Fourteen Lake Washington School District (LWSD) schools, including six from Redmond, are among 186 schools in the state that have been honored with 2011 Washington Achievement Awards, as announced by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and the State Board of Education (SBE).

All award-winning schools will be honored during a ceremony on April 25 at Mariner High School in Everett.

“For three consecutive years, these awards have confirmed that we have great schools,” said Superintendent Dr. Chip Kimball. “Once again, the hard work of students, teachers and parents in Lake Washington School District shows in this year’s Washington Achievement Awards.”

Schools are recognized as top performers in seven categories: Overall Excellence, Language Arts, Math, Science, Extended Graduation Rate, Improvement and Closing Achievement Gaps. Some schools are honored in more than one of these categories.

Seven Lake Washington schools will be recognized for overall excellence: John James Audubon Elementary, Horace Mann Elementary, Norman Rockwell Elementary and Rosa Parks Elementary schools in Redmond, Juanita Elementary School in Kirkland, Eastlake High School in Sammamish and Lake Washington High School (LWHS) in Kirkland.

Five of these schools were recognized in 2010: Juanita, Horace Mann, Norman Rockwell, Rosa Parks and Eastlake. Horace Mann and Eastlake have earned this recognition for the past three years.

LWSD schools also fared very well in science, with eight out of the 27 schools in this category statewide. Explorer Community, Norman Rockwell, Rosa Parks, Ben Rush Elementary and Stella Schola Middle schools in Redmond, Northstar Junior High and International Community (ICS) schools in Kirkland and Renaissance School of Art and Reasoning in Sammamish all will be recognized in this category.

ICS will be honored in science for the third year in a row.

In addition, Juanita High School will be recognized for its extended graduation rate for the second year in a row. ICS School is also being recognized in this category.

LWHS is also being honored in two additional categories – Language Arts and Improvement.

Schools are selected for awards based on their statewide assessment data for the three previous years. This data is analyzed using the Achievement Index and methodology approved by both OSPI and the SBE. For more information, visit the Washington Achievement Awards section of the OSPI website.