Our schools have what parents want

Contact: Lisa Deffendall • First Posted: Monday, June 9, 2008

For the 17th consecutive year, Fayette County Public Schools has won a “What Parents Want Award” from SchoolMatch, an educational research and database service firm that specializes in rating schools. The district has won every year since the award’s inception.
 
SchoolMatch is a national consulting and research company that collects and manages information about public and private K-12 school systems and schools. To determine the award winners, SchoolMatch compiled information from more than 97,000 parent questionnaires.
 
According to SchoolMatch, parents are looking for:
  • Solid academics, competitive test scores and appropriate levels of rigor;
  • Accreditation;
  • National recognition for excellence;
  • Competitive teacher salaries;
  • Above-average instructional expenditures, based on national percentiles;
  • Above-average expenditures for library/media services, based on national percentiles;
  • Small class sizes;
  • High quality secondary instruction.
Across the country, SchoolMatch found that 2,529 of 15,571 districts met the criteria. In Kentucky, 21 of the state’s 174 school systems made the list.