2011 Blue Ribbon Schools

Seven Catholic elementary schools within the Archdiocese of Newark, are among fourteen schools in New Jersey that have been recognized as 2011 National Blue Ribbon Schools.  The Catholic schools receiving the Blue Ribbon designation are as follows:

St. John the Apostle School, Clark

St. John’s Academy, Hillsdale 

St. Joseph School, Oradell 

Our Lady of Mercy Academy, Park Ridge

Our Lady of the Lake School, Verona

Holy Trinity Interparochial School, Westfield

St. Elizabeth School, Wyckoff.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan released the list of 304 schools to be honored at the November awards ceremony in Washington, D.C.  The list of 2011 National Blue Ribbon Schools includes 255 public schools and 49 private and parochial schools.  The complete list of 2011 National Blue Ribbon Schools can be found at: http://www.ed.gov/nationalblueribbonschools .

Since 1982 the U.S. Department of Education’s Blue Ribbon Schools Program has honored public and private schools that are either high performing or have improved student achievement.  The seven schools in the Archdiocese of Newark receiving the award have been recognized as high performing schools.

Schools recognized as high performing schools are schools ranked among each state’s highest performing schools as measured by their performance on state assessments or, in the case of private and parochial schools, schools that score at the highest performance level on nationally normed tests.

Public schools eligible for the Blue Ribbon Schools Award are nominated by their Chief State School Officer based on the school’s performance on state assessments. Private and parochial schools are nominated by the Council for American Private Education (CAPE) which is permitted to nominate 50 schools each year.  Schools nominated by CAPE must have scores on national standardized tests that place the school in the top 15 percent of schools nationwide in student achievement in reading (or English language arts) and mathematics. Each of the 2011 Blue Ribbon schools from the Archdiocese met this criteria based on the school’s 2010 TerraNova scores.  In addition to the student achievement criteria eligible schools must have an enrollment of at least ten students in each of the grades tested during the most recent five years. Each of the eligible schools were invited to complete the Blue Ribbon application which required demographic data, an overview of the school and the community it serves, an analysis of assessment results, and descriptions of specific elements of the school’s program that contribute to students’ academic achievement.  Additional information about the National Blue Ribbon Awards Program can be found at: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/nclbbrs/index.html .