EVERETT — District and state education officials expressed dismay after the Department of Education shuttered an awards program months before an Everett elementary school was set to be recognized.

Whittier Elementary in north Everett was set to be designated as a National Blue Ribbon school, a prestigious award founded in the early 1980s that recognized schools with exceptional academic achievement to success in closing achievement gaps.

But the Department of Education cancelled the program abruptly in August before the award recipients were publicly announced. In an Aug. 29 letter to state officials, a Department of Education communications official wrote that it did so “in the spirit of Returning Education to the states,” the letter read. The letter was shared with The Daily Herald.

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