U.S. Education Department puts Forest Grove High School in the spotlight | OregonLive.com

U.S. Education Department puts Forest Grove High School in the spotlight | OregonLive.com

U.S. Education Department puts Forest Grove High School in the spotlight

By Wendy Owen, The Oregonian

April 15, 2010, 8:16PM

FOREST GROVE -- A couple of months from now, the calls will start.

School officials across the nation will want to visit Forest Grove High School and see how the rural school turned itself around over the last six years.

That's the price of fame. One minute you're a 1,900-student school with an agriculture program, 24 Advanced Placement courses, math and reading workshops, student mentors and teachers who dote on their students. The next minute, a U.S. Department of Education film crew is featuring you in a national video as one of America's "turnaround" schools.

During a visit to the school Thursday, Deputy Assistant Secretary John White of the U.S. Department of Education said Forest Grove will be the first rural high school filmed as part of the department's plan to highlight successful schools across the United States.

"It's a terrific day to be a Viking," said Forest Grove Principal John O'Neill.

The U.S. Department of Education already has filmed a handful of urban schools as part of a program called What's Possible: Turning Around American's Lowest-Achieving Schools.

White didn't know how many rural schools would be filmed, but the Forest