Five Kentucky public schools have been designated as 2011 National Blue Ribbon Schools by the U.S. Department of Education.

The five are:

  • North Middletown Elementary, Bourbon County
  • W.R. McNeill Elementary, Bowling Green Independent
  • Woodfill Elementary, Fort Thomas Independent
  • Gamaliel Elementary, Monroe County
  • Southside Elementary, Pike County

Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary School in Lexington also was named a Blue Ribbon School in the nonpublic schools category.

Nationwide, 304 schools will be honored with National Blue Ribbon Schools awards, which recognize public and private P-12 schools that help students achieve at very high levels and for making significant progress in closing achievement gaps.

The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program, honors public and private schools based on one of two criteria:

1) Schools whose students are high-performing. These are schools among each state’s highest performing schools as measured by their performance on state assessments or, in the case of private schools, that score at the highest performance level on nationally normed tests.

2) Schools with at least 40 percent of their students from disadvantaged backgrounds that improve student performance to high levels as measured by the school’s performance on state assessments or nationally-normed tests.

All five of Kentucky’s newest Blue Ribbon Schools meet the requirements in the first category, schools whose students are high-performing.

Representatives from each school will attend a recognition ceremony Nov. 14-15 in Washington, D.C. Since the program’s revamping in 2003, 35 Kentucky public schools have been named Blue Ribbon Schools. More information on the program is available here.