Yuma principal featured in PBS documentary

ON TELEVISION

"GOOD TO GREAT," A DOCUMENTARY ON PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS FEATURING ALICE BYRNE SCHOOL, WILL AIR ON KAET-TV CHANNEL 8 AT 9 P.M. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 10. IT WILL BE REBROADCAST AT 2 P.M. SUNDAY, JAN. 14.

What does an elementary school in Yuma have in common with the Dallas Police Department, Southwest Airlines and Starbucks' business ventures in China?

According to Jim Collins, the businessman and author of the best-selling "Good to Great," all have overcome challenges to excel, and an his upcoming documentary will show how they did it.

Yuma Elementary School District 1's Alice Byrne School will be featured in the documentary of "Good to Great," scheduled to air on KAET-TV Channel 8 Wednesday night. It will be rebroadcast Sunday.

The broadcast will examine Collins' guiding principals of success, and how they have been applied across these diverse industries.

Alice Byrne's principal, Juli Peach, will be interviewed in one of six segments.

"It's not just about me," Peach said. "It's about all my teachers and what they've done, and how they've succeeded in the profession that they go to every day.

We're a small school, we're a small town and we have all of these obstacles that we've overcome with our community. ...We've come together as a team to say, look, we can do it. If we can do it, other schools can do it and other communities can do it."

Alice Byrne was chosen for its success in increasing the number of third-grade students reading at grade level to nearly 100 percent.

It is one of 12 schools in the state that were singled out as steadily improving despite high poverty rates and high numbers of English Language Learners. Alice Byrne has 62 percent of its students in each of these categories.

The school's success was documented in the report "Why Some Schools with Latino Children Beat the Odds...and Others Don't," released in March by the Center for the Future of Arizona and the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University.

Collins served as a consultant on that study.

Orange Grove Elementary in Somerton was the only other school in Yuma County to make this list.

Peach said this kind of recognition does not suggest the work is done.

"There are always students who are not going to be at the place that we want them to be...we just have to keep pounding away at it," she said.

The documentary's other segments will examine:

Southwest's rise to become America's largest and most profitable airline

The Dallas Police Department's success in reducing the city's crime rate

The recollections of Adm. James Stockdale, the highest-ranking American prisoner of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War

A segment charting Starbucks' growth over the past 20 years with footage of the company's expansion into China.

Peach has already seen the documentary. She said it does not focus on education, but on general principles good organizations have used to become great.

"What they're going to see that really speaks to the social-sector organizations is how people that are dedicated and that have a passion for what they do...that passion can guide you to really make a difference."

Sarah Reynolds can be reached at

sreynolds@yumasun.com or 539-6847.