Tyrone Area High School has been recognized again for it’s academic excellence. The website SchoolDigger.com recently ranked Tyrone High as the tenth best high school in Pennsylvania.

According to their website, SchoolDigger.com has been ranking performance and quality of schools nationwide for over 13 years.

“I am very proud of our students and staff for their dedication and hard work,” said Tyrone High School Principal Tom Yoder. “We have an amazing learning community built on respect, with a focus on success for all students.”

Of the nine high schools ranked above Tyrone, five are not traditional public high schools and do not accept all students. Julia Masterman School, for example, admits only students who score in the top 10% on state exams. The other four schools ahead of Tyrone have much lower low poverty rates — in fact, Tyrone’s poverty rate is 10 times higher than the poverty rates in the other top schools.

The next highest ranking area school on the list is Penns Valley at 87 with State College trailing just behind at 90.

The closest Blair County high school in SchoolDigger’s rankings is Hollidaysburg in 144th place, followed by Bellwood at 190, Central at 204, Altoona at 287, and Williamsburg at 440 of 688.

According to their website, SchoolDigger calculates rankings based on data from the Keystone Exams Algebra I, Keystone Exams Biology, Keystone Exams Literature test scores released by the Pennsylvania Department of Education as well as data from the National Center for Education Statistics, and the U.S. Department of Education.

Tyrone English teacher Steve Everhart was pleased but not surprised by the rankings because this not the first time TAHS has made a list of state and national leaders in student achievement.

“Our school may seem casual in some respects, but it’s never casual about its mission. Our vocational students perform exceptionally well on their NOCTI measures as well and place nationally in agriculture—and our music and art students win state-wide recognition, too.  It’s not like our kids are one-trick ponies.  They do nothing half-hearted, and their parents should be incredibly proud of them. When you believe in a mission, great things happen everywhere,”  said Everhart.

In 2015, Tyrone received one of the most prestigious awards that can be given to a public school, a National Blue Ribbon Award from the US Department of Education.

In 2017, TAHS was ranked third out of 653 high schools in Pennsylvania in PVAAS growth. PVAAS stands for Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment System and is a statewide system used to track student growth. In 2018, Tyrone High School’s score of 95.2 on the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s school performance profiles was first in the state in PVAAS growth.

“What’s more telling and consistent is that Tyrone High School usually places in the state’s top 10 in student growth every year. In fact, Tyrone High was first in the state last year in growth among all three major academic subjects tested,” said Everhart.

Everhart believes that the students and staff members are key to Tyrone’s academic success.

“[We have] caring, competitive, realistic teachers, students who believe in themselves and their futures, and a principal and dean that encourages and expects everyone to make good personal and professional decisions,” said Everhart.