Gulf High School earns triple honors

By AMY ROUNDTREE

NEW PORT RICHEY -- Less than one week into the 2006-2007 school year and Gulf High School already has bragging rights.

Among Pasco County Schools, Gulf High is the only one to be awarded all three honors bestowed by the Florida Department of Education: Five Star School Award, the Golden School Award, and the Silver School Award.

"I'm very proud," said Thomas Imerson, who has been Gulf High School principal since 1991.

"We do a lot of these programs because it's good for kids to be involved in the community and for parents to come in and see what we're doing. I think we'd be doing it anyway, even if there wasn't an award for it."

The Five Star Award recognizes community and business partnerships, family involvement, volunteerism, student community service and school advisory council participation.

Only 816 of Florida's 3,857 schools received the award. Gulf was Pasco's only high school to be honored with the recognition.

Imerson credited a variety of factors with helping his school achieve Five Star status. They include parent meetings regarding athletics, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, a poetry coffeehouse, and get-togethers with feeder schools - the elementary and middle schools where students will eventually go to Gulf High."

In addition, the school maintains an up-to-date Web site, www.gulfhigh.org., and sends out two quarterly publications.

Imerson's Principal's Newsletter goes out every three months between installments of the Gulf High Gazette, noted in 2003 as the "number one public relations newspaper in the state of Florida" by the Sunshine State Public Relations Association.

"Gulf High School has done a great job," said Holly Rockhill, supervisor of volunteer programs, communications and government relations for Pasco County School District.

"Any school could do it, but they would need to have a solid volunteer program in place and a volunteer coordinator with a commitment to documenting the volunteer hours. I can tell you that is not easy."

She credits Gulfs volunteer coordinator, Victoria Mudry, with putting in "a lot of time to make sure that happens."

Tina Wallace, Gulf media specialist, puts together the books that document projects throughout the year.

"So many clubs do volunteer work, and so many students are required to do volunteer work for Bright Futures scholarships, it's not even a problem to find the activities," she said. "We just have to document them."

Golden and Silver School awards are given only for volunteer participation.

The Gold School Award includes hours donated in all forms of volunteering that support instruction.

To earn the award, the school's total number of volunteer service hours must equal twice the number of enrolled students.

Gulf's 1,550 population required more than 3,000 volunteer hours. They logged 4,473.

Fifty Pasco County schools were among the 1,787 Florida institutions receiving the 2005-2006 Golden Award.

Gulf was one of only two Pasco schools and 196 schools statewide achieving the Silver School Award, which is given only to secondary schools at which students provide volunteer services to elementary and secondary schools.

For the Silver School Award, a school's cumulative volunteer hours must equal at least half its enrollment, or 775 hours in the case of Gulf.

For the 2005-2006 school year, the Buccaneers logged more than 2,000 volunteer hours.

The Silver School Award was earned primarily by two programs, the Naval Junior ROTC unit and a literacy project, Imerson said.

Cadet Lt. Cmdr. Angel Alvarado said NJROTC students love helping the community, partially because they feel their efforts are valued by the administration.

"It brings everyone together, like a big family," he said.