Katahdin High named among best

By Elna Seabrooks
Staff Writer
    Katahdin High School has been distinguished as one of America’s best schools in a survey by U.S. News and World Report. The school earned a bronze medal for the second time in the study’s three-year history to review performance of students in grades nine-12.
    “We are really excited,” said Rae Bates, principal of Katahdin Middle and High School. Bates first learned of the school’s academic achievement on the news. Ten schools in Maine were acknowledged as outstanding.
    On the magazine’s Web site, it stated that 21,786 public high schools in 48 states plus the District of Columbia were analyzed. “This is the total number of public high schools that had 12th-grade enrollment and sufficient data, primarily from the 2007-2008 school year, to analyze. (Nebraska and Oklahoma did not provide full data. Their schools were evaluated for honorable mention, but none met the criteria.),” the Web site stated.  
    Also explained on the magazine’s Web site, was a three-step process to determine the best high schools. “The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all their students well, using state proficiency standards as the benchmarks. For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step assessed the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level work.”
    Bates said “it’s a wonderful recognition for a small school. It really is. We are very pleased and we realize it could change. When you are a small school of only 127 students, you don’t  have to have many to bring the whole school down or up.”
    She added that the school started a new program this year — Plus Ten — to raise student scores by 10 points on district testing.