"It's a great honor:" Hundreds of Menomonee Falls students recognized for academic excellence

MENOMONEE FALLS (WITI) -- Remember how great it felt to get an 'A' on that tough assignment? On Wednesday, February 25th, hundreds of students in Menomonee Falls were recognized for academic excellence.

How do you become the best at getting better? That's the motto in the Menomonee Falls School District. Words these honor roll students, with a GPA of 3.75 or higher, live by.

"I studied a lot, I paid attention in class, and I worked hard," honor roll student Danny Sanicki said.

Twins Danny and Steven Sanicki are in the 8th grade. They're proud to be invited to this year's Honors Breakfast.

"We do challenge each other a lot, so we know we are both getting good grades so we can succeed," Steven Sanicki said.

Their mother and father couldn't be more proud.

"It's a great honor, it's something they have worked towards and it is a goal that they have made to be able to be there," Katye Sanicki said.

Out of 857 students, 317 qualified to be invited to this Honors Breakfast, and for those who have been attending over the years, they say that number has grown quite a bit.

"When I was here four years ago, I expected it took look about the same. It turns out, there were almost double the amount of people that were here," Joey Burgoyne.

As an alum and speaker at the event, Joey Burgoyne made the honor roll every year since 6th grade. He's a senior in high school now, but has one regrets to share with the crowd -- not getting involved in extra curricular activities sooner. A lesson he hopes his peers will take to heart.

"You have to put in that extra work to receive the grades that you want," Burgoyne said.

The Menomonee Falls School District is actually a national case study for improvement in the classroom. Stanford University as well as The Carnegie Foundation are two institutions looking into how the district has improved student learning.