Last month, U.S. News & World Report released their rankings of the best high schools in Indiana and nationally, putting Lake Central at No. 18 in Indiana and No. 1,527 out of over 21,000 public high schools in the nation.
“It’s very exciting to take a moment and reflect on what that could mean. We haven’t had a lot of time here yet to disseminate that to staff, and we haven’t had a lot of time to celebrate that success. It’s just information that’s coming to light now. We’re working on ways to disseminate that to families, but it certainly is a marketing tool for us to encourage families, to give them a reason to be a part of Lake Central,” Mr. Robin Tobias, Principal, said.
U.S News & World Report teamed up with the American Institutes for Research to collect and analyze data from each high school. Analyzers looked at school socioeconomic status, the performance of students in the school, test scores and compared their scores to the national and state averages. The top 47 schools in Indiana received rankings, and the top 4,805 schools in the nation were ranked. With such steep numbers, Mr. Tobias hopes the community will embrace the school’s excellence.
“One thing I think people who are a part of the Lake Central community appreciate the school district K-12, but I don’t know how much our businesses or town leadership actually embraces Lake Central. It’s very difficult being a one school district-multi-community. Other school districts that exist in one town seem to have an easier time getting the message out and families willing to celebrate that message. Getting the word out becomes a little more difficult. We’d like our communities to move forward and embrace us as best they can,” Mr. Tobias said.
Of the 47 schools that were ranked, Munster and LC were the only two schools from the area to make the list. Munster was ranked No. 6, but LC still was ranked the highest in the Duneland Athletic Conference.
“Munster, although they’re not in our conference, is a rivalry to us in many different factors. Academics, athletics, other extracurriculars, as well as employment in terms of we want to be a destination for good teachers, not just good students. So that definitely becomes a rivalry factor that plays into where our decisions are going to be in the future,” Mr. Tobias said.
According to the report, LC has 23.9 percent college-ready seniors based on AP scores. From ECA scores, the report credits 90 percent of students being proficient in Algebra and 86 percent proficient in English. These numbers were used in calculating both the national and state rankings. These numbers were enough to declare LC a silver medal school.
“It’s something our community should be excited about,” Mr. Tobias said.
The full U.S. News & World Report rankings for the state can be found here, and the national rankings can be found here.
