My kids' school is #1!

From an article in the San Antonio Express News:

Stellar schools in San Antonio are not relegated to one part of town. And while the neighborhood, size, wealth and ethnic make-up of successful schools in the San Antonio area may vary, there are several things they have in common: Strong leadership, almost fanatically dedicated faculty and staff, a focus on small learning groups, high expectations and a lot of hard work.

Children at Risk, a Houston-based advocacy group, is releasing its second round of annual school rankings for the San Antonio metro area Monday and gave the Express-News a sneak peek. Researchers used a wide array of indicators, including test scores, participation in advanced courses, graduation rates and class sizes to rank 374 of the area's elementary, middle and high schools from best to worst. The system, based on 2008-09 data, gives a boost to schools with a lot of low-income kids and leaves out some schools with insufficient data. Suburban North East Independent School District took bragging rights with five of the Top 10 elementary schools, including the No. 1-ranked Hardy Oak Elementary.

Hardy Oak
The No. 1-ranked Hardy Oak Elementary is located in the heart of the affluent enclave of Stone Oak. From the school parking lot the view is hilltop after hilltop dotted with rooftops of newly constructed homes. Across the street sits Lopez Middle School, the No. 2 rank in its category. Principal Sharon Newman said she knew when she opened the school 10 years ago that she probably wouldn't have to worry about getting enough kids to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, so she set her sites beyond it.

“They come with a lot of skills in place so we made a commitment to take them as far as we can take them,” Newman said. “We expect our kids to be able to pass the TAKS. That's a given. We want them to meet the commended level.”

The percentage of students meeting the TAKS commended level is a variable in the rankings and the one that likely pushed Hardy Oak into the No. 1 spot. In fifth grade math, 90 percent of students had commended performance last year.

So that's exciting news! Everyone is very proud, and once again, I'm thankful that we kind of stumbled on this school when we selected our home when Jacob was just two years old!