Although America’s public schools aren’t always cast in the most positive light in the mainstream press, we are proud to recognize several of Decatur County’s schools for their recent achievements.

We celebrate Potter Street Elementary School, which was named Tuesday as one of only 26 Georgia public schools that were named as 2011 Georgia Schools of Excellence. There are two schools named from each of Georgia’s 13 congressional districts, and PSES earned one of the two 2nd Congressional District’s honors, by being the school that demonstrated the greatest continuous gains for student achievement in the past three years, as measured by assessments in reading and mathematics. The 2nd Congressional District, represented by U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop (D), includes portions of Lowndes, Muscogee and Worth counties, and all of Decatur, Baker, Brooks, Calhoun, Chattahoochee, Clay, Crawford, Crisp, Dooly, Dougherty, Early, Grady, Lee, Macon, Marion, Miller, Mitchell, Peach, Quitman, Randolph, Schley, Seminole, Stewart, Sumter, Talbot, Taylor, Terrell, Thomas and Webster counties. That is quite an achievement to be chosen out of such a large area — well done, Potter Street Elementary School!

School administrators also had additional positive news at Thursday evening’s Board of Education meeting. The district recently received its adjusted Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports, and although Bainbridge High School still did not meet overally AYP, it did reach two milestones. First, the school made AYP in math for the first time in five years, and the school also set a new historical high for graduation rate, at 78.1 percent. The 2010 graduation rate was 77.3 percent.

Of course, school officials will be the first to say that there are always improvements that can be made. That doesn’t discount the significant milestones that were recently achieved; congratulations to all the teachers and students whose hard work and devotion made them possible.