Staff Reports
Stella Niagara Education Park has taken top honors among Niagara County schools — and 12th overall — in Business First’s 2009 rankings of Western New York middle schools.
Located within the Lewiston-Porter School District, Stella Niagara is a private school educating pre-kindergarten to eighth grade and draws its student population from a large radius.
“We actually have a pretty broad geographic base,” said Kristen deGuehery, the school’s director of institutional advancement. “We have students from Lockport, Kenmore, Grand Island, even five families who come over from Canada. They went out and got their Nexus cards, and they make the drive every day.”
Each year, Business First ranks the top middle schools based on the previous four years of statewide test results for eighth-graders. According to the report released Tuesday, Stella Niagara was the top Niagara County school, followed by St. John Lutheran School in Niagara-Wheatfield at No. 17 overall. St. John also finished No. 17 in Business First’s elementary rankings.
In Niagara Falls, St. Dominic Savio Middle School finished 96th, followed by LaSalle and Gaskill preparatory schools at 159th and 170th respectively.
Lewiston-Porter Middle School ranked 50th and Edward Town Middle School in Niagara-Wheatfield finished 89th.
Transit Middle School in Williamsville earned the No. 1 ranking for the second time since 2006 and the fourth time since Business First began rating middle schools in 2002. The other top five schools are Casey Middle School in Williamsville, Christ the King School in Amherst, City Honors School in Buffalo and Amherst Middle School.
