Nixa once again named top high school in Springfield metro by U.S. News & World Report

Claudette Riley, Springfield News-Leader
·3 min read
U.S. News & World Report has named Nixa High School the No. 1 high school in the Springfield Metro area.
U.S. News & World Report has named Nixa High School the No. 1 high school in the Springfield Metro area.

Nixa High School is on a roll. For the third straight year, Nixa is ranked No. 1 among the 29 high schools in the Springfield metro area.

In the U.S. News & World Report's 2023 Best High School rankings released Tuesday, Nixa was ranked No. 19 in Missouri.

Two other area high schools cracked the state's Top 50 — Fordland was No. 43 and Ozark was No. 46. Branson got close with No. 51.

"Three years of the high school being ranked, in a row, shows we have a great system in place," said Superintendent Gearl Loden. "That starts with Parents As Teachers and preschool and goes all the way to high school. There is a lot of hard work, of relationships, of focus on the little things that matter that make a big impact overall."

The nearly 7,000-student district in Christian County has strong parental and community support.

Loden said classroom teachers work to build academic skills, meet needs of individual students and eliminate all the "static and noise" that can distract from learning.

"Our high school rocks," Loden said. "We have a great high school and our teachers there are phenomenal."

Gearl Loden
Gearl Loden

He said the rankings came out so quickly after the start of the school year that there has not yet been time to plan a celebration.

"A three-peat, that is so cool," he said. "When you have a run like this you know it's special. You have good people and systems in place."

U.S. News & World Report evaluated nearly 18,000 public high schools at the national, state and local level.

“Having access to a strong high school program is paramount for students as they face an ever-changing world,” said Liana Loewus, managing editor of education at U.S. News, in a news release. “Making data on our high schools available helps parents ensure their child is in the educational environment that best sets them up to thrive."

Rankings are based on the percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations in math, reading and science on state-mandated exams. It also looks at the percentage of students who earned a qualifying score on an array of college-level exams, and the graduation rate.

This year's rankings for high schools in the Springfield metro area:

  • No. 1 − Nixa

  • No. 2 − Fordland

  • No. 3 − Ozark

  • No. 4 − Fair Play

  • No. 5 − Republic

  • No. 6 − Ash Grove

  • No. 7 − Walnut Grove

  • No. 8 − Willard

  • No. 9 − Central

  • No. 10 − Fair Grove

  • No. 11 − Kickapoo

  • No. 12 − Halfway

  • No. 13 − Strafford

  • No. 14 − Seymour

  • No. 15 − Humansville

  • No. 16 − Bolivar

  • No. 17 − Sparta

  • No. 18 − Marion C. Early

  • No. 19 − Clever

  • No. 20 − Spokane

The other high schools include Niangua, Logan-Rogersville, Billings, Buffalo, Glendale, Hillcrest, Marshfield, Parkview and Pleasant Hope.

In Missouri, the Top 5 high schools include:

  • No. 1 − Metro Academic and Classical High School, St Louis

  • No. 2 − Collegiate School Of Medicine and Bioscience, St. Louis

  • No. 3 − Ladue Horton Watkins High School, Ladue

  • No. 4 − Clayton High School, Clayton

  • No. 5 − Kirkwood Senior High School, Kirkwood

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Nixa named top high school in Springfield metro area for third year