Neuqua Valley principal wins national recognition for leadership

Neuqua Valley High School Principal Robert McBride is among eight educators nationwide to receive the Terrel H. Bell Award for outstanding school leadership, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced Wednesday.

McBride, who is in his 10th year at the Naperville school after serving for three years as principal at Glenbard East in Lombard, will be honored along with the other seven principals during a National Blue Ribbon Schools awards ceremony Nov. 6 in Washington, D.C.

"I'm shocked. I'm astonished. I'm kind of blown away; my mind is blown," he said Monday.

The Bell awards are presented by the U.S. Department of Education along with the National Association of Elementary Schools Principals, the Association for Middle Level Education and the National Association of Secondary Principals to honor outstanding educators for their role in guiding students and schools to excellence. Principals are nominated by their schools during the final stages of the National Blue Ribbon application process.

McBride is the only one of this year's honorees from Illinois.

The U.S. Department of Education website praised him for "a certain kind of steel" in working through a state budget crisis while introducing Common Core standards and closing academic achievement gaps "with a message of simplicity, clarity and coherence."

Neuqua has achieved seven consecutive years of ACT growth; increased numbers of students, especially minorities, in advanced placement course work and testing; and increased its number of National Merit Semifinalists.

But McBride said he's "flat-out most proud" of the cooperative, cohesive atmosphere at Neuqua that makes the school's success possible.

"We have a team spirit," he said, "and we all work together. All the things I do, I do with other people."

He said the Bell award "represents all of our work and the degree of focus we've had at our school."

Much of Neuqua's recent success, he says, has come during tough budget times where "doing more with less has become a way of life."

"It tells you a lot about our students, our community and the work of our staff," he said. "I become the representative of all that."

McBride's award comes on the heels of an announcement earlier this year that Neuqua was one of 25 Illinois schools to be named a Blue Ribbon Award winner. It became the sixth school in Indian Prairie Unit District 204 history to win the recognition.

The school plans to celebrate that honor and more on Nov. 21 in the gym. Called the Red Carpet Rally, the annual bash allows everyone at Neuqua who has won state or national recognition to walk a red carpet.

With the Blue Ribbon designation, McBride says, this year will be special.

"It will be the first time everyone in the room has won a national honor," he said.

Neuqua serves roughly 4,000 students from Naperville, Aurora, Plainfield and Bolingbrook.