8 County Middle Schools Make Statewide Distinguished List

Eight Orange County schools are among 120 statewide that have been nominated for 1987-88 Distinguished Middle School Awards, the state Department of Education in Sacramento announced.

Middle schools are those that separate the lower elementary grades from the high schools. Some communities call such schools “junior highs,” and others call them “intermediate schools.”

The county nominees are Sycamore Junior High in Anaheim (Anaheim Union High School District), Buena Park Junior High (Buena Park School District), Niguel Hills Junior High in Laguna Niguel (Capistrano Unified School District), McGarvin Intermediate School (Garden Grove Unified), Dwyer Middle School (Huntington Beach City School District), Tuffree Junior High (Placentia Unified), McFadden Intermediate (Santa Ana Unified) and Currie Intermediate (Tustin Unified).

The state has given awards to Distinguished Middle Schools since 1986. This year’s nominees were picked on the basis of “having the highest performance or greatest improvement on a variety of quality indicators, such as improved test scores and more students taking academic courses.”