Lagonda named school of honor

Lagonda Elementary School has been named one of the state’s Schools of Honor, a distinction awarded to only 90 schools in the state of Ohio.

Lagonda has earned a designation as a High Progress School of Honor, Springfield City School District Superintendent Dave Estrop said. The Schools of Honor program is an expansion of the existing Schools of Promise program. It recognizes high progress and high performing schools based on the school’s report card results over the past five years.

“What makes Lagonda’s accomplishment so noteworthy (is that) Lagonda has broken through that glass ceiling that sometimes exists in people’s minds that children in urban schools who have substantial poverty can’t learn or can’t learn as much as other students,” Estrop said. “And Lagonda has just blown that myth up.”

Ninety percent of Lagonda students received free or reduced lunch in the 2011-12 school year, a measure of a school’s poverty rate. To qualify, a family of four must have an income of less than $29,965.

High progress schools, like Lagonda, scored in the top 10 percent of schools ranked by gains in reading and math proficiency over five years, according to the ODE.

Lagonda has exceeded value-added measures, meaning students made more than a year’s expected growth over the course of the school year, for three of the past four years and met federal progress goals this year for subgroups of students who typically don’t perform as well as their peers, Principal Cynthia Dillard said.

The school has also made progress on the percentage of students who meet benchmarks on achievement tests, with increases ranging from 5 to 20 percent in the past three years on the state report card.

Lagonda earned an excellent rating this year, becoming the second Springfield school to do so. Snowhill Elementary School is the other to reach that rating.

“What goes on in the classroom is what makes the bottom line different,” Dillard said. “I would have to say that my teachers know every student and every student’s family intimately … Academic performance isn’t just about what goes on at school. We try very hard to meet the needs of every family.”

Lagonda had the highest rate in the district of parents attending conferences and teams up with community groups, businesses and mentors to benefit students.

“This is a community effort all across Springfield and it is paying off,” said Estrop. “It’s absolutely paying off for the children of Springfield.”

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