Two FCPS schools were getting a big award. Then came a letter from the feds

Two of the four Kentucky elementary schools up for a heavily coveted U.S. Department of Education award are in Fayette County.

But just before the announcement naming the 2025 National Blue Ribbon Schools was to be made, the U.S. Department of Education abruptly ended the program, a Kentucky Department of Education news release said Thursday.

State officials were informed of that decision in a letter dated Aug. 28.

Ordinarily, the nominated public schools — Maxwell Immersion Spanish Elementary School and Meadowthorpe Elementary in Fayette County, Tamarack Elementary School in Daviess County and Graves County’s Central Elementary School — would have been recognized by the 43-year-old federal program in a ceremony in Washington, D.C., Kentucky officials said.

“Schools across the nation had completed the vigorous applications and were being certified by their respective state departments of education — the last step in the process — when letters were sent to state officials from the U.S. Department of Education announcing the end of the program,” the KDE news release said.

“We were in the process of recertifying our schools, and we got an email from USED saying they were ending their role in the program ‘in the spirit of returning education to the states,’” KDE spokesperson Jennifer Ginn told the Herald-Leader Thursday. “It happened pretty quickly.”

Chalkbeat in September reported that as President Donald Trump scaled back the federal role in education, Education Department officials told state education agencies in the August letter that they were ending the National Blue Ribbon Schools program, “which honors high-performing schools and schools that have successfully narrowed academic gaps between student groups.”

Madi Biedermann, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education, Chalkbeat reported, said that “state leaders are best positioned to recognize excellence in local schools based on educational achievements that align with their communities’ priorities for academic accomplishment and improvement.”

In the KDE news release, Education Commissioner Robbie Fletcher said the four elementary schools would be recognized at the Kentucky Board of Education meeting on Dec. 4.

“We would like to celebrate these four exceptional schools for the hard work that went into being selected and meeting all the requirements to be certified as National Blue Ribbon Schools,” Fletcher said.

“After all the dedication and hard work of the students and the staff and the efforts and many hours put into completing the application, we at the Kentucky Department of Education and the Kentucky Board of Education could not let this achievement go unnoticed,” Fletcher said.

“The National Blue Ribbon Schools Award has always stood as a symbol of the exceptional achievements of students and educators at each of the recognized schools,” said Fletcher. “The National Blue Ribbon Schools raised the bar for our nation and our state’s students and have served as models for effective teaching and intentional collaboration in their schools and communities.”

The program recognized schools based on all student scores, subgroup student scores and graduation rates. Kentucky’s four schools met the criteria to qualify as Exemplary High-Performing Schools.

The four schools are among hundreds across the country that would have been recognized this year, KDE officials said.

Broader dismantling efforts

This week, the U.S. Department of Education announced in a news release on its website that the U.S. Department of Education has six new interagency agreements with four agencies to break up the “federal education bureaucracy, ensure efficient delivery of funded programs, activities, and move closer to fulfilling the President’s promise to return education to the states.”

“The Trump Administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in the release. “Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission. As we partner with these agencies to improve federal programs, we will continue to gather best practices in each state through our 50-state tour, empower local leaders in K-12 education, restore excellence to higher education, and work with Congress to codify these reforms.”

Kentucky education officials did not immediately say how they will be affected by the U.S. Department of Education’s latest announcement.