(Geronimo) — Navarro Elementary School continues its celebration of being one of 26 Texas public schools nominated for 2021 National Blue Ribbon School honors.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Education Agency recently announced the recognition for the Navarro ISD campus. To be honored, a campus must have achieved in one of two performance categories, Exemplary High Performing Schools or Exemplary Achievement Gap Closing Schools.
Navarro ISD Superintendent Wendi Russell says in the case for the elementary campus, it has been nominated for its exemplary progress in closing achievement gaps among its student subpopulations.
“This is one of 26 nominations that he makes. He nominated 13 schools for high performance and 13 schools for closing the achievement gap so our elementary school was one of the 13 schools nominated for closing the achievement gap and this is huge if you think about the number of schools in the state of Texas, not just districts but actual schools public and private,” said Russell.
Initiated by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Blue Ribbon Schools program recognizes both public and private schools, honoring only a handful each year. Since 1982, the program’s founding, a total of 9,000 schools from across the nation have received this prestigious designation.
Russell says in the Navarro ISD, helping all students be successful is the district’s number one priority.
“First of all, closing the gap takes all of our kids and then compares their scores to individual sub population groups so we’ve had a lot of growth between our sub population groups and what that says is that we are working with all students and bringing everybody up, not just focusing on our high achieving kids or not just focusing on one population. We are focusing on all categories and that includes our special education department. That includes our students that are economically disadvantaged. It includes everyone of our ethnic populations, so we are working with all students across the board to get their scores up and close those gaps that we have seen historically across the nation,” said Russell.
In addition to celebrating the nomination, Russell says the district is also spotlighting some of the efforts that go into making it happen.
“I would say some of the things that we are doing, the number one thing that I can say in this district is that we try on every campus to make kids feel involved and have a part of the education. We try to keep them engaged and connected so it’s not just about coming to school and sitting in the classroom. It’s more about feeling that connection with the teachers and feeling the connection with the school by offering outside activities, by offering clubs, by offering specialized tutorials – whatever we can do to make that connection with the student and the parent,” said Russell.
Russell says being nominated for the Blue Ribbon recognition is a true honor and is optimistic that the school’s success will continue to be awarded.
“To be one of those 13, you know a lot of schools have the data, a lot of schools have the scores but to be recognized, you have to have your name out there and get your name into the public and have the scores and so everything has to come together at the perfect time so our district was able to achieve that and so, from here, we will fill out an application for a National Blue Ribbon and that goes to the nation. It goes to Washington, D.C. They will select from all of the candidates most likely about 350 schools to be recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School,” said Russell.
With its Texas nomination, Navarro Elementary School will now submit an application for national recognition. The announcement for that award is slated to be made in September.