Kellogg High School gets national recognition

Kellogg High School (KHS) has been named a Bronze Medal School and one of the country’s best schools by U.S. News.

KHS was one of 14 schools in Idaho who received an award and being given a bronze medal means they are in the top 30 percent of the country, but the bottom half of that group.

U.S. News provided the criteria for how they ranked the schools, as well as an explanation of the criteria.

Step 1- Students perform better than expected in their state. “We looked at reading and math results for students on each state's proficiency tests and then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students, who tend to score lower.” Step 2- Disadvantaged students perform better than state average. “We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students - black, Hispanic and low-income - with the statewide results for these student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than their state averages.” Step 3- Student graduation rates meet or exceed a national standard “We excluded schools from consideration if their graduation rates were lower than 75 percent - a threshold that is higher than a federal law that requires states to give extra resources to schools below 67 percent.” Step 4- Students are prepared for college-level coursework. “We calculated a College Readiness Index, which is based on the school's AP participation rate and how well the students did on those tests.”

KHS principal Curt Bayer was very pleased to hear the news of the award and was quick to praise his students and staff for getting the school to the level that it currently is at.

“I’m proud that we are being recognized outside of the valley, but to me it shows the hard work of our students and their teachers,” Bayer said. “A lot of that is due to the fact the we as a school that spends a lot of time not allowing our students to fail. We have put in some academic support that gives our teachers the power to help struggling students during free time And while that doesn’t necessarily help with test scores, but overall it shows that as much as we can help it- we are not going to allow these kids to fail.”

While it would be nice to see the school move up into the silver and even gold rankings across the nation, Bayer has one thing on his mind.

“We just want to keep improving,” Bayer said. “If it’s getting to the state average in math or surpassing it, our goal is to continuously be improving, we are constantly a work in progress.”

Kellogg School District superintendent Woody Woodford was also thrilled at the news and praised the staff for upholding the district’s mission statement with their hard work.

I am very proud of our staff at Kellogg High School,” Woodford said. “They are very worthy of this distinction and are to be commended for all their hard work. They believe that our kids are worth whatever it takes!"

Both Mullan High School and Wallace Jr/Sr High School went unranked.

To see the results visit www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/idaho

The award is given out annually.