Georgiana recognized as one of nation’s top high schools

Published 4:41 pm Monday, July 20, 2015

Georgiana School has been ranked among the best high schools in the United States.

U.S. News and World Reports awarded 118 of Alabama’s 361 public high schools with national honors.

Georgiana was among the Alabama schools to receive a bronze medal.

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“We’re really excited to receive national recognition,” principal Bryant Marlow said. “This is a great accomplishment for the school and the school system.”

The publication analyzed four categories at 21,000 public, charter and magnet schools across the country: student-teacher ratios, college readiness, mathematics proficiencies and reading proficiencies.

Georgiana’s 12 to 1 teacher to student ratio was smaller than the Alabama average. The school also ranked near the Alabama average for mathematics with 91 percent of students being scored as proficient. Georgiana did rank below the state average for reading with 82 percent of its students being scored as proficient.

“(The ranking) is a great achievement, but it’s also motivation for our teachers and students to continue moving in the right direction,” Marlow said. “When you’re working to mold students and help them get on a track that will allow them to be successful in life, something like this can serve as a big motivator.”

Alabama’s schools were not ranked based on college readiness because the state did not release Advanced Placement data to U.S. News and World Reports.

“I love that one of our schools make the U.S. News & World Report best schools list,” said Butler County Schools Superintendent Amy Bryan. “They looked at student-teacher ratios as well as math and reading proficiencies for this list. The exciting part to me is that when we have college and career readiness indicators (this school year), this school and others will actually score better on this national ranking.”