ICS is a 2015 National Blue Ribbon School

On Tuesday morning, September 29, 2015 the U.S. Department of Education announced the recipients of the 2015 Blue Ribbon Schools award. Immanuel Christian School is honored to be recognized as a Blue Ribbon school. ICS is one of only five private schools in Virginia and one of only fifty private schools in the nation to receive this award in 2015. Only forty private schools in Virginia have received this award since it was established thirty-three years ago.
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What is the Blue Ribbon award?
Blue Ribbon status is conferred on public and private schools that have demonstrated superiority in their academic program, consistently high scores on standardized testing across all grade levels, relevance in their interaction with the surrounding community and articulate, forward-leaning guidance from the school’s leadership. In order to apply for Blue Ribbon a school must meet an 85th percentile standardized testing threshold in math and reading scores for the current year.

What did ICS do to receive Blue Ribbon status?
The ICS leadership began the application process for this year’s award in the summer of 2014 when members of the faculty and staff met to coordinate the self-study and report writing that is required to meet the stringent standards for Blue Ribbon. Over the next months, various members of the office staff and faculty contributed information for inclusion in the application. By the time the final document was ready, it had been thoroughly reviewed by the school leadership and was submitted in January 2015.

Blue Ribbon AwardThe Blue Ribbon application from ICS noted the many innovative and proven instructional methods employed by teachers at each grade level and subject area. Advances in our technology program, authentic opportunities for community service and consistent improvement in standardized testing scores were all described. Most important, however, was the honest characterization of Immanuel Christian School as an institution whose purpose is to teach students biblical truth and whose mission is to partner with families to inspire our students for purposeful lives of learning, godliness and service.

What advantage is there to being a Blue Ribbon school?
On November 10th during an award ceremony in Washington, D.C., our Head of School, Stephen Danish, ICS School Board Chairman, Chris Gleason, and Assistant Head of School, Dale Pinkley received a congratulatory plaque and flag from Aba Kumi, the Director of the National Blue Ribbon School Program for the Department of Education. In addition, the DOE website includes the location and description of ICS.  This publicity will be available to families who are looking for a private school in our locale.

We thank the Lord for this recognition and pray that He will use this to increase our ministry to children and families in Northern Virginia, the District of Columbia and Maryland.

This post was written by Marty Crabtree, ICS’s Enrichment Resources Coordinator, who compiled and submitted our Blue Ribbon application to the Department of Education.