HOULTON, Maine — U.S. News and World Report’s newest list of best high schools in the country ranks Houlton High School 18th among the top schools in Maine. It is the only Aroostook County school ranked in the top 20 in the state.
“This just goes to commend the staff for their hard work,” Houlton High School Principal Marty Bouchard said Thursday afternoon. “As you can see, the teachers must work hard to meet the criteria in order to qualify for this commendation, especially three times. It goes to show the dedicated staff we have here.”
Bouchard said this marked the third time the school made the U.S. News list, the other times being in 2015 and 2016.
According to U.S. News, the Best High Schools rankings include data on more than 20,500 public high schools in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Schools are awarded gold, silver or bronze medals “based on their performance on state assessments and how well they prepare students for college.”
In the 2018 rankings, there are three gold medal schools, 13 silver medal schools and four bronze medal schools located in Maine. Yarmouth High School is ranked No. 1, followed in order by gold medalists Cape Elizabeth High School and Falmouth High School. Houlton is a bronze medalist.
Bouchard said that Houlton has a number of advanced placement classes and college readiness classes. With a total enrollment of 332 students in Houlton, the participation rate in advanced placement classes is 17 percent, according to U.S. News.
Based on the proportion of schools in each state that earned gold and silver medals, Massachusetts is the leading performer in this year’s rankings, followed by California, Maryland, Florida and Maine. This year, 25.7 percent of Massachusetts’ eligible schools earned gold and silver. In Maine, 22.5 percent did.
To learn more about how other schools in Maine fared or the methodology used to create the rankings, visit online: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/maine
