A distinguished accomplishment for Harbor High

Michael Miller

Newport Harbor High School has been named one of California’s 192

distinguished middle and high schools this year, state Supt. of

Public Instruction Jack O’Connell announced Tuesday.

The 2,425-student campus was the only high school in Newport-Mesa

and one of 30 in Orange County to receive the honor, which the state

awards based on standardized test scores and yearly progress. Of the

nearly 2,300 middle and high schools in California, only 465 met the

requirements this year for Distinguished School consideration.

Recipients of the award will be honored on May 20 at a dinner

ceremony at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim.

Distinguished School recognition, for which campuses receive

plaques and flags to display outside, lasts four years before schools

must reapply; Newport Harbor won the honor previously in 1986 and in

1999. On March 23, a team of Orange County district and school

officials toured Newport Harbor to interview teachers and observe

classrooms in session.

Costa Mesa High School received an honorable mention for 2005.

“It’s always great to have one of our schools become a

Distinguished School,” said Newport-Mesa spokeswoman Jane Garland.

“The team of teachers and other staff they’ve assembled at Newport

Harbor is just wonderful. It’s a credit to all of them,” Garland

said.

To be eligible for Distinguished School consideration, a school

must score highly on the state Academic Performance Index, which

encompasses different standardized tests, and the federal Adequate

Yearly Progress, a provision of the No Child Left Behind Act. Newport

Harbor’s Academic Performance Index score for 2004 was 739, a

13-point gain from the previous year.

In addition to its high performance marks, Newport Harbor also

features a number of acclaimed programs, including Advancement Via

Individual Determination, or AVID, which prepares students for

four-year universities. In the late 1990s, the school instituted

three academies that encourage students to pursue specific areas of

study: the Da Vinci Academy for science, the Magellan Academy for

liberal arts, and the Franklin Academy for technology and business.

District officials said Newport Harbor’s academy programs were a

precursor to the redesign Newport-Mesa will undertake in its new

strategic plan this fall. Part of the strategic plan is reducing

class sizes to give students more individualized instruction.

“I think what we’ll see with the redesign is not quite the academy

look, but it will certainly be schools within schools,” said school

board member Martha Fluor. “Evidence is showing that smaller high

schools provide greater opportunities for success for students, so

the more we can whittle down the number of students per teacher, the

greater opportunity we have for children to succeed.”

Students at Newport Harbor expressed gratitude for their school’s

recognition this year.

“I’ve been very pleased with the four years I’ve spent at Newport

Harbor, and I think they deserve the honor,” said senior Blaise

Brunda, president of the school’s Student Political Action Committee.

“What really sets Newport Harbor apart in my mind is the faculty.

I’ve had great math teachers and great English teachers and great

history teachers.

“The students at Newport Harbor are great too. I love my

classmates, and I’m sure they’re all going to succeed in life.”