It’s official: Indian Prairie School District 204’s Wayne Builta Elementary is a 2026 Governor’s Blue Ribbon School.
This year, 24 public and private K-12 schools were recognized, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and the Illinois State Board of Education announced this week. Builta was the only District 204 school — and one of only 16 public schools statewide — recognized.
“This achievement is not the result of one person or one year,” District 204 Superintendent John Price said in a news release from the district. “Rather, it is a culmination of years of hard work from the staff, and also celebrates the hard work of the students and their families.”
The state program recognizes schools that demonstrate high academic achievement or make “significant progress in closing achievement gaps,” according to a news release from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s office. The program was established last year after the national Blue Ribbon Schools program, started in 1982, was eliminated by the U.S. Department of Education.
Principal Adrienne Morgan said she learned Builta had received the honor two weeks ago.
“It was just exciting,” she recalled. “I was excited to think about the fact that, very soon, we’d be able to tell the teachers and our…parent community just that the hard work that we do every day really does matter.”
The Bolingbrook school was among those schools recognized as “High Performing” this year, per the news release from Pritzker’s Office.
Morgan, who has worked in the district for three decades and is in her sixth year as Builta’s principal, said she learned last spring that her school had been selected to apply for the designation.
The program is administered through a state-led application process, in which eligible public schools are invited to apply based on statewide data and the same criteria that had been established under the former federal program, according to District 204. Nominated schools then submit applications detailing their school culture, curriculum, assessments, instructional practices, community involvement and more.
Three District 204 elementary schools were invited to apply this year, Morgan said, but Builta was the only one that got the designation this year.
She said the school’s staff made it a point to work together to show what Builta is like and properly address all of the different components of the application. Their application spoke to things like family involvement, social-emotional learning and supporting multilingual students.
Among the things that make Builta stand out, according to Morgan, is its involved parent community. She said families are invested in their students’ academics, as well as with school activities and with purchasing things for the classroom.
“We’ve got parents that are definitely wanting the best for their children and doing all that they can to make sure that that happens here with our building,” Morgan said.
She said the school is also focused on social-emotional learning.
“Just making sure that students feel safe and welcome and comfortable here,” Morgan said. “We want to make sure this is a place that our kids want to come to every day.”
Morgan described Builta’s teachers as “very dedicated” and focused on developing strong relationships with their students — knowing about their interests, backgrounds and cultural heritage, for example.
And she said the district is lucky to have a diverse student body — more than 30 different languages are spoken within the school community, Morgan said.
“Everybody brings, you know, a piece of who they are here to our building,” Morgan said, “and we make sure that we recognize and that we celebrate that.”
Morgan also highlighted the school’s enrichment program — which is essentially a gifted program, she said.
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The official program starts in third grade, but Morgan said the school’s designated enrichment teacher participates in activities with younger students — and that all students can participate.
“It’s just making sure that all children get that type of exposure to higher-level thinking and activities that really provide opportunities for creativity and collaboration,” Morgan said.
She also pointed to the school’s somewhat smaller size as helping their team work better together.
Builta’s enrollment was around 357 students in 2025, according to the most recent available figures from the Illinois State Board of Education. That makes it one of the district’s smallest elementary schools, per ISBE figures from the same year.
Morgan said Builta’s Project Arrow, special education and multilingual teachers all work together to “make sure everyone gets what they need.” Project Arrow is District 204’s program for “academically talented children.”
And she thinks the school does a good job of “dial(ing) in to students’ specific learning needs,” with the belief that “everyone needs something a little bit different.”
As for what’s next for Builta?
First, Morgan said the school is planning a “Blue Ribbon spirit week” to celebrate.
But, beyond that, Morgan said she thinks people are happy to be part of the school community.
“And I think it just gives us more determination and more motivation to continue to focus on those instructional areas and those social-emotional learning areas to make sure that our kids really do have the best learning environment possible,” she said on Wednesday. “I think it’s a good reminder to us as educators…that we need to continue to learn and grow in our work, in our craft.”