Tuesday, November 23, 2010

L.A. FILIPINO-AMERICAN SCHOOL TO RECEIVE NATIONAL BLUE RIBBON AWARD

Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper | http://bit.ly/hbQIJd

Monday, 22 November 2010 - (AJ Press) - LOS ANGELES – US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and White House Domestic Policy Advisor Melody Barnes today honored 314 schools as the 2010 National Blue Ribbon Schools at an awards luncheon at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

One of the honored schools, Synergy Charter Academy, was founded by Filipino American, Randy Palisoc, and Chinese American, Meg Palisoc.  Synergy Charter Academy, located near USC, became the first elementary school in the history of South Los Angeles to receive a National Blue Ribbon Award since the inception of the award in 1982.

“We are honored to receive this distinguished award and we are happy that our students’ and staff’s hard work is being nationally recognized,” said Synergy Charter Academy’s Co-Founder Meg Palisoc.

For the past six years, Synergy Charter Academy’s students and staff operated out of a church site where they packed up their classrooms every week.  Despite these facilities challenges, the school was able to catapult its students’ academic achievement from among the bottom 10% of all students statewide to among the top 10% of all students statewide.  

This year, Synergy Charter Academy moved onto a new Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) facility where Synergy is working together to “co-operate” the entire campus with a new LAUSD school, Central Region Elementary School #17.  Synergy and LAUSD are among the first in the nation to pioneer this collaborative effort between a charter public school and a traditional public school.  Synergy is in the process of working with LAUSD teachers to replicate this collaborative effort at the middle school and high school levels starting as early as next fall, if their proposals are accepted via LAUSD’s Public School Choice process.

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