DATE: Saturday, May 31, 1997                TAG: 9705310333

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ALETA PAYNE, staff writer 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   89 lines

KINGSTON LEARNS WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A U.S. BLUE RIBBON SCHOOL

In the language of federal bureaucracy, Kingston Elementary School is deserving of national recognition because of its ``challenging standards and curriculum,'' its ``excellent teaching and environment that strengthens teacher skills and improvement,'' and its ``student performance on measures of achievement.''

But hunker down next to third-grader Angela Francis and she'll take a break from the essay she's working on to translate into plain English why Kingston is special.

``We have really good teachers and we have hard-working students and a lot of people help out here.''

Those kinds of things are exactly why Education Secretary Richard Riley named Kingston a U.S. Blue Ribbon School this week. It is one of 262 elementary schools across the nation to receive the recognition and the only one in South Hampton Roads. George McIntosh Elementary School in Newport News and Northampton Middle School in Machipongo also were recognized.

This is the first time a Virginia Beach public school has won the award since Kingston took it in 1990.

``It's quite an honor for us all,'' Kingston principal Nancy Davenport said. ``It means a lot to everyone in the community.''

Indeed, the community is a big supporter of Kingston, which has 16 business partners, high levels of volunteerism and a Parent Teacher Association that provides after-school enrichment programs three times a year and an artist-in-residence twice a year among other activities. School fund-raisers often become communitywide events.

Mary Hayes, president of the school's PTA, believes ``the commitment from the school and the community, that total commitment to the education and development of children'' sets the school apart.

Kingston gets a demographic boost from serving some of the more affluent neighborhoods in the city, making it easier for some parents to find their way into the classroom and also contributing to the school's consistently outstanding performance on standardized tests. Once inside, the enthusiasm and creativity generated by children, staff and volunteers is clear.

To meld together the mythology they were studying in language arts and the oceanography they studied in science, students in Sandi Cunningham's third grade class created a mural with Poseidon rising out of a colorful coral reef. The ceiling of Cunningham's classroom is adorned with paper chains that represent the 1,200 books her 21 students have read this year, each link inscribed with the name of the student and the book, color coded to indicate biography, nonfiction or fiction.

``Anyone who has anything to do with Kingston is so into the learning of our children'' Cunningham said. ``Everyone involved is 100 percent for learning.''

In a nearby classroom, Tom Kern's students were having their essays on the perfect three-day weekend edited and re-edited, first by themselves, then by a classmate, then by Kern or one of the parents volunteering that day.

``This goes so much smoother and easier with parent help,'' Kern said. ``It makes the lessons smoother and I think more individualized.''

Kingston has an ongoing commitment to technology, using much of its equipment money for that purpose. And Davenport is a big believer in teacher training, sending her staff to conferences and institutes to improve what they bring to the students.

Even with all of that, winning a Blue Ribbon isn't automatic. The school went through a lengthy application process and was visited for two days by a South Carolina principal whose school had previously won the award. A review panel considered the application and visitor's report in choosing the winners from 527 nominees.

While things like parent and community involvement and attendance rates factor into the equation, what really matters is the sense of activity and learning that fill the brightly decorated classrooms and spill into the hallways. The 670 students at Kingston learn by getting their hands dirty and getting up from their chairs. They learn from and with each other.

A mural draping one hallway wall depicts an ocean scene with a variety of sea creatures drawn carefully to scale. A class of second-graders' essays on ``animal fantasies'' include tales of a kidnapped penguin, a pregnant panda and a blue pig.

Jessica Francis, 11, spoke with enthusiasm about one of a project in her fifth-grade class, learning about an explorer, dressing up like him and then being interviewed. She came as Amerigo Vespucci, for whom America is named.

At Kingston ``you learn by experiment rather than have a teacher drone to us,'' she said.

And over on the third grade hall, Robyn Small has a similar take on what makes her school tops.

``The teachers make learning fun,'' she said. ``It's not like everything's in a book. They make things worth doing.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by D. KEVIN ELLIOT/The Virginian-Pilot

From left, Stephanie Waugh, 8, Melissa Bibbs, 8, Cassandra Bottoni,

8, and Marti-Ann Pearson, 8, play a game Friday in their music class

at Kingston Elementary School, which has been named one of the

nation's best.

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