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Auggie Toppo, 10, finished fourth grade on a high note after receiving the Master Mathematician Award in his fourth-grade class at J.G. Johnson Elementary School.

But only six months ago it was the last thing Auggie Toppo would have expected of himself.

Auggie spent the 2004-2005 academic year in third grade at Derfelt Elementary School in Las Vegas, where he was less than a successful student.

The next academic year, he enrolled at MJ Christensen Elementary School, but didn't do much better. The young student was getting bad grades, was increasingly late for class, and when it came time to take the Iowa Basic Skills Test (ITBS), he scored in the bottom 20 percentile of the nation.

As Frank Toppo, Auggie's father, bluntly put it, Auggie "was just doing terribly."

But this year, after enrolling in J.G. Johnson Elementary School in Pahrump, in addition to being named Student of the Month last month, the youth scored in the top 15 percentile of the ITBS.

Like any concerned parent, Frank attempted to get involved in his child's education in Las Vegas and attempted to address the problem.

Frank said he visited the school nine times in an attempt to meet with teachers or the principal, but never got any results.

"The principals and the teachers just weren't interested," Frank Toppo said. "They just kept passing him along."

Frank places part of the blame on the No Child Left Behind Act, federal legislation designed to raise the standards of elementary and middle schools by making schools more accountable for the performance of their students.

Under the legislation, funding for schools is partially contingent on their overall performance, which is evaluated based on test scores and other quantified standards.

"It was in their best interest to keep passing him along and just get the money," Frank said.

The father also claimed that numerous phone calls he made to the school were never returned.

Joanna Gerali, principal of MJ Christensen Elementary school, said she could not speak about specific students due to confidentiality.

However, Gerali did say that the school makes sure phone calls are always returned.

The principal also said that when it's brought to the staff's attention that a student is having difficulty in any area, whether disciplinary, academic, or socially, a "student intervention team" is formed to address the issue.

The staff gets together and forms what Gerali calls a kind of think tank and attempts to come up with a solution to address the problem, from counseling to additional tutoring.

Frank said that a meeting was held in September of 2005, at the beginning of the academic year, but that he was never told about it, although his ex-wife was.

According to Frank, the solution that came out of that meeting was to move Auggie's chair closer to the teacher.

It didn't help, and by the end of the school year Frank said his son was "depressed" and just wanted to finish school and get a job when he graduated.

On the last day of school, Frank finally met with Gerali and a Clark County School District psychiatrist, who suggested medicating Auggie, who had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Auggie's diagnosis, however, came only after Frank, a general practice physician, decided to have his son tested after the school did not.

The doctor was adamantly opposed to his son taking medication which he said has detrimental side effects and in some cases can even be lethal.

When the father found out in September of last year that his son would be moving to Pahrump to live with him, he called the Nye County School District office and explained the difficulties his son was having to Superintendent Rob Roberts.

Although school had started a week earlier, according to Frank the superintendent "moved mountains to make room for him."

Auggie was placed in Doris Jackson's fourth-grade class, and slowly but surely, the boy began to improve.

"When he first came to class, he was fidgety," Jackson admitted.

But as the school year went on, Jackson found she had to remind the student to focus less and less.

"We just gave him time to settle in and get comfortable with the group," Jackson said.

It didn't happen overnight, but there was a noticeable improvement in Auggie Toppo. "It was a slow process," Jackson said. "It was not overnight by any stretch."

And according to Jackson, it also was not a solo effort.

Jackson also met with Auggie's tutor each day, and said she enjoyed the unwavering support of his father.

"We worked hand in glove together," Jackson said.

The teacher said that by the end of the school year, Auggie was reading at a fifth-grade level. Now Auggie is an Honor Roll student and is enjoying school again.

"He does more homework than needs to be done just so he can stay ahead," Frank Toppo said.

Auggie wants to be a doctor when he grows up, and has even asked to be tutored throughout the summer to help prepare him for next year.

When it came to addressing Auggie's ADHD, the school district's counselor recommended that the student have a stress ball to squeeze while taking a test and take tests with fewer students around him.

With these accommodations in place, Auggie tested far better than he had in the past.

The father attributes his son's improvement to the Nye County School District and the administration be ing much more attentive and caring to his son's needs.

"Here we have a superintendent who cares, a principal who cares, a counselor who cares, and a teacher who cares," Frank Toppo said. "They all helped us and made this happen."