Local high schools among top KY schools, according to national magazine

May 14—Three local high schools have all landed in the top 30 for Kentucky, according to the latest rankings from U.S. News & World Report.

Pulaski County Schools Superintendent Patrick Richardson congratulated the two in his district — Pulaski County High School at no. 22 and Southwestern High School at no. 27 — at Tuesday's school board meeting.

"It's a great honor for our high schools," Supt. Richardson said, "and they continue to do a great job."

At no. 22, Pulaski County High School has a graduation rate of 97 percent and an Advanced Placement® participation rate of 49 percent.

"I would just say that we are happy for our kids and staff," PCHS Principal Rodney McAninch said. "They've done a good job in dealing with the changes caused by the pandemic and this rating is reflective of their work. We believe in a culture of continuous improvement and I hope our community is proud of that."

No. 27 Southwestern High School has a graduation rate of 99 percent and an Advanced Placement® participation rate of 48 percent. SWHS Principal Mark Flynn told the Commonwealth Journal that the school's community are very pleased with this year's report.

"This ranking speaks highly of the hard work put in by students and staff during the challenging obstacles that schools faced during the pandemic," Flynn said. "Southwestern always strives for continuous improvement. We are very confident that we can continue to move up in the rankings now that our students are back to full time in-person instruction with our excellent teaching staff."

Meanwhile Somerset High School landed in between the Pulaski schools at no. 25 with a 96 percent graduation rate and an Advanced Placement® participation rate of 64 percent.

"Being ranked in the top 25 is an outstanding achievement and honor," Somerset Independent Schools Superintendent Kyle Lively said. "This ranking reflects the hard work and dedication of the students, faculty, staff and administrators at Somerset High School."

SHS Principal Jeff Wesley added, "We're obviously excited to get good news like that. We've made a concerted effort to continue to expand dual credit and AP courses as well as a variety of challenging courses. I feel like those things are paying off in dividends for our students."

Wesley said the important thing was for the school to offer its students opportunities "to catapult them forward in their future plans."

Nearly 18,000 high schools nationwide were ranked on their performance on state-required tests, graduation and how well they prepare students for college.

Graduation rates and college readiness are key metrics within the 2022 Best High Schools rankings, according to the national magazine's press release. Working with RTI International, a nonprofit research firm, U.S. News assessed schools on the following six factors:

—College readiness, based on the proportion of 12th grade students who took and earned a qualifying score on at least one Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exam (30% of ranking).

—State assessment proficiency, based on aggregated scores on state assessments that students may be required to pass for graduation (20%).

—State assessment performance, based on whether performance on state assessments exceeded expectations given the school's proportion of underserved students (20%).

—Underserved student performance, based on how Black, Hispanic and low-income students performed on state assessments compared with those who are not underserved in the state (10%).

—College curriculum breadth, based on proportions of 12th grade students who took and earned a qualifying score on AP and/or IB exams in multiple content areas (10%).

—Graduation rate, based on the proportion of students who entered ninth grade in 2016-2017 and graduated four years later (10%).

This year, U.S. News adjusted its calculations to account for the cancellation of state testing in spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because assessment data from the 2019-2020 year was not available, U.S. News incorporated mathematics and reading assessment results from the three previous years' rankings instead.

Complete rankings and school profiles are available at https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/rankings-overview.