Morning Star one of nation’s best schools

published on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:59 PM MDT

By GAIL SCHONTZLER Chronicle Staff Writer

Morning Star School, Bozeman’s largest elementary school, was named Tuesday as one of the 2009 National Blue Ribbon Schools for being one of the top schools in the country and for closing students’ achievement gap.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced in Maryland that 314 schools won the Blue Ribbon award, including 264 public schools and 50 private schools. Only one other Montana school, Central School in Roundup, made this year’s list. Winners will be honored Nov. 3 in Washington, D.C.

“These Blue Ribbon Schools have shown that all children can learn with appropriate supports,” Duncan said. “Some have shown dramatic improvements in places where students are overcoming the challenges of poverty, and others serve as examples of consistent excellence that can be a resource for other schools.”

Principal Nonnie Hughes, who has led Morning Star for 17 years, said the award is “just a wonderful honor for our whole school community n amazing teachers and staff, students and parents.”

“We have high expectations n we don’t settle for mediocrity,” Hughes wrote in her application. “We are a school that looks for solutions and we have the attitude of ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going.’”

The going got tough in 2004, the first year of Montana’s new statewide math tests, when only 42 percent of Morning Star students scored at grade level. That was a major concern, Hughes wrote.

Low math scores throughout the Bozeman district made it clear something had to change. As a result, the district adopted a new program called Everyday Math.

This year, in the latest statewide tests, 95 percent of its students scored at grade level or higher in math.

Reading was even better, with 98 percent of students scoring at grade level or higher, up from 79 percent in 2004.

Morning Star has about 532 students, of whom 98 percent are white and only 8 percent low-income. According to its application, the Bozeman district spends $9,195 per student, compared to a state average of $3,652.

Morning Star is committed to developing “the whole child,” Hughes wrote, not just test scores. It has strong music, art and health programs. Students take field trips to a farm, the historic Bozeman cemetery and the Legislature. Fourth-graders put on a musical and fifth-graders perform Shakespeare.

When the school district dropped Spanish in elementary schools in a budget cut, Morning Star parents and teachers decided to keep it going. The parent council hired a coordinator and brings in university Spanish students to teach.

Hughes also has a Fulbright scholarship to study in Ecuador, and brings Ecuadorians to visit Morning Star.

Superintendent Kirk Miller said the entire school district was proud of Morning Star, which was nominated for the award more than a year ago by the Montana superintendent of public instruction.

“This is further evidence of the value our community places on the education of its children,” Miller wrote.

“I think it’s deserving,” School Board Chairman Gary Lusin said. “All our schools work hard to do very, very well.”

Gail Schontzler can be reached at gails@dailychronicle.com or 582-2633.

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