Area schools earn national honor

CORSICA — Vern DeGeest is used to hearing positive comments from former students of Corsica High School who have moved on to pursue post-secondary education.

“They say ‘Boy, our (college) chemistry class wasn’t too hard at all. We had that in high school,’ ” DeGeest said.

But the message DeGeest, the Corsica Public Schools superintendent, received from a former student this week brought with it an even stronger feeling of satisfaction, he said.

DeGeest learned that the Corsica school was one of 12 South Dakota schools to be named “Bronze Medal Schools” by U.S. News and World Report.

“I never even realized we were on the list,” DeGeest said.

For the third year in a row, the magazine announced its list of America’s Best High Schools, releasing lists of gold, silver and bronze medal schools, as well as honorable-mention schools.

Other Mitchell-area schools made “Bronze Medal Schools” list as well, including Armour, Avon, Bridgewater, Emery and Jones County.

Other South Dakota schools on the list were Arlington, Britton-Hecla, Clark, De Smet, Eureka and Harding County.

Miller was the only South Dakota school to make the silver list. As in previous years, no South Dakota schools made the magazine’s gold list.

The magazine analyzed 21,786 public high schools in 48 states and the District of Columbia.

First, the magazine used math and reading scores to determine which of the schools were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state.

Those schools that made it past the first step were then judged on whether the school’s black, Hispanic and lowincome students were performing better than average for similar students in the state.

Schools were then judged on students’ level of preparation for college.

DeGeest said he believes the Corsica School District does well in all three areas.

College preparation is evident in comments he continues to receive from students.

“We’ve always put a high concentration on the preparation of kids (for college),” DeGeest said. “I’ve been here for a long time and it’s pretty much always been that way.”

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