Woodlands Academy honored at Illinois Governor’s Mansion event

LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart was among an elite group of 28 Illinois schools honored during a special awards presentation ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion in Springfield on March 4. The honorees were named inaugural recipients of the Illinois Governor's Blue Ribbon Schools award, formally launched in October 2025, for demonstrating exemplary academic performance.

“Twenty-eight outstanding schools are represented here tonight, recognized for the prestigious distinction that's based upon the rigorous criteria, the same ones that were used by the Department of Education, so you have met and exceeded those really high standards,” Gov. JB Pritzker said.

Woodlands Academy is one of only 13 private schools in Illinois to receive this honor. It follows the Lake Forest all-girls college-preparatory high school’s earlier recognition as a National Blue Ribbon School in 2025 and 2020 based on overall academic performance. In both years, Woodlands was recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School in the Exemplary High-Performing Schools category.

“We are incredibly proud of the dedication of our faculty and the exceptional academic performance of our students that led to this great honor," Woodlands Academy Associate Head of School for Academics Rocco Gargiulo said after the ceremony. “Being named an ‘exemplary high performing school’ stands as a testament to our community’s commitment to hard work to create an academically outstanding high school experience—one that empowers students to achieve at the highest levels and succeed well beyond high school.”

The Illinois Governor’s Blue Ribbon Schools program replaces the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) National Blue Ribbon School awards, which ended in late August. This meant the department would not be honoring those who qualified for a 2025 designation or holding the traditional awards-presentation celebration in Washington, D.C., as it has in the past. DOE notified Woodlands Academy that it had met all of the requirements for a 2025 National Blue Ribbon award in the weeks before the program's sunset.

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Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart is a Catholic, independent, day-and-boarding, college-preparatory school for young women of all faiths in grades nine through 12. Founded in Chicago in 1858 and located in Lake Forest since 1904, Woodlands is part of a worldwide network of Sacred Heart Schools that spans the United States and 40 other countries on six continents. To learn more, visit woodlandsacademy.org.