Blue Ribbon Schools Program

The Blue Ribbon Schools Program was established in 1982 to honor schools which have achieved high levels of performance or significant improvements with emphasis on schools serving disadvantaged students. The Blue Ribbon award is considered the highest honor an American school can achieve.  The first two years of the program only secondary schools were recognized, from 1983-2002 the program honored secondary and elementary schools in alternating years.

From 2003-2008 the program changed to the No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon Schools Program. The program honors elementary and secondary schools that make significant progress in closing the achievement gap, recognizing those schools that have at least 40 percent of their students from disadvantaged backgrounds and have dramatically improved student performance to high levels in reading and mathematics.  The program also recognizes schools whose students achieve in the top 10 percent.  Schools are nominated, based on state assessments, in reading and math, by the Kansas Commissioner of Education and invited to apply by the U.S. Secretary of Education.

From 2009 to present the program changed back to the Blue Ribbon Schools Program. The program honors elementary and secondary schools that make significant progress in closing the achievement gap, recognizing those schools that have at least 40 percent of their students from disadvantaged backgrounds and have dramatically improved student performance to high levels in reading and mathematics.  The program also recognizes schools whose students achieve in the top 10 percent (in 2010 this changed to top 15%).  Schools are nominated, based on state assessments, in reading and math, by the Kansas Commissioner of Education and invited to apply by the U.S. Secretary of Education.