South Side High School is one of nation's best

South Side High School has again been ranked among the top 100 high schools in the country in the annual list compiled by Newsweek magazine, which was released over the weekend.

Based on a ratio of the number of students enrolled in International Baccalaureate or Advanced Placement classes to the number of graduating seniors, South Side ranked 51st.

This is the second recent accolade for the school. Earlier this year, South Side was named one of the 100 best high schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for the first time. In that compilation, it was ranked 46th, the best on Long Island.

"If you take out the magnet and charter schools in the state, we're number two," said Board of Education President Mark Masin of the Newsweek ranking, "and that's quite an accomplishment, attesting to the achievement of our students."

While South Side dropped from its ranking of 46th on the 2009 Newsweek list, the I.B./A.P. indexes of the top schools — and South Side's as well — were higher this year. South Side Principal Dr. Carol Burris explained that this means that more students are taking A.P. and I.B. courses. This index — considered a significant measure of success — has risen steadily since Newsweek began its high school rankings about 12 years ago.

"There are a growing number of small, select schools who focus on only preparing kids with I.B. or A.P. coursework ...," explained Dr. William Johnson, Rockville Centre school superintendent. "The rise in South Side's index represents a greater proportion of students in an open-enrollment school who are willing to take on the challenge of higher-level curriculum.

"What's disappointing about the report," Johnson added, "is that when you examine all the schools, you'll find that many of them are small charter schools or magnet schools that provide for a very select population. "Even though [Newsweek] excludes some of what they call 'schools for the gifted,' when you take a look at the overall collection of the top 100, you see that many of them are exclusive and restrict their offerings of I.B. or A.P. to a select population. I think when you consider that South Side is a school open to all children who live in this community, the achievement of our students is even more laudable."

"What's happened nationally is that more charter schools have been created," said Burris. "These are designed to attract high-achieving students. They're often small and sometimes short-lived. That's why you'll see schools appear on the list that aren't traditional neighborhood high schools."

Equity and excellence, another tool used by Newsweek to quantity a school's achievement, focuses on student performance on exams, Burris explained. It's the proportion of seniors who score either a 4 or better on an I.B. exam or a 3 or above on an A.P. exam. Some 77 percent of South Side’s class of 2009 graduates did so, Burris said.

"I'm very proud to be a part of this school district and community, which is so committed to high standards for all students," said Johnson. "What makes it so unique is the fact that kids are prepared for the higher-level curriculum by the time they're sophomores. In the long term, that enables them to develop habits of learning that make the decision to take on an I.B. course a simple one."

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