Good things have been happening at WHS for many years
By Patricia Bogumil
Interim Editor
Word is getting around about the quality education offered at Waterford High School, which has brought solid bragging rights at a national level.
WHS was recently named one of “America’s Best High Schools” by Newsweek magazine.
Waterford’s ranking is 996 and joins other Wisconsin high schools such as Bay Port in Green Bay (997), Franklin (773), Greendale (642) and New Berlin Eisenhower (353).
In all, more than 2,300 schools across the country were assessed to produce Newsweek’s Top 1,000 list, a ranking that has been produced for more than 10 years.
This was the first time WHS participated, according to WHS Superintendent Keith Brandstetter.
He explained that earlier this year, he was contacted by email asking if WHS was interested in completing a Newsweek survey requesting specific data from the 2010-2011 school year.
In early spring, the WHS guidance director sent back the information needed and that was that – until another message recently arrived informing WHS of its inclusion on the Top 1,000 list.
“It’s very nice, very prestigious,” Brandstetter said.
To compile its 2012 list of the top high schools in America, Newsweek ranked schools based on certain self-reported statistics from 2010-2011.
Each of six criteria was then given a corresponding weight in Newsweek’s final calculation.
Three of those criteria – the four-year graduation rate, college-acceptance rate, and number of Advanced Placement (AP) and other high-level exams given per student – make up 75 percent of the overall score.
Average ACT and/or SAT college entrance exam scores and AP/college-level test scores count for another 10 percent each. The number of AP courses offered per student counts as the final 5 percent.
Waterford earned its ranking in the Top 1,000 with scores of:
• Graduation rate: 99 percent;
• AP tests taken: 0.3;
• College-bound: 79 percent;
• Average ACT score: 23.4;
• Average AP test score: 3.6.
Newsweek did not include data on AP tests taken per student in its release.
Brandstetter said that Waterford’s graduation rate has steadily stayed in the high 90s percentage since 1997.
This year, 258 of 263 students graduated June 10. “Our staff works very hard and our kids study hard,” he said.
The six seniors who did not graduate June 10 will be offered various options, which can include taking WHS classes in the summer, going to Gateway Technical or coming back for a fifth year of high school.
Three Waterford students also graduated in June from the Southern Lakes Consortium Alternative High School in Burlington.
In 2011, 181 WHS students took 303 AP tests in 141 subject areas, Brandstetter said. Of those, 57 earned the ranking of an AP Scholar for their high test scores.
WHS is proud to offer its students a quality education with a good mix of traditional, tech, agriculture and arts classes, he added.
“Our position has always been to build the sidewalks where they want to walk, and to build them well,” Brandstetter said.
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