Van High School can boast that it has performed better than their statistical expectations.

The school is in excellent company, being nationally recognized this year as one of the top ten-percent of high schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

21,069 public high schools in 48 states were analyzed using data from the 2006-2007 school year.

The survey was developed by School Evaluation Services, a K-12 education data research business run by Standard & Poor.

According to the U.S. News & World Report, the survey is based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show that the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.

A three-step process determined the best high schools.

The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all their students well, using state proficiency standards as the measuring benchmarks.

“We started by looking at reading and math results for all students on each state’s high school test. We then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to find which schools were performing better than their statistical expectations,” the publication writes in their published findings.

The second step determined whether the school’s least-advantaged students were performing better than average for similar students in the state.

Math and reading proficiency rates seemed to be a determining factor during this stage.

The last step measured which schools produced the best college-level achievement for the highest percentages of their students.

Van High School was one of 19 schools in West Virginia and the only school in Boone County to achieve this ranking by the U.S. News & World Report.

The other West Virginia schools include Big Creek High School, at War; Bluefield High School, at Bluefield; Clay County High School, at Clay; East Fairmont High School at Fairmont; East Hardy High School, at Baker; Elkins High School, at Elkins; Gilmer County High School, at Glenville; Hundred High School, at Hundred; John Marshall High School, at Glen Dale; Matewan High School, at Matewan; Meadow Bridge High School, at Meadow Bridge; Morgantown High School, at Morgantown; Nicholas County High School, at Summersville; Philip Barbour High School, at Philippi; Tolsia High School, at Fort Gay; Wayne High School, at Wayne; Winfield High School, at Winfield; and Wyoming County East High School, at New Richmond.

The top 100 high schools nationwide were awarded a gold medal, the next 504 top-performing high schools nationwide earned a silver medal, and 1,321 high schools from the 48 states that passed the first two steps were awarded bronze medals.

Van High School, along with 17 other schools were awarded a bronze medal, with one silver medal awarded to Morgantown High School. No gold medals were awarded to West Virginia schools.

“Needless to say, when I became aware of the award, I was tickled to death,” Van High School Principal Kathryn Moore told the Coal Valley News.

Moore credits the award to the dedication and work of the students, teachers and staff at Van High School. “It really is reflective of the teachers and students’ efforts,” she said.

When asked if she was surprised that her school was awarded this distinction by U.S. News & World Report, Moore commented, “We were not surprised because we know that we do good things up on this hill.”

Also, Moore commented that the award was not something that she or her staff pursued. Unlike grants and other competitions a school can enter or compete for, the bronze award presented to Van High School was done by an independent organization called School Matters.

“School Matters is the organization that constantly review data from national high schools and they yearly are looking at state proficiency tests and scores to rank schools in our nation,” Moore explained.

Looking down the list of award recipients in the state of West Virginia, Moore points out that the majority of schools named are predominantly “Single-A Schools,” which means the schools enroll less than 300 students per school.

“Morgantown High School is a large school, Wayne and Winfield High Schools are pretty large, too, but the majority of these schools are small in size,” Moore said, further commenting, “I am a believer in the small school concept.”

Moore also pointed out another distinction between Van High School and the other schools on the list. “We’re a 6th grade through 12th grade school, too, and my Middle School students are tested along with the High School students.”



Van High School participates in the Advance Placement (AP) Program, which Moore believes helped her school when the review was made.

West Virginia’s State Board of Education just mandated that all high schools in West Virginia offer their students four AP courses to choose from. According to Moore, Boone County has been ahead of that particular mandate.

“In Boone County schools, we’ve offered a minimum of four courses in our high schools for years, so we were way ahead of that. [At Van] we also use a virtual school program and can offer up to 19 AP courses,” she said.

“I want to commend my staff, students and community. We’re proud of what we do up here on the hill,” Moore said.

Contact Joanie Newman at jnewman@coalvalleynews.com or call 304-369-1165.