MAINE’S BLUE RIBBONS

Congratulations to Bangor High School for being the latest school to be recognized nationally for the excellent work of students, faculty and staff. The announcement last week that the high school had been chosen among the U.S. Department of Education’s 172 Blue Ribbon Schools was an honor for both the school and the city.

The Education Department, which began citing top schools in 1982, chose Bangor High this year because of its strong community support, as evidenced by the recently completed $5 million addition, its high rate of students continuing their educations, a struggle in most places in Maine, and its educational options that range from one-on-one instruction for struggling students to some of the most challenging courses around.

At a time of looming state budget cuts, it is enlightening to see what resources and a productive focus on education can produce. Bangor High is far from the only Maine school to win this honor – about 30 have been awarded the Blue Ribbon in the last 20 years, most recently the Madawaska Elementary School last year and the Dr. Levesque Elementary School in Frenchville and the Rockport Elementary School in ’98-’99.

Not only must schools achieve a top level of performance to win, they must demonstrate it to a national team of educators. Ten teachers worked on the Blue Ribbon application, meeting every week for a year. The national evaluators arrived in February and spent two days attending 50 classes and interviewing parents, teachers and students. This no doubt took a lot of time from teachers whose schedules already were full, but the experience of reviewing where the school stood compared with its own goals and where it stood compared with schools across the country must have been rewarding.

That makes the Blue Ribbon award not just a flag to wave, but a means for even further improvement.