The state has recently released test scores that announced that BE has moved to the 98th percentile of Kentucky high schools.

Principal Willie Foster surprised students on the daily morning announcements. All three Bullitt County high schools have been designated as distinguished for the first time ever. Bullitt East High School has been named a School of Distinction and is ranked one of the top ten best-performing high schools in Kentucky. Therefore, Bullitt East High School ranks higher than 227 of Kentucky public high schools, including many schools with selective admissions.

The other schools ranking higher than Bullitt East are all magnet or independent schools, with the exception of South Oldham High School. These magnet and independent schools, such as Du Pont Manual and Male, have selective admission from Jefferson County.

There was a time where BE was considered a failing school, because the scores were below target levels. Bullitt East was assigned a distinguished educator by the state to help change the school. Over the past 20 years, there has been a different teaching style and classes that have pushed students to be their best.

“AP [Advance Placement] classes helped a little on the accountability score, but the college and career readiness center impact it the most,” said Bullitt East guidance counselor, Dana Steinmetz.

“There are five scores that determine state accountability; the college and career readiness is one of five. I haven’t stopped smiling since there was an indicator that we would get these scores a while back,” career coach Wendy McCutcheon continued, “there are so many things that played into getting the recognition that we got, literally from Keith Davis who said this is what I need y’all to do for college readiness. Then to our principal who said we’re going to make this happen, to our guidance counselors who said we have to put these kids all in transition classes. To Mrs. Barr giving Compass testing to the students, to the mentor counseling Mr. Foster incorporated, so y’all can sit down with us one on one. We look at your transcript, we look at what pathway you’ve kind of been in, whether you need to change that [pathway] or stay in that [pathway] to make sure you get in the right classes. Our teachers have incorporated ACT in daily classes and all of our career pathway teachers that have incorporated KOSSA. We have just become a culture where it is a lot of college and career readiness.”

McCutcheon also explained how everything “spills over” or connects to improve scores. “As a senior you know you have to be college and career ready. You know that you have to have your EOCs [End of Course Exams] which means you are coming to school. Then our attendance is getting better, and when more students come to school every one learns more. In my mind, students with free and reduced lunch or special ed. [education] students realize that they have to meet these criteria. So, they have to study harder. Mr. Davis just asked us to buy into it [the goal becoming a better school] and we did,” said McCutcheon.

There is no denying that the culture of Bullitt East has changed over the years because of change in students and faculty within Bullitt East.  Dana Steinmetz has worked at BE for the past 19 years and noticed a change in students. “Our old slogan used to be “it’s a matter of pride,” but over the past four to five years the pride goes beyond the football or basketball teams. Now students have pride from the Red Zone Rowdies to the classroom. Students just hold themselves accountable and push themselves to be the best they can be,” said Steinmetz.

According to Steinmetz, there are several ways when the state determines the percentile for a school, but each set of students, such as the seniors or juniors, have to compare their scores from previous tests like the Plan or Explore to the ACT. Also, a large majority of students in recent years have been improving their scores on the ACT because of the importance of a high score. In order for students to get into a good college, apply for scholarships, and even apply for the Governor’s Scholar Program, also referred to as GSP, they need a high ACT score.

Having a good student body and competition between the teachers is what increased the scores, but maintaining them is a different story. To maintain the scores, students and teachers must continue pushing each other every day. “The systems [like the college and career readiness center] we have in place will continue to improve our scores,” said Steinmetz.

Bullitt East only hopes to continue to grow and improve their rankings within the Kentucky schools.