St. Anthony high school makes it onto Newsweek list

For four years running St. Anthony Village High School, in St. Anthony, has been listed among the top public high schools by Newsweek, the national news magazine. It's also moved up in the ranks, at least among Minnesota schools. Starting off ranked 14th best public school in Minnesota in 2006, it moved up to fourth-best in this year's rankings, released this month.

So what gives? Something in the water that generates high-performance brain cells?

What wins St. Anthony Village High accolades in the Newsweek ranking system is the large numbers of Advanced Placement tests given to a relatively small student population. The rankings, in their eighth year, are based on simple ratios: the number of AP and other high-achievement tests given compared with the number of graduating seniors.

With an enrollment of 621 students last year, of which 125 were seniors, the school administered 301 Advanced Placement courses. Students take Advanced Placement courses because they are generally more demanding than regular courses, and high scores on AP tests at the end of the school year can earn students college credits.

"We want to keep on the Newsweek list and keep climbing on it," said Rod Thompson, St. Anthony-New Brighton schools superintendent. "Our school district wins multiple awards. It does extremely well in all our testing. One thing I like to say is that we take a humble approach. We don't spend money on marketing campaigns. We let our honors speak for themselves."

In fact, such honors as the Newsweek recognition serve as great public relations for the district, which attracts students from other districts in large numbers. According to Thompson, 48 percent of the district's students live outside the district and enroll in St. Anthony-New Brighton schools under the state's open enrollment law. Each year there's a list of 200 to 300 students wanting to get in.

Being an importer of open enrollment students has a couple of advantages: It allows districts to reap additional state money that comes with each student, and it guarantees that a large portion of district students attend schools there because they picked them.

Among the others are South High in Minneapolis, Como Park in St. Paul, Eastview High in Apple Valley, Minnetonka High, Hopkins High, Stillwater High, and Moorhead High in Moorhead. The magazine listed 1,537 top public high schools in the nation from a pool of about 27,000 total high schools.

St. Anthony High offers AP classes in nine courses: U.S. history, calculus, English literature, biology, statistics, physics, psychology, human geography and English language. According to district statistics, 74 percent of students' AP scores last year were good enough to make them eligible for credits at college.

Thompson, who said 90 to 95 percent of district graduates go on to two-year or four-year colleges, said the big Advanced Placement push comes as no accident.

"We have decided to hire the best staff, best teachers, best administrators, and make sure their vision for success starts at the top and goes all the way through the school district," he said.

Incoming high school Principal Wayne Terry singled out outgoing Principal Tom Keith for creating a culture of high expectations. Keith, who hands over the principal's reins to Terry next week, ran the rigorous International Baccalaureate program at Minneapolis' Southwest High before he moved on to St. Anthony as principal 15 years ago.

But Keith is quick to note that a school can't be judged by its Newsweek rankings alone.

"Anytime you do rankings, it's always questionable," he said. "Any school you go to is going to have large numbers of kids doing really well, and students who are struggling. All schools are faced with that combination. ... This is just one thing to look at."