By GAIL SCHONTZLER Chronicle Staff Writer

Like a parting gift to Bozeman High School’s retiring principal, Newsweek magazine this week again named the school to its Top U.S. High Schools list.

The 2009 list rates 1,500 U.S. high schools as being the nation’s top 6 percent, based on having a large number of students taking college-level Advanced Placement tests.

Bozeman High this year ranked No. 585 on the magazine’s “challenge index” with a score of 2.007, which means that the school had twice as many students of all grade levels taking AP tests as it had graduating seniors.

The list also showed that 52 percent of Bozeman’s graduating seniors took and passed at least one AP test. The national average was 15 percent.

No other Montana high school made the list, according to the magazine’s online Web site.

Bozeman Schools Superintendent Kirk Miller noted the award Wednesday during the school district’s final assembly to honor retiring and departing staff members. Bozeman High Principal Godfrey Saunders is retiring after 12 years.

Miller said Bozeman High is “clearly ahead of other high schools in Montana and the region.” He said it demonstrated Saunders’ leadership, vision, and values.

Bozeman High also made Newsweek’s list in 2003, when it ranked 460 out of 804 schools. In 2008, the school was ranked 621 out of 1,300 schools.
 

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