Spanish River had the highest numbers of high schools in Boca in the latest school grades. River edged out Boca High with slightly higher scores in English, Math, Science, and a bit more of a lead in Social Studies. Boca High made the overall score close with a strong performance in the “college and career acceleration” measure.
The top two schools in the county were Suncoast and Dreyfoos, both magnet programs. River topped the rest of the county, followed by Boca High, Jupiter, Wellington and West Boca High. Olympic Heights was not far behind in 9th place out of the 25 high schools in the county with much of the difference coming in the “acceleration” measure.
Both West Boca and Olympic trailed Spanish River and Boca High especially in the English and Math scores, while remaining closer in Science and Social Studies. Graduation rates at WBHS (87%) and OHHS (89%) also trailed the stronger two schools (94% each). The most obvious area for improvement for both West Boca and Olympic is in their math performance. West Boca High was 15 points behind Boca High even though they have similar SAT scores.
As with other data we’ve seen, schools with fewer “economically disadvantaged students” tend to score better. Olympic Heights did well considering it has the highest number in this category for Boca. Inlet Grove High, a charter school in Riviera Beach, had a very strong performance considering its population of economically challenged students.
We previously reported that West Boca and Olympic lag Boca High in AP performance. But this new data show West Boca very close to Boca High in acceleration, suggesting that WBHS is making up for APs with other areas, possibly AICE, dual enrollment, or career oriented classes.
Update: We received a comment and update from Olympic Heights Principal Dave Clark:
I read your article on school grades and thought that I would email you to correct an obvious error. In the article you listed the graduation rate for Olympic Heights as 89% and also said that we trailed both Boca and Spanish River (“stronger schools”?) that each had a 94% graduation rate. As you can see from the table below the graduation rates for the four Boca area High Schools are as follows.
- Olympic Heights – 92.6%
- Boca Raton – 91.6%
- Spanish River – 90.3%
- West Boca – 85.7%
Additionally, Olympic Heights had the highest graduation rate in the entire district for “At Risk” students with 87.5%. These are the students who enter ninth grade as a level 1 or 2 in both reading and math.
I appreciate all of the coverage that you give our kids, but please be accurate with the information that is printed.
Our data came from a spreadsheet on the Florida Department of Education school grades website. It appears that the state used 2014 graduation rates, ignoring the significant improvement demonstrated by Olympic Heights in 2015.
