School & Family Magazine Newstand Allen ISD Winter 2017 | Page 5

Dr. Scott Niven, Allen ISD
Superintendent of Schools
C
Superintendent’s
Corner
ollin County continues to grow which means that many families with school-age children are carefully shopping
school districts as they look to move into the area. The decision is an important one and parents approach it
from many different angles.
A common question we receive is “which school is the best?” Fortunately, there are many good school districts and
hundreds of quality public schools in Collin County. Unfortunately, there is no single number or grade that distinguishes
one from the other.
The ways to rate schools are as varied as the students who attend them. In an area served by many high performing
schools, the better question to ask is “which school is best for my child?”
You can start with logical benchmarks that tell a school’s story such as standardized test scores, attendance and
graduation rates.
Allen ISD student performance on standardized tests ranks Allen among the top school districts in the state. Our
attendance rates exceed 98% and the graduation rate last year was 97%. These numbers are important but the school
district rates itself against many other less measurable standards.
The most prominent one is the Allen ISD Graduate Profile which states that “Allen High School graduates will be:
effective problem solvers, responsible and engaged citizens, academically prepared for future pursuits and effective
communicators.”
With teachers and staff from all grades working together, we are able to design programs and activities that lead
us to these common goals. They may not be as easy to measure but we feel they are as important to students as the
accountability standards set by the state.
Ratings by third party organizations are another way to gauge the quality of a campus or school district. Niche.com, a
website that calculates rankings based on data from the U.S. Department of Education and survey respo