2015 Guidance for Chief State School Officers

National Blue Ribbon Schools Program

U.S. Department of Education

Nomination Process

OMB Control Number: 1860-0506 

Expiration Date: February 28, 2015
2015 National Blue Ribbon Schools Program

Nomination Process

Introduction

Since 1982, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Blue Ribbon Schools Program has honored 

America’s most successful public and private elementary, middle, and high schools. A National Blue 

Ribbon Schools flag waving overhead has become a trademark of excellence, a symbol of quality 

recognized by everyone from parents to policymakers in thousands of communities. 

The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes 1) schools whose students achieve at very high 

levels or 2) schools making significant progress in closing achievement gaps among different groups of 

students. The Program sets a standard of excellence for all schools striving for the highest level of 

achievement. 

National Blue Ribbon Schools are honored each year at a recognition ceremony in Washington, DC. The 

applications from the award-winning schools are posted on the Department’s website. A small group of 

National Blue Ribbon Schools are visited each year to identify educational practices that have been 

especially successful.

The Department invites Chief State School Officers (CSSOs) for all states and the District of Columbia, the 

territories, the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), and the Department of Defense Education Activity 

(DoDEA) to nominate schools for recognition as National Blue Ribbon Schools. In this document, CSSOs 

will refer to the chief school officers for the states and for the public education entities named above. In 

submitting the list of nominated schools, the CSSO must certify that the schools meet the minimum 

requirements established by the Department for nomination. As described below, states must rely on their 

state accountability and assessment systems to identify schools for submission to the Secretary.

Requirements for the State Nomination Process

The number of schools each state may nominate is based on the number of K-12 students and schools in 

each state, ranging from a minimum of three schools to a maximum of 35. For information about 

nomination allocations, contact Aba Kumi, Director, National Blue Ribbon Schools Program, 

Aba.Kumi@ed.gov or by phone: (202) 401-1767.

At least one-third of the public schools nominated by each state must have enrollments which include at 

least 40 percent of their students from disadvantaged backgrounds. A student from a “disadvantaged 

background” is defined by the CSSO of each state. The definition must include students who are eligible 

for free and reduced-price school meals and may include students with disabilities and students who are 

limited English proficient, migrant, or receiving services under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

The Department also recommends nominated schools reflect the demographic and geographic diversity of 

the state’s school-age population.

Each state’s nomination criteria must pertain equally to all schools nominated by the state. 
Eligibility Requirements Based on School Performance

In order to be eligible for nomination, a school must meet several criteria based on the performance of its 

students on state assessments in reading (English language arts) and mathematics. A school may be 

nominated in either of two performance award categories:

1. Exemplary High Performing Schools: “High performing” is defined by the CSSO of each state, but 

at a minimum means:

a. The performance of all tested students in the school in the most recent year tested in both 

reading (English language arts) and mathematics must be in the top 15 percent of all schools in 

the state when schools are ranked based on the performance of all tested students.

b. For each of the school’s subgroups, the performance of all tested students in the subgroup in the 

most recent year tested in both reading (English language arts) and mathematics must be in the 

top 40 percent of all schools in the state when schools are ranked based on the performance of 

tested students in that subgroup.

c. For the most recent year in which graduation rates are available in the state, the graduation rate 

of a high school must be in the top 15 percent of all high school graduation rates in the state.

2. Exemplary Achievement Gap Closing Schools: “Achievement gap closing” is defined by the CSSO 

of each state, but at a minimum means: 

a. The school must be in the top 15 percent of all schools in the state for both reading (English 

language arts) and mathematics based on its progress in closing achievement gaps between the 

school’s subgroups and the state’s all-students group over the past five years, comparing the 

most recent year to the earliest year. 

b. For each of the school’s subgroups, the performance of all tested students in the subgroup in the 

most recent year tested in both reading (English language arts) and mathematics must be in the 

top 40 percent of all schools in the state when schools are ranked based on the performance of 

tested students in that subgroup. 

c. For the most recent year in which graduation rates are available in the state, the graduation rate 

of each of a high school’s subgroups must be in the top 40 percent of all high school graduation 

rates for that subgroup in the state. 

d. The change in the performance of all tested students in the school over the past five years, 

comparing the most recent year to the earliest year, must not be less than the change in the 

performance of all tested students in the state in both reading (English language arts) and 

mathematics.

