Arizona Superintendent honors Sunrise Drive Elementary as Blue Ribbon School

CATALINA FOOTHILLS, Ariz. (KGUN) — Arizona Superintendent Tom Horne paid a special visit to Sunrise Drive Elementary School in the Foothills Thursday morning to recognize a significant achievement.

Sunrise Drive was recently named a "Blue Ribbon School," a national award that acknowledges the "exemplary achievements" of the school's students, educators and their families.

Horne experienced their achievement firsthand by visiting teacher Charlotte Ackerman's robotics class.

“There are only four Blue Ribbon schools in the whole state of Arizona," Horne said. "They’re doing great academically. They credit everyone in the community; the teachers, the staff, the parents, the students. The community, even people without children, are supportive of the school, and they've achieved great results.”

Horne also honored a group of educators at the school, each with more than three decades of dedication to Sunrise Drive and their students.

Ackerman, who has been at Sunrise for thirty years, expressed that she has had many memorable moments during her time there saying, “Sunrise Drive started the robotics program. It's now district-wide and K-12, so that's huge. We also started inclusion, so that our special needs students are involved in classrooms by their abled peers”