Niwot High leads SVVSD high schools on U.S. News Annual Survey

There's good news for the staff, administration, students, and families of Niwot High School. The school once again ranked well in the recently released 2022 U.S. News and World Report annual schools survey.

NHS placed at the top of all 12 high schools surveyed in the St. Vrain Valley School District (SVVSD), ranked fourth for high schools in combined Boulder and SVVSD boundaries, 36th in Colorado, and 1,174th nationally.

The U.S. News survey is widely respected by educators and families each year, and one of the indicators communities look at to judge school and district success. This year's survey compiled data on nearly 24,000 schools nationwide and on 363 schools within our state.

Niwot High School Principal Eric Rauschkolb said he was thrilled about the ranking. "It's something that we are proud of here at Niwot High School, because it is a recognition of the excellent work being done by our teachers and staff. Our teachers are passionate about helping their students succeed and become lifelong learners, and our students trust their teachers to lead them beyond where they thought that they could go."

Nearby schools that ranked ahead of Niwot High include Peak to Peak Charter Academy in Lafayette (#6), and Boulder's Fairview High School (#12) and Boulder High School (#24). The next ranking SVVSD high school is Silver Creek High School (#59). The top Colorado school on the survey, ranked 85th nationwide, was D'Evelyn Jr.-Sr. High School in the Jeffco School District.

Rauschkolb also noted some other statistics about the ranking. "One thing I'd like to point out about this ranking is that even though we are ranked #36 out of over 500 high schools in Colorado, that doesn't tell the whole picture. When one considers schools like ours, public, traditional high schools of over 1,000 students, we actually rank #12 in the state.

SVVSD Spokesperson Kerri McDermid spoke on behalf of the district as a whole. She said the district was excited for all of its schools that ranked in the survey. "We are incredibly proud to have high schools represented in this year's list. We are committed to continuing to advance extraordinary learning opportunities for all students across our schools and programs," she said.

Specifically, Niwot High's strong rankings in a number of factors, including college readiness, school curriculum, state assessment rankings and graduation rate, contributed to its place on the survey and gave it a "scorecard rating" of 93.42 with a 53.5% college readiness score. By contrast, Silver Creek had a 44.7% score, D'Evelyn Jr.-Sr. High had an 88.2% score, and the top three schools in the nation had a 100% score.