Blue Ribbon School
The Road To Blue Ribbon
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From the time we were first established as St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School in 2004, many of our families, faculty and staff members urged us to pursue the distinctive Blue Ribbon School Award when the time was right, as schools must have been in existence for a full five years.
In October of 2009 we established a team of teachers that would gather information and write reports summarizing some of the wonderful things about our school in the areas of: Curriculum, Assessment, School Leadership, and improving Student Achievement. We wrote, edited and finalized our application that was mailed in November of 2009.
The Blue Ribbon Schools Program seeks to identify truly exemplary model schools, not just good schools or strong schools. St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School met the following guidelines as a High Performing School of Excellence:
- "High performing" means that the achievement of the school’s students in the most recent year tested places the school among the highest performing schools in the nation in reading (or English language arts) and mathematics as measured by a nationally normed test
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In the most recent year tested, scores for ALL tested grades must be among the top 15 percent of scores in the state or nation for that grade using school norms as the standard.
- The school must have been in existence for five full years.
- If the school includes grades 7 or higher, the school must have foreign language as a part of its curriculum and a significant number of students in grades 7 and higher must take foreign language courses.
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(left to right) Beth York, Aba Kumi, Director,
Blue Ribbon Schools Program
Office of
Communications and OPutreach U.S. Department
of Education and Sara Clark |
- The school must use assessment data to analyze and improve student and school performance. Assessment data is used systematically in decision-making processes to improve teaching and learning.
- The school must provide an overview of how instruction is delivered and how all students are engaged with significant content based on high standards in every curriculum area, including the visual and performing arts program, and physical education, health, and nutrition programs.
- The school must provide examples of how students acquire foundational reading skills, including comprehension, and describe the efforts the school makes to improve the reading skills of students performing below grade level.
- The school must describe the mathematics curriculum, including efforts the school makes to improve the mathematics skills of students who are performing below grade level.
- The school must differentiate instruction, especially to meet the diverse needs of student subgroups. The school must provide examples of how the instruction is modified or supplemented to produce student learning and achievement.
- The school must use professional development activities to support student learning that is aligned with academic standards.
- The school must show how it has shared successful strategies with other schools in the district or state or professional associations
- The school’s leadership must ensure that policies, programs, relationships, and resources focus on improving student achievement.
In January we received news from CAPE that we were one of the nominated schools for the 2010 school year, and that our application would then be reviewed by an Assessment Panel that would verify our eligibility in regard to testing data.
In August we were notified that we were one of the 50 private schools for the 2010 school year, but that no official announcements could be made before the Secretary of Education officially announced the 2010 winners in September.
On September 10, 2010 St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School was announced by the U.S. Department of Education as a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence!
Blue Ribbon School recognition is “the icing on the cake”. Talk to any teacher, administrator or staff member at St. Francis and you will find that we’ve always believed that “great things happen here”. We love what we do, we have amazing students and families to work with and we try daily to live by the mission of “teach as Jesus did”.
This award belongs equally to our pastor, priests, every student, parent, teacher, staff member, administrator and parishioner. Each of us and our belief in Catholic Education has helped to create the atmosphere where students learn in an environment of Christian love, community and rigorous academic standards. We achieve at high levels!
We are PROUD to be a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence!!
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