In addition to meeting the above performance criteria, a nominated school must have at least 100 students 

enrolled and have assessment data for at least 10 students in each tested grade for both reading (English 

language arts) and mathematics. States with a large percentage of schools with fewer than 100 students 

enrolled may include up to a similar percentage of these schools in their nominations as long as each school 

has assessment data for at least 10 students in each tested grade for both reading (English language arts) and 

mathematics.

Also, all nominated public schools must meet their state’s Annual Measurable Objectives (AMOs) in 

reading (English language arts) and mathematics or make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in reading 

(English language arts) and mathematics in each of the two years prior to nomination (2012-2013 and 2013-

2014) and must do the same for the year in which they are nominated (2014-2015).
Special Assessment Provision for the 2015 Award Year

Some schools in some states participated in field testing in the 2013-14 school year for new assessments 

developed by the assessment consortia. These schools may not have assessments results available for this 

school year. The Department has decided to allow states with such schools to use the state assessment 

results from the 2012-13 school year to nominate schools for the 2015 award year. These will be the same 

assessment results that were used to nominate schools for the 2014 award year. Thus, if these states rank 

order schools in the same way for the 2015 award year, it is likely that the same schools would be eligible 

for the 2015 award. (If such a state revises its nomination plan for the 2015 award, there may be other 

schools that are eligible for nomination.) These states, however, should have additional schools that are 

still eligible—schools that were not nominated for the 2014 award—based on meeting the above school 

performance criteria and the other criteria listed below. If not, the state should contact Aba Kumi, Director, 

National Blue Ribbon Schools Program, by e-mail: Aba.Kumi@ed.gov or by phone: (202) 401-1767.

Other National Blue Ribbon Schools Eligibility Requirements

1. The school configuration includes one or more of grades K-12. Schools on the same campus with 

one principal, even a K-12 school, must apply as an entire school.

2. If the school includes grades 7 or higher, the school must offer foreign language as a part of its 

curriculum.

3. The school has been in existence for five full years, that is, from at least September 2009, and 

tested grades must have been part of the school for at least the past three years.

4. The nominated school has not received the National Blue Ribbon School award in the past five 

years: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, or 2014.

5. The nominated school has no history of testing irregularities, nor have charges of irregularities been 

brought against the school at the time of nomination. The U.S. Department of Education reserves 

the right to disqualify a school’s application and/or rescind a school’s award if irregularities are 

later discovered and proven by the state.

6. The nominated school has not been identified by the state as “persistently dangerous” within the 

last two years.

7. The nominated school or district is not refusing Office for Civil Rights (OCR) access to 

information necessary to investigate a civil rights complaint or to conduct a district-wide 

compliance review.

8. OCR has not issued a violation letter of findings to the school district concluding that the 

nominated school or the district as a whole has violated one or more of the civil rights statutes. A 

violation letter of findings will not be considered outstanding if OCR has accepted a corrective 

action plan from the district to remedy the violation.

9. The U.S. Department of Justice does not have a pending suit alleging that the nominated school or 

the school district as a whole has violated one or more of the civil rights statutes or the 

Constitution’s equal protection clause.

10. There are no findings of violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in a U.S. 

Department of Education monitoring report that apply to the school or school district in question; or 

if there are such findings, the state or district has corrected, or agreed to correct, the findings.
State Plan for Nominating National Blue Ribbon Schools

The Department is using a new process that requires all states to describe the procedures they will use to 

determine which schools are eligible for nomination. All states must develop and submit a plan for how 

they will identify and select schools eligible for recognition in each performance category: (a) Exemplary 

High Performing Schools and (b) Exemplary Achievement Gap Closing Schools. This new process 

recognizes that many states are implementing significant changes in academic standards, assessments and 

accountability metrics and targets. States may submit revisions of the plan they submitted for the previous 

award year. As in the previous year, states may choose to nominate only Exemplary High Performing 

Schools or Exemplary Achievement Gap Closing Schools or both. The plan must describe the procedures 

the state will use for each category in which they choose to nominate schools. The following description of 

appropriate content should be used as a guide in determining what revisions need to be made.

