Finger Lake Elementary School

National ESEA Distinguished School Award

Congratulations Falcons! Finger Lake Elementary has been recognized as a National ESEA Distinguished School. Click on the links below to read the article in the Frontiersman as well as the link to a radio interview about our school and the award.

For Immediate Release: 68 SCHOOLS NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED FOR ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN 2018


DATE: January 22, 2019

Washington D.C. – Sixty-eight U.S. schools have been named 2018 National ESEA Distinguished Schools for the extraordinary success of their students.

The National Association of ESEA State Program Administrators (NAESPA)—formerly the National Title I Association—has been selecting examples of superior, federally funded school programs for national recognition through the National ESEA Distinguished Schools program (recently renamed from its predecessor, the National Title I Distinguished Schools program) since 1996. We celebrate the efforts of schools across the country making significant improvements. The program acknowledged the success of hundreds of schools in one of three categories:

  • Category 1: Exceptional student performance for two consecutive years
  • Category 2: Closing the achievement gap between student groups
  • Category 3: Excellence in serving special populations of students (e.g. homelessness, migrant, English learners, etc.)

Title I is the cornerstone of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)—it is the largest federally funded pre-college education program in the United States. Together with other federal education programs of the ESEA—which are jointly focused on student equity and access—they provide funding to school districts to aid primarily in the education of economically disadvantaged students.

NAESPA implemented the National ESEA Distinguished Schools Program to highlight selected schools that have effectively used their ESEA federal funds to improve education outcomes for students. More information about all National ESEA Distinguished Schools is available on the NAESPA website: www.ESEAnetwork.org

The 2018 National ESEA Distinguished Schools will be honored January 31, 2019 at the 2019 National ESEA Conference in Kansas City, MO. Download List of 2018 Schools. (States not listed did not participate in 2018.)

For more information:

About individual schools: Individual State Department of Education Offices
Radio Interview - FLE

Listen to Mat-Su PIO, Jillian Morrissey, interview schools being recognized through the ESEA award program. Both schools are from Mat-Su.