Newton, Lynnville-Sully recognized on national list of achievers

Many administrators will tell you their public school is one of the best in the state in some way. This year, two Jasper County high schools have a distinction which would back up such a claim.

U.S. News & World Report recently released its 2015 rankings for most states, and Lynnville-Sully and Newton High School both earned “bronze” status.

“It’s a great honor to have,” Newton High School principal Bill Peters said. “This is the first time we’ve earned bronze on this list, to my recollection.”

Lynnville-Sully and Newton are not assigned official state or national ranking numbers, but none of the Jasper County high schools cracked the top 700 among the schools ranked nationally. There were 16 Iowa schools that earned the “silver” distinction this year, but none earned “gold.”

The School for the Talented and Gifted of Dallas, Texas tops the national list. It has a student-teacher ratio of 15:1.

John F. Kennedy High School of Cedar Rapids is the top Iowa school on the list. With 1,716 students and 104 teachers, Kennedy High has a student-teacher ratio of 16:1. It’s ranked No. 638 on the national list, and is one of 16 Iowa schools to earn the magazine’s “silver” recognitions.

Prairie City-Monroe, Baxter and Colfax-MIngo were also included in the report, but none of the three earned national recognition.

Newton High School is about half the size of Kennedy, with slightly more than 800 students, 57 teachers and a student-teacher ratio of 15:1. The criteria are mainly based on assessment and advanced-placement enrollment and test scores.

Performances on assessments by financially disadvantaged students — as determined by the percentage qualifying for free or reduced lunches — are also taken into account. Lynnville-Sully only has 16 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced lunches, while Newton High is at 37 percent. Seventy-nine percent of disadvantaged Newton students made academic proficiencies.

Some of the numbers in the magazine’s calculations are straight-forward, such as 100 percent of Lynnville-Sully’s 39 students analyzed being at above math proficiency standards.

Other labels, such as the “college readiness index,” are not as universal, and are tougher to crunch than others. The School for the Talented and Gifted, the nation’s top school in the ranking, has a college readiness index of 100; Kennedy’s is 48.

Newton, which sends dozens of students to college each year, is 10.4 on that scale.

However, the bronze distinction still gives Newton and Lynnville-Sully something to hang onto, and it makes the silver level one of the district’s aiming points.

“It means we have a well-rounded group of students here,” Peters said. “I feel pretty good about it.”

Contact Jason W. Brooks at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or jbrooks@newtondailynews.com