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Three Southern Arizona schools were among the 19 schools statewide receiving prestigious "A+" designations Friday from the non-profit Arizona Educational Foundation.

The schools include Fruchthendler Elementary School on the East Side of the Tucson Unified School District, Cienega High School in the Vail School District and San Manuel Jr./Sr. High School in the Mammoth-San Manuel Unified School District.

The designation, which started in 1983, doesn't come easily. The application alone runs about 40 pages and takes anywhere from 6 months to 24 months to finalize.

It also requires a site visit by a panel of judges made up of teachers, administrators, business leaders and volunteers.

Thirty-one schools applied this year and were assessed on six measures, including active teaching, community involvement, leadership and achievement data.

"The one thing we find that's consistent is that each of these schools have really top-notch leadership," said Bobbie O'Boyle, the foundation's executive director. "The other thing that's consistent is a caring, culture of learning. If those two components aren't in place, we don't have an A+ school."

Judges said they were impressed with Fruchthendler's caring atmosphere, noting it showed "parental involvement at its best."

They lauded the school's strong fine-arts program, in which second-graders work with a dance specialist and all fourth-graders learn to play the violin.

They also applauded the school garden, in which plots are divvied up among students and the resulting vegetables are either shared or sold to help buy more seeds for the garden.

Cienega was praised for its strong extracurricular activities and its strong sense of mission shared among students, parents and staff.

San Manuel was recognized in part because teenagers there described the place in such positive and enthusiastic terms that one judge described it as a "magical place."

"Teachers and principals put in long, hard days, so I get excited when they get recognized for the work they do," said Vail Superintendent Calvin Baker, who said he was particularly heartened to see that his was the only large, comprehensive high school on the list for the entire state.

Baker said part of the reason for the school's success is that administrators have set a weekly goal of visiting classrooms to evaluate what's happening there, by looking for special instructional techniques and counting to see how many students are actively engaged in each lesson.

That level of oversight, coupled with a strong commitment from the teachers, he said, is why 91 percent of sophomores passed the AIMS writing test on the first try last year, as did 88 percent on the reading portion and 80 percent on math.

Fruchthendler's principal John Heidel said school staffers were "ecstatic" at the news that the year they invested in the effort paid off.

"It really tells us that everyone is working together — parents, faculty members, students — in a real team effort. We're just thrilled."

Schools getting the nod will receive $500, a banner and some promotional materials.

The award is valid for three years.