Abington is One of 100 ... For the Sixth Time

The America’s Promise Alliance, once again, named Abington as one of the nation’s “100 Best Communities for Young People” at a webcast just before 12:30 p.m. this afternoon.

This is the sixth time that Abington has won the award.

This year’s announcement was more subdued than last year’s.

There were no students in the board room in the administration building, rather several members of the school district’s administration were on hand to hear the announcement.

Abington School District spokesman Byron Goldstein, who submitted the community's long application, said the school district offered to Skype into the event, but the America’s Promise Alliance wanted to “spread it around.”

Also, this year’s announcement is one month earlier than last year’s, and Goldstein said it wouldn’t be fair to take the students out of class so early in the year. He did say the school district would likely hold an event down the road.

The five “promises” needed to be kept are:

• Caring adults
• Safe places
• A healthy start
• Effective education
• Opportunities to help others

General Colin Powell, the founding chairman of America’s Promise, said in a taped webcast that prior to 2005, there wasn’t a formal recognition program for communities that were doing good. Powell said that 320 communities from each state were nominated; 18 communities were new winners … and 19 communities won the award for a sixth time. Like Abington.