Greenway’s National Blue Ribbon application has been denied.

In January, in a letter to Principal Warren Jacobson, Steven O’Brien, the director of the Knowledge Application Division of the U.S. Department of Education, said that the application would not be reviewed by the national review panel because the font was too small.

The application directions specified that the document could not be in a font smaller than 11 point.

“We used 11 point Centaur. The whole application was created in that font. We picked that font because it was small,” Jacobson said. “It gave us the opportunity to give as much information as possible.

“(Our application) should be judged on content rather than typography,” he continued. “I believe so strongly that this was a poor and unjust decision on the part of Mr. O’Brien.”

Greenway is the only high school in Arizona to receive the A+ award and qualify to compete for the National Blue Ribbon.

This isn’t the first time Greenway has been in the running for the national award.

“We did the same thing in ‘96 and won the national award. We know what it means to be attentive to detail,” he said.

And, if anyone knows the rules, it’s Jacobson.

“The U.S. Department of Education trained me to be a national reviewer. If anyone knows how to properly judge the criterion, it’s a nationaly trained reviewer,” he said.

When Jacobson talked to O’Brien, he asked him to look at the document on its disk.

“I asked him if he had that disk. I aked him if he had a computer, and I said, ‘Humor me. Plug that into the slot and open it up’,” he said.

According to Jacobson, O’Brien saw that the application was in 11 point Centaur but said, “well, it looks so small.”

“He said he was the final authority. Obviously I didn’t accept that response,” Jacobson said. “What I wanted to say was, ‘I might accept that from God or the President of the United States, but everyone has a boss’.”

Jacobson’s next move was to get the word out.

“Jamie Molera, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, was notified by the Arizona Education Foundation that our application had been denied review,” he said.

Jacobson and Press Secretary Tom Collins met together and decided what to do.

Molera and Jacobson were interviewed live on the air on KTAR 620, and Jacobson and English teacher Bonnie Hoffert, who worked on the application, were interviewed on Channel 15 News.

Next, Molera contacted O’Brien. He wrote a letter outlining his postition that Greenway had made no mistakes.

Copies of this letter were sent to Congressmen and Senators and Jacobson is hoping to hear from John Shadegg who is in this Congressional district.

As of press time, the letter had received no response.

“After an arbitrary amount of time, we may step it up a notch,” Jacobson said.

“Stepping it up” might include a postcard campaign.

“Maybe 1,000 postcards to our Congressmen would do something,” he said.

Jacobson was quick to say that he “didn’t want to make a pest of himself.”

“Obviously our Congressional leaders have a lot on their minds right now,” he continued.

So, what are Jacobson and the other 137 people who worked over 400 hours on the 37-page application so upset about losing?

“There’s not much to be gained other than the external validation that makes us feel good,” he said.

According to Jacobson, “For them (the document writers) to be told they’re not even in the competition because of a font size dispute, that’s a little hard to take. The whole thing sounds pretty absurd.”