The Trump administration canceled a top education award. This LA school is celebrating anyway

Last week, the students of a small South Bay elementary school ate blue Takis, stamped blue handprints onto a giant tree mural and colored blue ribbons to celebrate a historic achievement.

Lucille J. Smith Elementary was nominated as a National Blue Ribbon School for closing achievement gaps on state standardized tests. The school was one of 31 in the state this year and the first in the Lawndale Elementary School District to be nominated for the award — arguably the highest honor an individual school can get from the federal government.

For more than 40 years, the federal Department of Education has presented the award at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., but in late August, the department ended the program.

The cancelation is one of many changes to U.S. education policy since President Donald Trump started his second term and eliminated a rare opportunity for a small school that serves largely low-income children of color to be recognized for excellence on a national stage.

“We're not gonna let the administration and the current political climate [put a damper on] the great gains that this community [achieved], that the teachers and the staff, and your principal, and the parents and the kids earned with your very hard work,” Superintendent Virginia Castro said.

What it takes to become a Blue Ribbon School

In April, Principal Cristal Moore learned Smith Elementary was nominated to become a National Blue Ribbon school.

The program began in 1982 during President Ronald Reagan’s first term to recognize the nation’s top performing schools.

Specifically, Smith was highlighted for being in the top 15% of the state in its efforts to close achievement gaps.

Cristal Moore (left) has been principal at Smith Elementary for almost eight years and an educator in Lawndale for 30. The school's mascot, Charlie the Cheetah, is a more recent addition to campus.

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Moore spent her spring break filling out the 25-page application. The document creates a detailed picture of the school.

• The majority of its 331 students are Latino (71%), but the school also serves one of the district’s highest concentrations of Black students (16%).  
• About a third of students are English language learners and also speak Arabic, Filipino, French, Pashto, Spanish, Thai, Urdu, Vietnamese and Amharic, a major Ethiopian language. 
• Most students qualify for free and reduced-price meals, a proxy for counting those from low-income families. 

In California and across the country, Black, Latino and low-income students, score lower than their peers on standardized tests and have yet to catch up to their pre-pandemic peers.

Statewide, California test scores for reading and math increased 1.8 percentage points last school year, but at Smith, there were double-digit increases (32.5 points in math and 27.4 points in reading and writing) schoolwide.

Moore said that no racial group, nor students from low-income families, scored more than 10 percentage points below the school’s average.

“I think a lot of times when you're involved in the day to day, you forget about really the big picture and how much you really are doing,” Moore said. “It was nice to be able to pull back and go, ‘You know, we're doing great stuff.’”

With 331 students, Smith Elementary is the smallest school in the Lawndale Elementary School District.

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Among the school’s strategies for supporting students are: small group instruction at least twice a week and meeting with students before and after school.

And there’s ongoing teacher development in the school’s “learning lab.” On the walls of the once-empty classroom, there is a card for each student with their photo, recent test scores and whether they are an English learner, have a disability or other unique need. The room is only accessible to educators.

“Historically, student data was treated as private, often eliciting anxiety or fear of judgment,” Moore wrote. “At Smith, we have worked to dismantle that mindset, reinforcing that data is a snapshot, not a final destination.”

Moore said the visualization helps educators identify struggling students and celebrate their process. A banner in the room reads: “Learning is a fiesta waiting to happen.”

The end of the Blue Ribbon program

An Alabama news outlet first reported the end of the Blue Ribbon program Aug. 29. Moore said the Department of Education confirmed the cancelation the same week she expected to learn whether the school had won.

LAist asked the department about the decision but has not received a response. A spokesperson told the education news site Chalkbeat in September that the change was “in the spirit of returning education to the states” and that local leaders were best positioned to recognize school excellence.

Yet a past winner told LAist that the award’s prestige and impact was linked to national recognition.

“It almost makes any school, including my school, feel that … now we're in the finals,” said Hing Chow, principal at Monterey Vista Elementary, which won the Blue Ribbon award in 2004 and 2020.

Like Smith, the Monterey Park elementary is a Title I school that receives additional money to support students who live in poverty.

“When we got this award, our community and staff, they were extremely proud because it really affirmed … that there were results,” Chow said. “It also gave us momentum to aspire to better results.”

The art teacher at a Lawndale middle school made hundreds of custom blue ribbons for Smith students, teachers and the community.

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Winning schools often incorporate Blue Ribbon into their marquees and marketing materials. The accolade is one of the first things Chow mentions in his message to families on the school’s website.

More than 9,000 schools have received the award since it began, but now, the national record of that achievement is gone along with the program’s website.

The Trump administration has worked to shut down the nation’s education department entirely, including firing hundreds of people who manage programs and funding for students with disabilities and using federal civil rights law and the upcoming budget to try to end supports for students of color and other groups.

