Ottawa Hills ranked top Ohio high school

Newsweek looks at college prep

Newsweek ranked Northview High School No. 468 in the country.

According to a Newsweek list of the top public high schools in the United States, Ottawa Hills is the top-ranked high school in Ohio and the No. 45 school in the country.

Newsweek released its annual list of “America’s Top High Schools” on Wednesday, identifying 500 public high schools throughout the country that excel at preparing students for college.

Northview High School also made the list, coming in at No. 468.

“I think it is concrete evidence that we are doing our job the way that we are supposed to be doing it,” Ottawa Hills Superintendent Kevin Miller said. “It shows that our students are high performing. It shows our teachers are teaching at the highest level. It shows that our community support is evidenced in the outcome. Our students know how to prioritize and they know how to work hard. Behind all those statistics and data are faces and hearts of students. I’m just proud that our kids know how to work hard and they do that every day for us.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Ottawa Hills appoints Pixler to school board

The Newsweek rankings considered graduation rate, college enrollment rate, SAT and ACT scores and participation, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate scores and participation, dropout rate, enrollment in college courses during high school, and state test scores, among other factors.

“Some factors are more important, especially since our rankings focus on college readiness,” Jim Impoco, Newsweek’s editor in chief, said. “We place emphasis on criteria like college enrollment and graduation rate since we know that those are some of the biggest indicators of whether students are prepared for college.”

Northview Principal Steve Swaggerty said the ranking on the list is nice for the school and it is good to see the students, teachers, and parents get recognition for their hard work.

He said while Northview takes pride in preparing students for college, he also believes that schools should help prepare students for other career paths.

“I think our goal is to get all of our kids where they want to go down the road,” he said. “Over 90 percent of our kids are headed off to college and that’s where they tell us that they would like to go, so much of our focus is there. But we also have kids that know they want to start a career right after school and we work equally as hard to help those kids get ready for that step as well. We have kids that want to do service right after high school and don’t want to start college right away. Our goal is to help kids maximize their potential, find their passion and get to where they want to go in life.”

Newsweek also released a top 500 list of public schools that are “Beating the Odds.”

The “Beating the Odds” list uses the same criteria as the other list, but also accounts for the effects of social inequality on education by factoring in student poverty as reflected by eligibility for free/​reduced price lunches.

On the Beating the Odds list are Pandora-Gilboa (No. 46), Arcadia (No. 48), Patrick Henry (No. 49), Seneca East (No. 105), Antwerp (No. 163), Allen East (No. 178), Pettisville (No. 326), and Ayersville (No. 464). Ottawa Hills is No. 206 on the list.

Contact Brian Buckey at: bbuckey@theblade.com or 419-376-9414.