Representatives of the Hebrew Academy in Huntington Beach were on hand, on Friday, October 31, in Washington, DC to receive the U.S. Blue Ribbon Award for excellence in education. The Chabad Hebrew Academy is one of only two Jewish day schools in the nation to receive the 2002-2003 “No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon Award” for the U.S. Department of Education.

In 1997, the Academy was also a recipient of the Blue Ribbon Award and is now one of the very few schools, public or private, that has been recognized for excellence by two federal administrations. A total of 47 private schools across the nation were recognized this year.

“No other Jewish school in the nation has received the recognition this cycle and this honor of distinction twice, and within the minimum five-year period of application, says Rabbi Yitzchok Newman, dean of the academy. “And we were awarded the Blue Ribbon under two different sets of criteria. This is telling us that the education we deliver here at the Academy measures up with the very best in the nation in every way.”

“In keeping with the principles of the No Child Left Behind Act, we will reward schools based on student achievement results, not process,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige. The new Blue Ribbon Schools Program honors public and private K-12 schools that are either academically superior in their states or that demonstrate dramatic gains in student achievement.