H-F High Gets Top Marks

Newsweek magazine recently announced Homewood-Flossmoor High School as ranking 336 among the 500 best high schools in America. According to an H-F High School press release, the Newsweek list ranked H-F High as 17 in the state of Illinois and as the only south suburban high school in the state's top 20 high schools.

Superintendent Von Mansfield said the ranking comes as good news, but also as a call for improvement.

"We are pleased with our standing," said Mansfield in a press release. "However, our Board of Education, administrators, teachers and students continue to work hard as we look to even improve our standing in to future." 

Newsweek's decision process to determine the top high schools has been going on for more than a decade. Newsweek utilized a revamped methodology this year, basing its decisions on the following six components:

Graduation rate (25%), college matriculation rate (25%), and AP tests taken per graduate (25%), plus average SAT/ACT scores (10%), average AP/IB scores (10%), and AP courses offered per graduate (5%).

One element, however, was not taken into consideration as H-F High School PR/HR Assistant Nicole Castagna illustrated in a press release.

"Unlike Homewood-Flossmoor, many of the top-ranked high schools in the Newsweek report have selective-enrollment policies and do not admit all students residing in their boundaries," Castagna said.