The Sabine Middle School seventh-and eighth-grade varsity band perform Monday at the opening of the Schools to Watch award ceremony. (Lucas Strough/Kilgore News Herald Photo)

Sabine Middle School has been named to the Texas Schools to Watch list by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform and the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals.

The school joins about 70 other campuses across Texas with that distinction.

An awards and recognition ceremony was held this past week at the Sabine High School auditorium where a Schools to Watch banner also was unveiled.

Assistant Superintendent Monty Pepper addressed the assembly of students, faculty and staff about the middle school’s distinction.

“I was asked a long time ago about what our school district was doing that made us so successful. People ask questions like ‘What kind of programs do we have?’ or ‘What kind of curriculum are the kids studying’? or ‘What kind of technology are you using?’ My response was our curriculum is solid, our technology is growing and our programs are effective, but I knew what the real answer was: that was the people inside our buildings,” Pepper said. “It’s always been about the people inside our buildings. It starts with our students, it has to do with our administration, our counselors, our front office staff and our teachers.”

Middle School Principal Sara Cantrell said the recognition was a team effort involving the entire campus.

“I just want to say thank you to everyone from our administration to our school board and its members and all of the faculty and staff and certainly our students. Because of all of you, we are able to get recognized for what I have always known to be true and that is that Sabine Middle School is one of the best in Texas,” Cantrell said.

Billy Pringle, deputy executive director of Texas Association of Secondary School Principals, who made a campus visit earlier this year that helped Sabine Middle School earn a spot on the Schools to Watch list, said being on the campus was a “powerful” experience.

“I’ve been working with this program for about six years, so I’ve probably done at least 100 site visits all across the state, and I just want to say that what I saw here at this campus was just so powerful,” he said. “It was an honor to be here, and that’s the reason you’ve received this recognition here today. The example that this campus is being recognized for here today is second to none, and I mean that sincerely.”

Sabine Middle School will be recognized in Austin at the Making Middle School Matter Symposium. It will be recognized nationally with the other recognized STW schools from across the country in Washington, D.C., at the National Forum of Schools to Watch Conference.

Sabine Middle School was chosen for its academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, social equity and organizational structure and processes.

The Schools to Watch selection process is based on a written application that requires schools to show how they met criteria developed by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform. Schools that appeared to meet the criteria then were visited by state teams that observed classrooms, interviewed administrators, teachers, students and parents, and looked at achievement data, suspension rates, quality of lessons and student work.

Schools are recognized for a three-year period, and at the end of three years, they must demonstrate progress on specific goals to be re-designated.

Unlike the Blue-Ribbon recognition program, Schools to Watch requires schools not just to identify strengths, but also focus on areas of continuous improvement.

Launched in 1999, Schools to Watch began as a national program to identify middle-grades schools across the country that were meeting or exceeding 37 researched-based criteria developed by the National Forum. There are now 17 states that have trained Schools to Watch State Teams, with more than 480 schools recognized across the country.