Schools among nation's best

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Huntingtown High School ranked 493, Patuxent High School ranked 542 and Northern High School ranked 1,068, according to a ratio devised by Jay Mathews of The Washington Post.

This ratio is the number of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students at a school in 2008 divided by the number of graduating seniors. All of the schools on the list have an index of at least 1.000; they are in the top 6 percent of public schools measured.

Calvert County Superintendent of Schools Jack Smith said that while he is thrilled for the three honored schools, much credit should also go to Calvert High School, the only Calvert County public high school to not make the list.

"I was very excited to see three of our schools make the list and certainly the fourth one is up and coming and will make it in the near future," Smith, a parent of a 2009 Calvert High graduate, said.

He pointed out that while Calvert High School has the smallest student population of all four high schools, it is also "expanding the culture … to encourage students to take the most rigorous courses."

"… It's a very good school … I have no concerns about the school. We have just been able to increase students taking the more rigorous courses more quickly at other schools," Smith said.

Newly sworn-in student member of the Calvert County Board of Education Justin Astafanous is a rising junior at Calvert High School and said he was "kind of stunned" that his school was not listed.

"To be honest, I can't see why they wouldn't be," said Astafanous, who continued that he hopes his appointment will ultimately reflect well on Calvert High.

"I think it's great that [the position] was brought back to Calvert – because we were the first high school in Calvert County – for me to be able to represent my county but also my school," he said.

Patuxent High School Principal Nancy Highsmith said that she attributes her school's four years on the list to, "basically all of our teachers encouraging students to take the most rigorous courses."

She said that much of a student's AP course eligibility is based on an "AP potential" section on the Practice SAT test they take. But even then, Highsmith said, students are not made to feel pressured.

"We're all in it together … we don't just dump our students into a class and say ‘sink or swim.' We support them," she said.

Huntingtown High School Principal Rick Weber said that though his school had made the list in the past few years, he is thrilled that this is the highest ranking Huntingtown has ever received.

"We have a great situation. We have a lot of Calvert [County] students, we have a lot of support in the community and we have a great staff," Weber said.

Calls to Northern High School for comment were not returned.

Southern Maryland as a whole fared well in the list. In Charles County, La Plata High School came in at 380, Maurice J. McDonough High School was ranked 702; Henry E. Lackey High School was listed at 1,376; Thomas Stone High School at 1,436 and Westlake High School at 1,471.

In St. Mary's County, Leonardtown High School ranked 825 and Great Mills High School ranked 1,057.

lbuck@somdnews.com