St Rose School Nominated For Blue Ribbon Award

St Rose of Lima School has been selected as a nominee for the US Department of Education’s national Blue Ribbon Award for 2009.

St Rose received this recognition based on its Iowa test scores for 2008, which placed the school in the top ten percent of all schools in the United States.

“Those scores could not be achieved by our students without the dedication of our teachers and the partnership of the parents in providing an academic environment that focuses on individual student success,” says Mary Maloney, St Rose’s Principal.

St Rose was nominated for the award by the Council for American Private Education (CAPE); public schools are nominated by each state’s commissioner of education. St Rose is one of 13 Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Bridgeport, which covers all of Fairfield County, to be nominated for the 2008-2009 award.

Other schools in the area that were nominated for the award are Greenwich Catholic School; Our Lady of Fatima School, Wilton; Our Lady Star of the Sea School, Stamford; St Aloysius School, New Canaan; St Cecilia School, Stamford; St Gregory the Great School, Danbury; St Joseph School, Brookfield; St Jude School, Monroe; St Lawrence School, Shelton; St Mark School, Stratford; St Mary School, Ridgefield; and St Thomas Aquinas School, Fairfield.

St Mary’s of Bethel received the Blue Ribbon award for the 2007-2008 academic year. It is not eligible as a nominee for this year since a school cannot receive the award two years in a row.

“When people ask how our Catholic schools compare to public schools, we now have the answer for them,” says John Cook, deputy superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Bridgeport. “We’re right at the top.”

Having reached this status, these 13 schools will now participate in the final selection process, which takes a full academic year. According to Mary Maloney, the application process will take place through November, then CAPE will select 50 private schools to receive the 2009 Blue Ribbon Award. Formal announcements will be made next September.

St Rose enrolls 341 students in grades K through 8 and 100 students in its preK programs.