For identifying either Exemplary High Performing or Achievement Gap Closing Schools, the plan must 

address the following questions:

1. What measure of student performance will be used to rank order schools based on the performance 

of all or subgroups of students on the state assessments (e.g., average student scale score, 

percentage of proficient students, student growth based on value added or growth percentiles)?

2. Will schools be ranked separately for reading and mathematics, requiring a school to be ranked 

sufficiently high in both subjects, or after combining each school’s performance in reading and 

mathematics?

3. Will certain types of schools be excluded from the ranking process (e.g., enrollments under 100, 

less than 10 tested students in each grade in reading or mathematics) or will those schools be 

filtered out after the ranking process is completed?

4. Will schools be ranked within each grade, within grade levels (e.g., elementary, middle, high), or 

across all grades tested? If not across all grades tested, how will schools that serve more than one 

grade or grade level be ranked?

5. For which subgroups, including special low-performing groups or super subgroups, will schools be 

ranked based on subgroup performance?

6. What is the minimum for the number of students tested in a subgroup in a school in order to include 

a school in a ranking based on that subgroup’s performance?

7. What is the minimum for the number of students tested in a subgroup in a school before the school 

is held accountable for being in the top 40 percent for that subgroup?

8. What type of graduation rate based on which year was used to rank order high schools on 

graduation rate?

For identifying Exemplary Achievement Gap Closing Schools,

1. For which two years (e.g., the most recent year and four years prior) will the gap between each 

school’s subgroups and the state all student group be calculated so that the change in the gap from 

the earlier to the most recent year for each school can be ranked for each subgroup?

2. For which two years (e.g., the most recent year and four years prior) will the difference between 

each school’s all student group and the state’s all student group be calculated so that the change in 
this difference from the earlier to the most recent year for each school can be calculated to 

demonstrate that the school’s all students group has not declined relative to the state’s all student 

group

Submitting State Nomination Plans to the Department

States are required to submit their nomination plans, as outlined above, for review. Plans can be submitted 

online through a secure portal located at State Liaison National Blue Ribbon Portal. Reviewers will follow 

up with questions, suggestions, or comments when necessary. Should technical assistance be required while 

developing plans, state liaisons should contact Aba Kumi, Director, National Blue Ribbon Schools 

Program, by e-mail:Aba.Kumi@ed.gov or by phone: (202) 401-1767.

Submitting State Nominated Schools to the Department

Once plans are reviewed and accepted by the Department, states will implement their own methodology for 

nominating schools. Submissions of nominated schools will be made online through a secure portal located 

at: State Liaison National Blue Ribbon Portal. The submissions will include descriptive information and 

demographic data for each nominated school. In addition, submissions will supply a URL to each school’s 

most recent public report card.

Before submitting nominations, the Department recommends that state liaisons contact the principal of each 

school under consideration to confirm interest in applying for the National Blue Ribbon School award. In 

addition, the Department recommends that state liaisons offer to review completed school applications 

before final submission to ensure that applications reflect the high quality expected by the CSSO. This 

review would also serve to verify that the school meets the approved state eligibility criteria and all other 

requirements of the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program. Finally, the Department recommends schools 

and states hold off publicizing their nominations until after the Secretary’s announcement of the awards.

Timeline for 2015 National Blue Ribbon Schools 

Date Due

September 25, 2014 The Secretary sends a letter of invitation to the CSSOs, DoDEA, BIE, and CAPE 

requesting nominations of schools.

November 21, 2014 Plans for public school nominations from CSSOs, DoDEA, BIE, and non-public 

school nominations from CAPE are due to the Department.

December, 2014 Plans for nominations are reviewed for alignment with the general eligibility 

criteria of the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program. 

December 12, 2014 Non-public school applications are due to CAPE.

January 12, 2015 Public school nominations from states are due to the Department.

January 15, 2015 The Department invites schools nominated by CSSOs to apply for recognition as 

National Blue Ribbon Schools.

January 30, 2015 CAPE selects its nominations.

March 20, 2015 Completed public and non-public school applications are due to the Department.
Date Due

April-May, 2015 Applications are reviewed for completeness, quality and accuracy.

August, 2015 States certify that nominated public schools have met all eligibility requirements. 

September, 2015 The Secretary announces the 2015 National Blue Ribbon Schools.

November, 2015 Two representatives from each school, the principal and a teacher, attend the 

recognition ceremony in Washington, DC.