‘Our kids deserve this’

Smith parent and PTA treasurer Sunny Tamrakar was one of few people who knew the school had been nominated and was one of the first at the school to find out about the cancelation.

“I'm not gonna lie, I was pissed. Really just furious,” Tamrakar said. “For me personally, it was just unnecessary, painful and disheartening.”

He contacted the district’s superintendent, emailed and called local and national elected officials and members of the media, including LAist.

“Let's fight for this,” Tamrakar remembered telling them. “Our kids deserve this. [The principal] deserves this. The staff deserves this. The parents deserve this. The kids deserve this.”

Smith parent and PTA treasurer Sunny Tamrakar (left) and his family. Tamrakar is the PTA treasurer and helped organize the school's Blue Ribbon celebration. “In the larger world of things that are happening, changes, good things, bad things — mostly bad things — this is an easy win,” Tamrakar said of the recognition. “This is an easy thing that makes a difference.”

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Tamrakar spearheaded the planning of a local celebration. Smith’s PTA agreed to spend about $1,000 on food, decorations and matching blue ribbon shirts with the school’s cheetah mascot for staff, which a local vendor agreed to provide at cost.

(After planning began, the California Department of Education announced it would also recognize the 2025 National Blue Ribbon Schools.)

School board members and members of the Lawndale City Council were there to congratulate the school in person, and local politicians sent honorary certificates too.

More than a hundred people gathered in the school’s courtyard, including families.

“It gives me a sense of pride knowing that my daughter goes here,” parent Monique Landrum said of the award. She’d already shared the news on a work call earlier in the day.

Landrum considered other schools before enrolling her daughter in transitional kindergarten at Smith last year.

“From the principal to the teachers to the staff, everyone here is amazing,” Landrum said. “They actually care about the children and their success. And I feel so secure and relieved that my daughter's here.”

Jada, who's in kindergarten, said she's learned her ABCs and numbers at Smith and likes to do art. "As a parent, I feel like I'm doing a good job having her in a school that is prioritizing her education and just her overall wellbeing," said her mom, Monique.

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Parents who spoke to LAist said relationships with the people working at the school were what made it special.

Melissa Villaluz’s son Kingston attended Smith; she remembered Principal Moore’s check-in calls during the pandemic.

“It's been such a journey, and I wouldn't have had it any other way,” Villaluz said.

Tania Larios’ daughters started attending the school last fall. Larios, who is currently unhoused, said the school helped provide food, clothes and gifts at Christmas. Throughout the year, the school’s social worker has helped her connect to resources, like the food bank.

“They've made my hard times a little bit easier,” Larios said. “So I'm very grateful, very grateful for them.”

Larios also joined the school’s PTA.

“I want to be part of the community,” she said. “I wanna be involved in my daughter's everything. My parents were not like that, but if I'm here for them.”

Smith parent Tania Larios and her daughters. Valerie (left) is in fourth grade and can rattle off everything she’s learned this year from division and multiplication to idioms. Her favorite part of Smith is the school’s big playground and the friends she’s made.

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Jessica Schilling has been a special education teacher for nearly three decades with the last six years at Smith.

“I was thrilled because I see the work that my colleagues and I put in every day,” Schilling said. “I have seen such growth in students every single year I've been here.”

At Smith, students with disabilities attend classes alongside their peers and also get additional support tailored to their needs.

“None of the teachers are in the mindset of like, these are your kids,” Schilling said. “Those are their kids.”

But Schilling said the celebration was also bittersweet.

“It's disappointing to hear that what's happening at the federal level is not supportive of what we're doing here,” Schilling said in response to the national award’s cancelation. “That said, to me, the honor remains. … I see that what we're doing here is valuable and important.”

How Smith Elementary is moving forward

After the celebration ended, a kindergartner named Jada walked into Principal Moore’s office to give her a package of Oreos from her stash of celebration snacks and promised to bring more for her teachers tomorrow.

“You're so generous,” Moore told Jada, giving her a hug. “Thank you, sweetie.”

Moore said this kind of interaction is common at Smith, where every student is greeted by name in the morning.

“When you can show kids that you see them, you know them and you care about them, you are increasing the likelihood of them wanting to be at school,” Moore said. “You are instilling in them a sense of confidence, self-worth, and I think that has a lingering impact.”

Moore also acknowledged that there still is more work needed to support all Smith students. For example, the largest test score disparities remain between English language learners, students with disabilities and their peers.

One of her next priorities is to double the amount of small group instruction for English and math.

“We know that progress is sometimes slow, but it requires consistency,” Moore said. “We're gonna celebrate. I'm gonna try to frame a lot of these [awards], but we're just gonna keep doing what we are doing because I think this is evidence that we're doing great things.”