National Blue Ribbon School nominees from Long Island to be honored by state after program cancellation
Harborfields High School was named a National Blue Ribbon School in 2016, and had been nominated again this year. Credit: Rick Kopstein
The state Department of Education announced this week that it will honor four Long Island public high schools that were nominated as National Blue Ribbon Schools before the Trump administration ended the program.
In all, 19 schools in New York State were nominated. The four Island schools, recognized for their “exemplary” academic performance, are Harborfields High School in the Town of Huntington hamlet of Greenlawn, Garden City High School, Manhasset Secondary School and Earl L. Vandermeulen High School in Port Jefferson, the state agency said Tuesday.
Newsday reported last week that the Port Jefferson school was one of the nominees. The other schools' placement on the list had not been publicly disclosed before Tuesday.
All 19 Blue Ribbon nominees in New York will be honored at a future meeting of the state Board of Regents, which oversees schools in New York, said J.P. O'Hare, a spokesman for the state Department of Education. The state has not yet announced the date the schools will be honored.
The recognition "once again shows that Long Island has high-quality public education," said Bob Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association. "I'm glad that the state will recognize schools that should have been recognized nationally."
The National Blue Ribbon Schools program honored the top-performing schools in the nation in two categories: those with exemplary academic performance and those that succeeded in closing achievement gaps between groups of students. The announcements of the awards typically were made at festive events, and the designations could help attract families to the school districts that received them.
The federal Department of Education generally announced the honorees each September, but it informed state officials last month it had ended the program as it shifts more control over schools to the states. The federal Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment.
Rory Manning, superintendent of the Harborfields district, called the federal Department of Education’s decision to cancel the Blue Ribbon program “disappointing.”
Even so, he said, “we were happy to receive the nomination…. We’re very proud of the work of our students and our staff.”
All four schools have been honored as Blue Ribbon schools before — most recently, Harborfields in 2016, Garden City and Vandermeulen in 2017 and Manhasset in 2019.
Christopher J. Pellettieri, interim superintendent of schools in Manhasset, said in a statement that educators were proud to learn they had been nominated for the honor, and “disappointed to learn soon after that the program was canceled.”
Kusum Sinha, superintendent of schools in Garden City, said educators in her district devoted “a significant amount of time and effort to completing this extensive application process,” and they were excited to share the news once it became official.
But even without the official designation from the federal Department of Education, she said, earning the nomination from the state is an opportunity to “reflect on the exceptional work of our students, faculty and staff, and… support of our entire Garden City community.”
Earlier this month, the state Department of Education informed school officials about the cancellation and urged them to contact the federal Department of Education if they were disappointed about the program’s end.
Manning said he has contacted federal officials and urged them to reconsider the cancellation.
In his letter, Manning called the move “profoundly discouraging.” Allowing the program to continue, he wrote, would “ensure that the accomplishments of schools and the communities that support them are recognized and celebrated at the national level.”
Maura McDermott covers education. Since joining Newsday in 2012, she also has worked on the investigations team and covered real estate and the business of health care.
