GARFIELD RIDGE — St. Daniel The Prophet, a Catholic grammar school on the Southwest Side, won this year’s national Blue Ribbon award.
St. Daniel, 5337 S. Natoma Ave., was one of three Chicago schools selected for this year’s honor. Skinner North Classical School on the Near North Side and St. Juliana in Edison Park were also recognized.
“We are so elated,” said Gina Verta, a St. Daniel parent. “We are blessed with the best teachers.”
Mary Novak is one of those teachers. Now handling the school’s second-graders, Novak has served at St. Dan’s for more than three decades. For the past three years, she and group of St. Dan’s educators have been applying for the Blue Ribbon.
This year's achievement represents the hard work of the school community coming together to make sure students receive a stellar education year after year, Novak said.
“We worked together for years to achieve the goals that made it possible for us to get the Blue Ribbon,” Novak said. “Every classroom teacher had to be doing their jobs, and you can’t take away from the parents and their support.”
About 700 students attend St. Dan’s, and many of those students have parents who also went to school there. A third of the school's teachers have taught there for more than 25 years.
To celebrate the award — the first in the school’s 71-year history — students were recently allowed to “dress down” and wear blue. The school will soon hold a rally attended by U.S. Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-3rd).
Since 1982, Blue Ribbon awards have been given to schools showing overall academic excellence or progress in closing achievement gaps among students, according to the award's website.
Across the country, 329 schools received a Blue Ribbon.
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