MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) – Schools to Watch is a national recognition program of middle schools that achieve high levels of success across the board.

The Horry County School District is now part of a prestigious list after a committee selected St. James Middle School as a School to Watch

The endorsement makes St. James Middle the first school in Horry County to be named. It is also the largest middle school in South Carolina and only one of 400 middle schools across the entire United States to be selected for membership into this national forum.

After the insistence of one of its teachers, the school began the application process.

“Mrs. Crystal Reissman was that teacher, sixth grade special ed. She was attending with me and some others the South Carolina middle school conference. She came to me and said hey we can do this,” St. James principal Dr. Boykin said.

Her idea turned into a school wide effort. After several sessions of conversation, meetings and visitations, the committee selected St. James Middle for priorities set by the school focusing on academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, social equity, and organizational structures and processes.

“It was an eight member team who came and spent two and a half days it was pretty intense with them looking at every aspect of what we have,” Boykin added.

That includes work that reaches beyond the school’s doors.

“We try to clean up our community and serve others…we provide to the nursing homes and do sweeps,” St. James middle student Anna Wallace Lee added.

Sharon Arudda is a Math teacher at St. James Middle and she joined the committee with Ms. Riceman after realizing the school met all the qualifications.

“Well we’re excited to be the very first ones, we know that we have lots of good schools in our area so we have no doubt there will be other winners in our area but to be the first mean a lot to us,” Arudda said.

But even after being the first school recognized, the work to maintain the status is only beginning.

“We’re always looking to improve. You got to inspect what you expect and we think we’ll get better and better,” Boykin said.

Boykin and several staff members will be recognized at the SC Middle School Conference in March in Myrtle Beach, and again at the National Conference in Washington, DC in June.