those first few years after the bamboo is planted to a middle school student's development.

"You don't always see things sprouting up," he said. "A lot of times you see that when you get to junior high, you get to high school. But there's a lot going on even though it doesn't look like it."

Middle school students are just starting to learn about the challenges of pre-Advanced Placement classes and exploring different extracurricular activities and sports, he said.

Middle-level education requires understanding the hormonal changes in young adolescents and how to support them through those changes, Hayward said.

"These are some of the biggest changes in a child's brain that ever happen to them, so it's important for us to help them navigate life in the social sense as well as getting them on the right track academically," Hayward said.

Hayward, who directs elementary and middle education for the Fayetteville School District, said Ramay Junior High School's Diamond award means all five Fayetteville schools eligible for the honor have achieved it. Ramay's application indicated a "deep sense of student-centeredness," she said.

Noah Andrews, a sixth-grader at Barker Middle School, said he likes the atmosphere at his school.

"All the people around here are nice. They treat you well," said Noah, 12.

His favorite class is band, something he'd like to continue doing in junior high school, he said.

Sonora Middle School earned Diamond status in only its sixth year. All four of Springdale's four middle schools have achieved the honor.

The Diamond award comes one year after Sonora received the Shannon Wright Award, which goes to an Arkansas school that demonstrates outstanding achievement in the implementation of the best middle practices as outlined in the report Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century.

One of the things that makes Sonora Middle School unique is its rich diversity, said Martha Dodson, principal. More than 75 percent of the school's 740 students are Hispanic or Marshallese, she said.

"We really work to incorporate our students' cultural backgrounds into our everyday life, whether it's through art or music," Dodson said.

Sonora was the first school to launch a reading initiative the rest of the district has adopted. It has a maker space where students can pursue various interests. And the school's Environmental and Spatial Technology program, a self-directed class in which students use technology to address issues in their communities, recently won an award, Dodson said.

NW News on 03/30/2018