Just in time for the holidays, the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District (UCFSD) announced that it has received another gift: A school ranking organization placed the district at No. 1 and the high school at No. 5 in the state, identified C.F. Patton as No. 3 among middle schools, and declared a tie for first place for elementary schools with Hillendale and Pocopson.
Technically, the ratings from SchoolDigger.com for the district, the middle school, the high school, and Hillendale Elementary may qualify as re-gifting since they were repeats from last year; however, the district said the fact that Pocopson Elementary tied for the top spot represented a new honor.
At a recent meeting on redistricting, the school board acknowledged that some changes might be needed to balance elementary-school enrollments starting in 2016, but Superintendent John Sanville noted that each of the four elementary schools had earned top grades from at least one of the ranking agencies.
Sanville said he appreciated the SchoolDigger ranking, which recognizes the students’ academic prowess, but he said they shine in many areas. “We do want others to know that UCFSD kids are also talented athletes, musicians, writers, performers, volunteers, and innovators,” he said. “Their excellence can be seen throughout the district every day.”
The SchoolDigger website placed all four elementary schools in the top five percent in the state. According to its website, the rankings are based on the most recently reported PSSA scores for math and English. The averages of each are combined and then sorted against other schools. The district ranking is calculated using the rank percentile of each of its schools.
At the redistricting meeting, Sanville said the district was committed to continuing to provide the same excellent education at each of the four schools. That achievement has been recognized by a variety of ranking sources, he said, a factor that could make any boundary changes in the future less painful.
Last month, Niche.com, another ranking organization identified the district as No. 15 in the nation – out of more than 13,000 public school districts.
According to Sanville, other recent accolades for the Unionville-Chadds Ford district include UCFSD’s No. 1 rating among Pennsylvania school districts by the Pittsburgh Business Times; Unionville High’s recognition as No. 1 in the state by the Daily Beast, which also gave the school a No. 66 rating in the nation; U.S. News and World Report’s gold rating for the high school, placing it in the top 1.6 percent of schools in the country; the Washington Post’s determination that the high school is “one of the most challenging schools” in the U.S.; and Unionville High’s recent list of 39 National Merit qualifiers, a school record.
For more information on the SchoolDigger rankings, visit http://www.schooldigger.com/go/PA/schoolrank.aspx.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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