Griggsville-Perry school receives national recognition
U.S. News and World Report awards bronze medal status to GP
by Leah Wilke
February 14, 2010
Griggsville-Perry High school has been named one of America's best by the U.S. News & World Report.
U.S. News & World Report magazine in conjunction with the School Evaluation Services recognized Griggsville-Perry along with 1200 others who received a bronze medal status. The evaluation process reviewed more than 21,000 public high schools in 48 states plus the District of Columbia and awarded a gold, silver, bronze and honorable mention ranking to the top schools.
The magazine retrieved the data primarily from the 2007-2008 school year which was about the same time that the high school started co-teaching in some of its classes. In co-teaching, the teachers are paired with a content area specialist and a learning strategist, who works with special education students, to teach the class. The high school currently offers six co-taught classes in science, math, English, history and a freshmen academy course.
Superintendent Andrea Allen said, "We are finding it is not necessarily the more academically challenged student who seeks out the assistance of the learning strategist. Many do, but some of our very high-performing students will also seek that assistance. What is nice it that all of our students take advantage of those strategists that typically special education majors have in their bag of tricks, but not all students are privy to them." With co-teaching, students are learning from various teaching styles and it appears to be paying off.
The top 100 schools nationwide were awarded the gold medals. The next 461 top-performing schools, based on college readiness index scores, earned a silver medal. An additional 1,189 schools, including Griggsville-Perry were awarded bronze medals and 31 schools in 12 states received an honorable mention medal.
The top ranked school in the nation is Thomas Jefferson High ?School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va.
