Santa Su wins Golden Bell Award

Santa Susana High School was recently honored in the 28th annual Golden Bell Awards program of the California School Board Association.

The award was won in the Invigorating High Schools category for the Schools and Academies program under the direction of Principal Pam Carter.

The award was presented during an awards luncheon at the San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina on Dec. 1 in conjunction with the association's annual education conference.

Carter and Simi Valley Unified School District board member Rob Collins were in attendance to accept the award.

In the category of Invigorating High Schools, the CSBA was looking for schools that worked to enhance student learning through a variety of creative and unique programs, including curriculum, career connections and schedules.

"They were basically looking for new and different ways of doing things at the high school level," Carter said.

Santa Susana High School's mission is to graduate students ready for both career and college. The school is organized into a structure of Schools Academies in which students focus on a specifically-designed four-year course of study.

Under the umbrella of three Schools of study- academics, the arts or informational technology- each student identifies with one or more of 10 Academies which include capstone courses to incorporate a school-to-career component.

"We want to combine rigor in the academic curriculum with relevance," said Carter, who also mentioned that this was the first time Santa Susana won the Golden Bell. "We want our students to see the connection of school to what they're doing when they leave school, whether that's to begin to leave for college or whether that's to leave for the work force."

The Golden Bell Awards program promotes excellence in education by recognizing outstanding programs throughout California.

- Eliav Appelbaum