Lake County schools lauded for excellence

The cheers, whistles, claps and smiles said it all.

Whether winning the award for the first time or the fourth, the enthusiasm was the same for the two Lake County Catholic schools that received the Blue Ribbon award on Tuesday.

Saint Mary of the Annunciation Catholic School and Carmel Catholic High School, both of Mundelein, were presented with the 2007 No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon Award by the U.S. Department of Education, timed to coincide with Catholic Schools Week.

The two schools are among four from Lake County to receive the recognition this academic year. In Illinois, 19 schools were named Blue Ribbon schools, while 287 received the award nationwide. It is considered the highest honor in academic achievement.

"It's a wonderful feeling for us," said Saint Mary's Principal Deborah Dedeo on the school's first blue ribbon. "We really give them a great spiritual faith foundation, but this shows that we also give them an excellent academic education."

Saint Mary's was among seven elementary schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago to earn the honor. It draws students from Hawthorn Woods, Grayslake, unincorporated Ivanhoe, Mundelein, Round Lake and Wauconda.

"We're a small school," Dedeo said. "There's only 210 (students), so for the children to excel, it really is huge for us."

For Carmel, it is an even bigger achievement because it is among only five high schools in the country to have earned four Blue Ribbon awards. It is also the only high school in Illinois and one of three private high schools in the nation to be recognized this year.

Three of Carmel's four blue ribbons -- 1985, 1996, 2002 and 2007 -- were earned under the leadership of principal Father Robert Carroll.

"To have a sustained level of excellence over that period of time is what's remarkable," Carroll said.

Carroll also was principal of Chicago's Mount Carmel High School when it was awarded the first blue ribbon for a private school in the 1983-84 academic year.

"If you are not the top principal within the United States … there are no others," said Kristine Kohn, a regional representative for the U.S. Department of Education, when presenting the award. "We have the greatest educational system throughout the world. What we don't always have is young people who take advantage of that educational system. That is not the case here at Carmel."

The No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon Schools Program rewards schools with test scores that placed them in the top 10 percent of schools in the state or nation.

St. Francis de Sales Catholic School in Lake Zurich will receive its blue ribbon Wednesday. Twin Groves Middle School in Buffalo Grove was presented with the award last year.

Award: Carmel one of five schools with four ribbons