Now, they again have some of the most prestigious national school rankings backing them up. After missing from such rankings in the last few years, Park City High School reentered the U.S. News and World Report’s annual list, coming in as the No. 2 school in Utah and No. 418 in the nation out of more than 22,000 schools. A similar ranking from The Washington Post named PCHS as the most challenging school in the state and No. 446 in the country.

Bob O’Connor, principal of PCHS, said the honors are indicative of the good work happening at all levels of the Park City School District.

“It’s a nice accolade for what the school district is doing, not just Park City High School,” he said. “It’s a systemic effort to educate our kids, so it starts with the elementary schools, Ecker Hill (Middle School) and Treasure (Mountain Junior High School). They deserve to share in some of that credit.”

Superintendent Ember Conley echoed those sentiments in a statement to The Park Record.

“Congratulations to the entire Park City School District! It takes a system of dedicated staff, in partnership with parents, from preschool through 12th grade to make this happen,” she said. “We couldn’t be more proud of your huge accomplishments!”

According to the U.S. News and World Report’s rankings, which were released last month, PCHS scored well for its percentage of students who both took Advanced Placement tests (75 percent) and passed the rigorous exams (73 percent). The school also scored well above the state averages in math and English proficiency.

The Washington Post list did not provide specific metrics for its rankings.

O’Connor said he was particularly pleased with the number of students taking Advanced Placement exams because it indicates the school is offering the kind of rigorous education that prepares students for success in college.

“If you look at the number of AP classes being taken, it keeps going up each year,” he said. “We’ve had some years where the increase has been significant. And that’s a tribute to the AP teachers growing programs and sustaining enrollment.”

The school was once a mainstay in annual rankings, sometimes being named as the best school in Utah, but had fallen off the lists in recent years, largely because the performance of its underserved students lagged behind state averages.

O’Connor lauded the work of the school staff aimed at narrowing the opportunity gap and said it was exciting to be back in the rankings — not for the prestige that comes with it, but simply because it means students are getting a top-notch education.

“We’re not trying to get on the rankings — we’re going to try to educate every kid as best as we can and provide an opportunity for a challenging, rigorous education for all kids,” he said. “If we benefit from being in the rankings, then so be it.”

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Jennifer Slade often worked with parents and staff in the Park City School District during her tenure as the Utah State Board of Education’s anti-discrimination specialist, where she focused on ensuring students throughout the state requiring special accommodations are treated fairly.

But when an opportunity came available last summer to join the district and deal with those issues from a different angle, Slade was eager to take it. She is now nearing the end of her first school year as the district’s special education director.

Slade, who has been an educator for nearly 30 years, is tasked with making sure the district is fulfilling its legal requirements in how it deals with students with special needs, ranging from learning disabilities to medical conditions.

“I thought, ‘What a great opportunity for me to grow and to increase my knowledge and work directly with the people I’d been engaging with,’” she said. “I wanted to be in the community and maybe make a difference.”

She joins the district a year after an investigation from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found that school officials had discriminated against a diabetic student and had failed to properly administer the 504 Plan that specifies her special accommodations. After the investigation was made public, other parents of students with medical conditions spoke out with similar claims.

In response, Superintendent Ember Conley and the Park City Board of Education ordered a comprehensive review of the district’s special education program. The report, conducted by the State Board of Education and finalized this winter, found glaring problems with the district’s operations. The areas of concern included a disconnect among parents, teachers and district administration; a lack of school- or district-wide outlines of how to provide equal access to all students; and a deficiency in training for staff about the basics of special education requirements.

Slade, who helped districts work through similar problems in her role with the State Board of Education, was hired to fix them. She said her first months on the job have been aimed at fostering better communication with parents of students with special needs and implementing processes within the district to address the deficiencies outlined in the report.

That includes the installation of new software that allows students’ 504 Plans and Individualized Education Plans to follow them when they change grades, and makes it easier for regular classroom students to have access to them. Parents in recent years have complained about both issues.

“I think that’s been done generally in the past, based on my experience with the district, but that communication definitely breaks down occasionally,” Slade said.

Additionally, Slade has met regularly with special education coordinators at each school to ensure staff members have more clarity about regulations and the district’s responsibility in educating students with special accommodations.

She said it’s been important to make sure the staff — the people she said are truly responsible for the well-being of the students on a day-to-day basis — are educated and feel comfortable having discussions with parents of children with special needs.

Community outreach has also been critical, she said, to help bridge divides that have been common among parents, teachers and the district. That aspect is important to her because, as a parent of children with special needs herself, she understands what it’s like to have to work within the school system to get better care for her children.

She is happy to meet with parents — she’s even willing to provide them with her cell phone number — but her primary focus is on building strong relationships at the ground level, between parents and the staff of each school.

“I want them to be able to advocate for their kids just like I did for my own children,” she said. “I have only had my degree since 1996, and I was raising my kids prior to that, so I had to learn the system as I went. For me, it’s satisfying that I can empower and give parents those tools.”

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