By Anna Gustafson
Holliswood School’s auditorium was a sea of yellow Friday afternoon as hundreds of students sporting canary−colored school T−shirts exhausted their windpipes while cheering during an hour−long school ceremony celebrating the Jamaica Estates facility being named a Blue Ribbon school by the U.S. Department of Education.
Holliswood was one of 20 schools in the state and one of 350 institutions nationwide to be named a Blue Ribbon school this year. One other Queens school was awarded the Blue Ribbon label, the John Golden School in Bayside.
The DOE gives schools the Blue Ribbon label if they have made dramatic gains in student achievement or are high−performing.
Holliswood Principal Jennifer Ambert said the school received its Blue Ribbon award due to special education students making “significant” improvements on state tests. According to school data, special education students in grades 3 through 8 performed much better on state tests in 2006−07, the year for which the most recent data was available at the time the school applied to the Blue Ribbon program, than in years prior.
For example, 81 percent of special education students met or exceeded state testing standards for reading in the 2006−07 school year, compared to just 44 percent the year before. In the 2004−05 school year, that percentage was even lower: 21 percent.
“We had really tremendous gains,” Ambert said. “Our level of academic intervention was at a high, and we had a new math program called Everyday Math.”
Former Principal Diane Hobbs, who applied to the Blue Ribbon program, said students at all levels had improved.
“Discrepancies cannot be found when looking at subgroups, as our African−American, Latino and Asian populations are performing at a very high level,” Hobbs wrote in the June application to the DOE. “Our students with disabilities and our special education students have made tremendous gains and continue to thrive with the instruction given on a daily basis by a brilliant core of special education teachers.”
In addition, Ambert attributed the school’s success to involved parents who communicate well with teachers and “very hardworking students and teachers.”
To celebrate Holliswood’s designation as a Blue Ribbon school, students read poems and sang songs and the school band played a rendition of “We Will Rock You.” District 26 Superintendent Anita Saunders and Judith Chin, CEO of the Integrated Curriculum and Instruction Learning Support Organization, attended the ceremony.
“It’s really exciting that we got this award,” said Fred Stark, a seventh−grade student. “Our school is great because it’s a small school where you get to know everybody.”
Sixth−grader Doriel Binhasov reiterated Stark’s sentiments.
“We have so many activities like band, chorus and field trips,” she said. “And we have amazing teachers.”
