Seneca Valley Celebrates National Blue Ribbon Recognition

Ask Hollen Davinsizer and Lina DiTullio how they like life at Seneca Valley Middle School and you’ll get an answer full of enthusiastic praise for their teachers and classes.

“It’s so fun,” Lina said. “It’s the best.”

Both eighth-graders, Hollen, vice-president of her class, and Lina, the president, were two of the speakers Monday as Seneca Valley celebrated the middle school’s recent designation as a 2012 National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S Department of Education.

“I think it’s a very great award and I think we worked very hard for it,” Hollen said.

Notified in September of the honor, Seneca Valley Middle School was the only school in western Pennsylvania deemed a Blue Ribbon school—and one of only eight in the state to achieve the elite designation. The honor is based on a school’s overall academic excellence or for making progress in improving student academic achievement levels.

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Sean McCarty, w said officials at the Department of Education asked him in fall of 2011 to begin the Blue Ribbon application.

The middle school was invited to join the process based on its past successes, including being

For the Blue Ribbon, McCarty said process included filling out performance reports and notifying the department of the school’s programs, leadership and vision for the building. The whole process took four to five weeks, he said. Months later, the school community learned they were winners.

“It’s very exciting,” he said. “The teachers deserve it more than anyone.”

District staff and school officials, parents and members of the community, including Cranberry Supervisor Chairman Bruce Mazzoni and township manager Jerry Andree, attended Monday’s event. Mazzoni also presented the school with a certificate of recognition on behalf of Cranberry supervisors.

In her speech to attendees, Superintendent Dr. Tracy Vitale thanked the middle school teachers for their hard work and their passion for their jobs. She recounted sitting in on several classroom sessions at the middle school and feeling jealous—because she wasn’t a student there.

“That’s how great the lessons were,” she said. 

Newly-named middle school principal Andrea Peck, who until last month was assistant principal at the school, said she, Curtis Johns, dean of students, and his wife, Ruth Johns, an eighth-grade science at the middle school, would head to Washington D.C. in November to take part in the national recognition ceremony and meet with the other Blue Ribbon school winners.

Overall, 269 schools were selected this year. That's out of the more than 100,000 schools in the nation.

“I’m excited to share all of this with everyone in attendance,” Peck said Monday.