Haas Hall achieves top spots

BENTONVILLE — Arkansas’ top five public high schools are all in Northwest Arkansas, according to the latest rankings by U.S. News & World Report.

Haas Hall Academy not only led the state’s high schools, but also placed high nationally in the publication’s 2020 Best High Schools rankings, released Monday.

Haas Hall is a charter school district that operates schools for grades 7-12 in Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale and Rogers. The Bentonville campus was named the No. 1 public high school in Arkansas and the eighth best in the nation. It also ranked second among nearly 1,900 charter high schools nationwide included in the rankings.

“I would say that our high ranking, ahead of some very good schools, is a credit to our remarkable scholars, extraordinary faculty, and our supportive parent community,” said Rod Wittenberg, headmaster at Haas Hall Bentonville. “The ranking is a direct result of a learning environment that fosters high levels of academic growth and achievement.”

Fayetteville’s Haas Hall campus was second in the state and 32 in the nation. It was the sixth best charter school nationally.

Both campuses also placed in the nation’s top 100 overall last year, when Fayetteville ranked seventh and Bentonville ranked 81.

The next three schools on Arkansas’ list all improved from last year in both their state and national ranking.

Bentonville High School ranked third in the state and 512 in the nation, up from 7 and 831 last year. Fayetteville High School placed fourth in the state and 524 in the nation, up from 13 and 1,466 last year.

New Technology High School, a charter school operated by the Rogers School District, earned fifth in the state and 845 nationally, its highest ranking ever by U.S. News.

Northwest Arkansas’ next highest finisher was Bentonville’s West High School at 13 in the state and 1,545 in the nation. This was West High’s debut in the U.S. News ranking because the school, which opened in 2016, wasn’t eligible for evaluation in prior years.

U.S. News stated in a news release it takes a “holistic approach” to evaluating schools. It evaluated more than 17,700 public high schools in compiling this year’s rankings.

The publication’s methodology focused on six factors: college readiness, reading and math proficiency, reading and math performance, underserved student performance, college curriculum breadth and graduation rates, according to the release. College

readiness measures participation and performance on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams.

This year’s rankings can be compared to last year’s because the methodology is fundamentally unchanged from last year, according to the release.

Schools had to have a 12th-grade enrollment of 15 or more students during the 2017-18 school year and have state assessment data available for analysis in order to be included in the U.S. News rankings.

Haas Hall’s Rogers and Springdale campuses opened in 2017 and didn’t have seniors that school year.

U.S. News named Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., the best public high school in the country this year, citing the school’s best-in-state performance in English and math assessments, top ranking in college readiness and 100% graduation rate, according to the news release.

U.S. News ranked 269 high schools in Arkansas. Other large Northwest Arkansas schools and how they ranked in the state: Rogers High School, 21; Springdale’s HarBer High School, 45; Rogers’ Heritage High School, 97; Springdale High School, 122.