Edgemont Primary School in Covington has been selected as one of the country's most effective schools serving students from low-income families.

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings this week listed the roughly 350-student school as one of 320 schools nationwide and 11 in Virginia to be named a No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon School. The award is given every year to high-performing schools that serve low-income students through a federal program known as Title I. There are more than 53,000 Title I schools in the country.

Edgemont is the region's only school to get the award. Last year, Sharon Elementary in Alleghany County and Tazewell Elementary in Tazewell County were the only two schools in the region to be recognized.

"I'm so proud of what the students have accomplished and what the teachers have accomplished, the parents, the community -- it's an amazing thing," said Marc Smith, Edgemont's principal.

He said the school's success was because of cooperation on the part of the teachers and their focus on remediation.

"If we find that you're struggling in the morning, you receive help that afternoon. We just can't afford to let you get behind," he said.

The school serves students from pre-kindergarten to third grade. Since Virginia's testing rules require that only students in third grade or above take annual Standards of Learning tests, Edgemont's testing fate rests on the 60 to 70 third-graders enrolled every year.

Oddly enough, the school's most recent test results, which helped it win the award, were lower than last year's, when 94 percent of students passed the English SOL test and 100 percent passed tests in mathematics, history and science.

This year, by contrast, 90 percent of students passed in English while 92 percent passed in mathematics, 97 percent in history and 87 percent in science.

"Your goal is 100 percent and we didn't achieve that, but we gave it everything we had and the kids gave it everything they had," Smith said.

Under the No Child Left Behind law, schools have until the 2013-14 school year to achieve 100 percent pass rates, a goal that critics have denounced as unattainable.

Covington Superintendent Eddie Graham said he wasn't surprised to hear of Edgemont's award.

"It has the characteristics of a successful school," he said, citing its commitment to monitor every student's progress.

The school used to struggle to meet state standards but turned the corner three or four years ago, Graham said, recalling the moment he told the staff they had hit the state targets.

"The emotion that was in that room was just unbelievable," he said.

With three schools and roughly 900 students, the district is among the smallest in Virginia. That makes it possible to offer special services such as a districtwide after-school program, a summer academy, all-day kindergarten classes and two preschool programs.

"Even as superintendent, I get to know most of the students," Graham said.