One might think rankings would be important to a public school. This, however, is not the case for Derry Township School District.

Following the release of Niche’s 2019 ratings of schools all across the United States, Dan Tredinnick wrote an announcement about Derry Township School District’s high ratings on the district’s website.

Tredinnick, the Director of School and Community Information for DTSD, shared the announcement because “it’s a nice pat on the back.”

In addition, DTSD was ranked as the number one school district in Dauphin County out of 11 other Dauphin schools, number 19 in Pennsylvania out of 498 PA schools, and number 163 in the United States out of 10,758 US schools.

Niche is a school rating website that utilizes numerous sources to gather information about schools, colleges, companies, and neighborhoods in the United States, and then they compile it using different weights to create their ratings.

Though, DTSD does not put any significance on the ratings. They do not alter the curriculum to get a better Niche ranking; however, when the school does alter the curriculum, it is because they believe “it is in the best interest of the students,” Tredinnick said.

Most of Niche’s data comes from the US Department of Education (standardized test scores), surveys administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and Niche’s own surveys. Niche evaluates student performance on tests such as the AP Exams and Keystone Exams, students’ graduation rate, enrollment figures, finance information, disciplinary action, and many other factors.

DTSD does not directly give Niche data about our school; though, when the school releases data such as SAT scores and the number of AP courses offered to colleges and to the US Department of Education, Niche can find it in these places.

The difference between Niche and US News and World Report is the weight of the data as well as the addition of surveys in the Niche ratings.

US News and World Report ranked HHS as the twelfth best school in Pennsylvania while Niche ranked DTSD as sixteenth. World Report also ranked HHS as 742 in national rankings.

Like any rating site, Niche compiles similar data. However, Tredinnick said that Niche is good because it utilizes opinion ratings of its constituents, safety statistics, and teacher statistics.

“It is good to see what people think,” Tredinnick said.