Eye on Education: Highlighting Region 16 schools honored as Blue Ribbon schools

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - The Department of Education awarded only 26 schools in Texas with the National Blue Ribbon Recognition, and two of those are right here in the Panhandle.

The prestigious award highlights five years of hard work, from students, teachers and administration at Sunset Elementary in Dumas and Vega Junior High.

The USDE National Blue Ribbon is based on a school’s overall academic performance or progress in closing achievement gaps among groups on students assessments like the STAAR.

“They have looked at test scores and assessments, and Vega Junior High has performed in the top 15 percent of Texas in the past five years in Reading and English,” said Ray Cogburn, Vega ISD interim superintendent.

Both Sunset Elementary and Vega Junior High gained the exemplary achievement gap closing school and high performing school award, which spotlights the students’ ability to make gains over the last five years of testing.

“We just teach them to be learners, to be thinkers and be ready for real life learning,” said Rhonda Begley, Vega Jr. High English teacher.

“The teachers come in very excited to teach, and therefore the students are just as excited to learn, and they said it’s really because of the attitude from the leaders,” said Julie Carlson, Vega Jr. High 6th grade teacher. “Which is why the students are so successful, because of the positive attitude.”

Those past five years include a national shut down of school campuses due to COVID-19, forcing students to online learning. However, school officials say they have not seen the learning delay that was predicted.

“I feel like in the Panhandle and Vega especially, those kids came back and the teachers and the kids worked hard, and when the first tests were taken and results were released, there wasn’t that learning gap,” said Cogburn.

In 2019, Sunset Elementary saw an F rating from the Texas Education Agency. With some restructuring, the school completed last year with an A rating.

“We have several different languages spoken here at Sunset Elementary, and of course that’s a challenge in itself for our teachers to make sure that we reach all of our students effectively,” said Caynon Strickland, Sunset Elementary School principal.

Strickland also credits students’ belief in themselves and showing up to do the hard things.

“Our students started setting goals for themself,” said Strickland.

Teachers and administration for the two schools will celebrate the achievement in Austin and in Washington, D.C.

Both schools say the biggest takeaway from earning this recognition is believing in their students makes the progress.

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