Oftentimes, sports achievements, while highly lauded by communities, come and go, memories fade, and new players and teams move in and replace the former ones. However, good quality education lasts a lifetime, and thanks to great effort by many people, one area school experienced great success, and was recently honored for its educational efforts.

Kids Ohio, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and policy group specializing in Ohio’s public education, divvied up their state testing honors to underprivileged schools recently, and among the 58 schools that were honored, Chestnut Ridge Elementary ranked among the highest in the state.

Criteria for the Kids Ohio honors include: 50 percent or more of students were economically disadvantaged and receive either free or reduced lunches; having 90 percent or higher of the disadvantaged fourth-graders pass the state reading test; and the school being rated effective or higher on the state report card.

Chestnut Ridge Elementary achieved all three of those standards, including some of the highest percentages statewide on the testing scores.

According to principal J. T. Luneborg, it takes support and effort from many to make the possibility of great achievement a reality.

“What it all comes down to is a commitment from everyone in the community, from the teaching staff to the parents to the students,” said Luneborg. “The kids work hard, and it takes good, caring parents to keep them focused. Then we have great teachers who really care about the kids. It’s obvious that education is very important to everyone in East Holmes and at Chestnut Ridge, and as far as staffs go, ours works very hard. They take into account what the state wants to teach and does it day after day.”

That kind of effort has led to Chestnut Ridge grading out at an overall A-plus, one of 10 schools throughout Ohio to receive such a high standard on its testing. Chestnut Ridge qualified for the testing through Kids Ohio by having 51 percent of its total enrollment qualifying as disadvantaged, meaning that those children receive either free or reduced lunches. Chestnut Ridge’s enrollment of 258 ranks them in the middle of the Ohio schools qualifying for the Kids Ohio honors, and most importantly, 95 percent of their fourth-grade students who were tested passed the state’s fourth grade reading test.

“Those are exciting numbers, and we are thrilled with the results and honored to be recognized by Kids Ohio,” said Luneborg. “It definitely is achieved through everyone working together with one goal of educating our children. We put a premium on that.”

Luneborg said that the school has very high expectations of all of their students, regardless of whether they qualify for free or reduced lunches or not. He also said that along with the expectations of the staff for the kids to succeed, comes that same feeling from the parents and students themselves. Promoting character, responsibility for their work and making sure that the students have every chance to experience success in the classroom are all reasons that Luneborg said the school has been able to enjoy so much success.

“We want the kids to enjoy their time at school, but above all we want them to learn,” said Luneborg. “We’ve got a lot of caring and wonderful people involved in the process, who are committed to making sure our kids are successful.”

Other local schools that performed well and were honored included Dundee Elementary and Baltic Elementary, both in Tuscarawas County. Both scored 90 percent on their test scores, both receiving grades of A.