Jackson Elementary School has once again achieved the state’s highest academic honor of being named a Four-Star School.

The Indiana Department of Education last week announced that 179 schools statewide received the honor, which is based on last school year’s attendance and the school’s test scores on the ISTEP (Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress).

Jackson Elementary, which has achieved the Four-Star designation for a number of years, had an attendance of just under 97 percent last school year. Further, 81 percent of the students passed both the language and math portions of the ISTEP.

Jackson Elementary’s achievement was noted at this week’s meeting of the Duneland School Board. “We are unbeleiveably proud” of Jackson School, said school board president John Marshall.

But Marshall also said that Duneland is very proud of its other schools, some of which came close to, but just missed, the 4-Star designation.

Elsewhere in Porter County, the schools that received the honor were Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Central, Flint Lake, Cooks Corners and Northview Elementary schools in Valparaiso; and Morgan Township Middle/High School, Kouts Middle/High School, Washington Middle/High School and Washington Elementary in the East Porter County School Corp.

Posted 10/9/2008