Marcellus High School named “Reward School,” earns Silver Medal

Marcellus High School recently was recognized as one of the highest-achieving schools in the state.

The high school was named a “reward school” by the New York State Education Department for consistently achieving high scores in all areas.

The education department has identified 250 out of 4,730 schools statewide as Reward Schools.

To qualify as a Reward School, schools either have to have made the most progress or have the highest achievement in the state and closed gaps in student achievement.

“This designation proves what we’ve known all along to be true: Our teachers are unmatched in their dedication to student achievement,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Craig J. Tice said.

The “Reward School” designation is determined according to schools’ gains in the combined English language arts (ELA) and math performance index, average ELA and math student growth percentiles and demonstrated growth for students in their school’s bottom quartile.

Marcellus High School also has earned a Silver Medal and was ranked 96th in the state (758th nationally), in U.S. News & World Report’s annual Best High Schools rankings, which included data on nearly 22,000 public high schools from 49 states and the District of Columbia.

The magazine, working in partnership with the Washington, D.C.-based American Institutes for Research, determined the rankings by analyzing student success in Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) programs, both of which include college-level courses. U.S. News awarded more than 4,850 gold, silver, and bronze medals to the top-performing schools.