Crestline Elementary named National Blue Ribbon School

Hartselle’s Crestline Elementary School has been recognized as one of five schools in Alabama to be named a 2024 National Blue Ribbon School. The honor, awarded by the U.S. Department of Education, celebrates schools that have demonstrated outstanding academic performance or made significant strides in closing achievement gaps.  

Crestline is one of 356 schools nationwide to receive this recognition. The Blue Ribbon award is the highest national honor given to a school by the U.S. Department of Education. 

Principal Karissa Lang credits the school’s success to intentional instruction and the collaborative efforts of staff, students and parents.  

Crestline Elementary principal Karissa Lang leads a school assembly Sept. 27 at the school gymnasium celebrating the school achieving National Blue Ribbon status. Photo by Rachel Howard.

“We knew what we wanted to achieve, and we started hitting it hard every day,” Lang said. “We try to have fun here, but we also work incredibly hard. Our students need consistency, and they deserve it. 

“Parents need to know that when they drop their child off, that they’re going to get a good quality education – that we are on our game every day,” she said.  

Schools that are nominated for the National Blue Ribbon award undergo a rigorous application process. Each school must provide detailed information about its culture, programs, assessments, instructional practices, professional development and community involvement. The school was nominated for recognition by the Alabama Department of Education.  

Lang highlighted the school’s academic progress, particularly in reading, noting third and fourth graders showed a 10 percent improvement in their reading scores from the 2022-23 Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program (ACAP) results. The ACAP, aligned with the Alabama Literacy Act, assesses students in second through eighth grade in math, English language arts and science. 

Crestline’s success is rooted in its collaborative approach to education, according to first-grade teacher Melissa Ward. Teachers meet regularly to discuss student progress and share strategies for improvement. Ward also emphasized the importance of meeting every student where they are.  

“We have an open-door policy. We plan together, and it’s not just the classroom teacher—it’s a whole team effort with multiple teachers working in the room,” she said. “This allows us to break up the students into smaller groups and provide more individualized attention.” 

Kindergarten teacher Candice McCaghren said a changed approach played a crucial role in recent success.  

She said for the youngest students at Crestline, phonemic awareness and emphasizing sounds even before letter recognition has been implemented in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms.  

“Adding hand motions, pictures, stories and songs and having the whole-body teaching approach have really made a big difference with the lower grades,” McCaghren said.  

Fourth-grade teacher Hannah Witt attributes much of the school’s success to the strong leadership provided by Lang and the administration.  

“They support everything we do. The level of commitment from our leaders is reflected in our students’ achievements,” she said.  

“Our culture is inviting and inclusive, so it feels like family,” Witt added. “We have data meetings each week where we discuss students’ progress and concerns, so we treat all our students like they’re our own whether we have them in our class or not.”

Reading coach Christy Bennich, who has been at Crestline for 29 years, has seen firsthand the impact of the school’s dedication to implementing science-based reading instruction.  

“This is the first time I’ve been part of something like this,” Bennich said. “We’ve spent the last several years teaching the science behind reading, teaching the teachers that science. She said the effort has made all the difference in the classroom and in the test scores.  

“We have a common language and the same pictures, starting in pre-school so when they move from class to class and year to year, they continue to get that same routine and it sticks with them,” Bennich said. 

Hartselle City Schools superintendent Brian Clayton said Lang and her staff have a keen sense of where each child is and have a strong focus on individual attention. 

Hartselle superintendent Brian Clayton and Hartselle mayor Randy Garrison greet students at Crestline Elementary School after a school-wide assembly Sept. 27.  Photo by Rachel Howard.

“That’s hard to do in a classroom of 20 much less in a school that has 600 students. It’s impressive – they are schooled in it and try to get better every time,” he said.  

This is the second time a school in Hartselle has earned National Blue Ribbon status. In 2011, Barkley Bridge Elementary also received the award.