Metro-area schools earn national honors

TOPEKA — The U.S. Department of Education has named six schools in Kansas — half of them in the Kansas City metro area — as National Blue Ribbon Schools for their efforts to improve student achievement.

The honorees are Basehor-Linwood High School; Blue Valley High School in Stilwell; St. Thomas Aquinas High School, a private, Roman Catholic school in Overland Park; Garden City High School; Goddard High School; and Marshall Elementary in Eureka.

Blue Ribbon schools are honored as high-performing schools based on state assessment scores, or as exemplary improving schools that have shown progress in helping disadvantaged students improve on state tests.

Marshall Elementary and Garden City High School were chosen as exemplary improvers. The other four were noted for high performance.