Hayes High School was awarded the Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence National Lighthouse Award Friday at Blue Ribbon’s national conference in Florida.
Hayes Principal Dr. Ric Stranges and Assistant Principal Rex Reeder traveled to Florida this week to receive the award and to present about the House System at Hayes as well as the school’s new mastery-based learning curriculum.
Hayes was named a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence several years ago but missed criteria to be named a “Lighthouse school” Stranges said Friday.
“We got the blue ribbon in 2018 and most of that was from our positive school culture and House (System), but we were short on some academic areas to get the Lighthouse award,” Stranges said. “We had to move the needle, academically, which we have improved, and we had to be willing to share some of those best practices.”
Stranges said the school’s new mastery-based grading scale reduced failures in the classes that used it and allowed the top academic students to continue to grow.
“We shared the data with (Blue Ribbon) and they saw the growth that we are making,” Stranges said. “That gave them the whole package they were looking for in 2018. It was fun to continue to work on those things.”
The school earned the Lighthouse designation earlier this year and was nominated for the national award. He said Hayes was one of three schools nationally to earn the award this year.
“It’s been amazing, truly,” Stranges said. “It’s a great honor for the school and the community.”
Stranges said he and Reeder represented Ohio at the conference, which was attended by more than 1,000 educators throughout the country.
Receiving feedback from Blue Ribbon was a valuable tool the school put to good use, Stranges said.
“Having that feedback gave us the data we needed to begin to look at our academic performance in a different way,” he said. “We call it ‘the Delaware way.’ We’re seeing some successes but still have challenges.”
Stranges said the entire ninth grade at Hayes uses the new grading scale, and more classes will use it as its five-year rollout continues.
