Yorktown, New Palestine High Schools make Blue Ribbon list - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

Yorktown High School and New Palestine High School have been named National Blue Ribbon Schools by the US Department of Education.

Yorktown joins 268 other schools across the country being recognized for overall academic excellence or for making progress in improving student academic achievement levels.

The award recognizes Yorktown as one of the state's highest-performing schools, as measured by state assessments or standardized tests. Yorktown beat out over 138,000 nationwide for the honor and was one of only eight schools nominated for a Blue Ribbon by the Indiana Dept. of Education for 2012.

The DOE looks at test score data, a summary of the school's strengths, traditions, successful academic strategies, the professional development program for teachers and the nature of the community.

Yorktown had to meet the federal Adequate Yearly Progress benchmark for three straight years in addition to ranking among the state's highest performance levels as measured on state assessments.

With a 95% graduation rate, Yorktown High School excels on state assessment performance with an English 10 end of course assessment pass rate of 84% (14% above the state average) and an Algebra I end of course assessment pass rate of 96% (27% above the state average). Yorktown High School was also recently recognized by the Indiana Department of Education for student achievement on the College Board AP exams. In 2011, YHS seniors passed AP exams at a rate of 30% while that national average for public schools was 18.1% and average for Indiana schools was 14.0%

Other Indiana Blue Ribbon schools:

Douglas MacArthur Elementary School
School District: Crown Point Community

Ferdinand Elementary School
School District: Southeast Dubois County

LaSalle Intermediate Academy
School District: South Bend Community

New Palestine High School
School District: Southern Hancock County

Northview Elementary School
School District: Valparaiso Community Schools

Smoky Row Elementary School
School District: Carmel Clay Schools

Webster Elementary School
School District: Plymouth Community

See all Blue Ribbon schools here