WESTFALL TWP – Delaware Valley High School was recognized by US News & World Report as one of the national academic powerhouses. Guidance counselor Jay Tucker announced the honor at the recent school board meeting.

Superintendent Dr. Candis Finan, said “ in the past few years we have made a strong effort to raise the academic expectations and our students have responded.”

This is the first year the DV High School was included on the US News & World Report’s list of Americas Best high Schools.

In the past year the DV High School has been recognized nationally by Newsweek, the Washington Post and The College Board for outstanding academics but the criteria for this award include a much wider population.

There are three criteria for determining the nation’s best high schools. All of the students results for the PSSA tests in reading and math. They then factored in economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) to identify schools that were performing better than expected. Then it was determined whether the school’s least advantaged students (low income, minority) performed better than average for similar students in the state. Only when the school passed the first two steps did it become eligible to be judged nationally on the final step –college readiness performance- using AP test data benchmarks for success.

DV High School ranked 32nd out of 752 public, charter and magnet schools in PA placing it in the top four percent of schools statewide. Out of the 22,000 schools ranked nationwide DV High School placed in the top six percent.