Five Arkansas schools were named National Blue Ribbon Schools by the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday.
St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School in Rogers and Vandergriff Elementary School in Fayetteville received the honor this year, as did Mount Pleasant Elementary School in Mount Pleasant, Park International Magnet School in Hot Springs and Valley View Junior High School in Jonesboro.
Vandergriff also received a Blue Ribbon award in 2009, as did Mount Pleasant and Park.
"I'm just so proud of our students, our staff and our parents," Vandergriff Principal Andrea Sego said. "Kids love to come to school and learn. We just have great teachers that really care about the child and teaching the whole child."
The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes public and private elementary, middle and high schools where students either demonstrate high performance on standardized tests or have made progress toward closing achievement gaps, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Education.
The department gave out 335 Blue Ribbon awards this year and 8,000 awards since the program began 33 years ago.
All five Arkansas schools won awards for high performance based on the results of standardized tests for all students and for students in diverse subgroups.
The department will host a recognition ceremony Nov. 9-10 in Washington, D.C., for the 285 public and 50 private schools that received Blue Ribbon awards this year.
Public schools nominated for the awards for high performance must be in the top 15 percent of all schools in the state for test scores and in the top 40 percent for the test of diverse student subgroups.
Students in public schools took the exams from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers in the spring, but those results have not been released yet.
State Desk on 09/30/2015