With his coaching background, Harmony Magnet Academy principal Jeff Brown equated his school's sustained success to the sustained success of an athletic program.
“If you relate it to football coaching or any coaching trying to sustain something is probably more difficult that getting there,” Brown said.
Harmony has been able to sustain that success for several years running as once again it has been rated the top high school in Tulare County by U.S. News and World Report. In addition Harmony continues to maintain its place as one of the nation's top schools.
Harmony is also ranked No. 104 out of 1,652 public high schools in California which places it in the top six percent of the state's schools. Nationally Harmony is ranked 780 out of 17,655 public high schools, placing it near the top 4 percent of all the nation's schools.
And Harmony is ranked No. 144 in the nation out of 3,022 charter schools, placing it in the top 5 percent among the country's charter schools.
Harmony's rankings have remained in that area for several years. In 2023 Harmony was ranked No. 737 in the nation, No. 107 in California and No. 140 among the nation's charter schools.
“I'm just thrilled,” said Brown about his school's continued success. Brown said the school's advisory committees, staff, parents and support from the business community all play a role in the school's success.
“It's a combination of those things coming together,” Brown said. “I'm just proud of their commitment.”
And of course a great deal of the credit goes to the students, Brown said. “The kids are No. 1,” he said. “They want to be here and that's a key I think.”
Harmony was the beginning of what has become the Porterville Unified School District's Pathways program, which now has 14 Pathways.
“We're very proud of that,” Brown said. “This is where it all started. This experiment has been very prosperous.”
Harmony received a score of 95.58 out of 100. U.S. News stated its rankings of virtually all the nation's public schools provides a numerical ranking based on multiple sources of objective data. Harmony received a score of 95.83 in 2023.
The rankings are based in part of how schools educate all students from different social and economic backgrounds. The rankings are also based on schools who have students who demonstrate outstanding outcomes above expectations in math, reading and state science state assessments and earned qualifying scores in a variety of college-level exams.
Schools were rated based on weighted scores in six categories with an overall score of 100 possible. Thirty percent of the score is based on college readiness. Ten percent is based on the school's curriculum being a college curriculum.
Twenty percent is based on state assessment scores. When it comes to educating students from different social and economic backgrounds, 10 percent of the score is based on underserved students' performance and the graduation rate also figures into the school.
Sixty-seven percent of Harmony's students have taken Advanced Placement, AP, courses and tests for college.
Harmony's reading proficiency also remains outstanding at 89 percent as compared to 90 percent in 2023. Harmony also has a strong science proficiency rate of 55 percent as compared to 57 percent in 2023.
Harmony's minority enrollment is 80 percent and 67 percent of its students are economically disadvantaged. The school has a 100 percent graduation rate
Harmony also ranks high in assessment performance in U.S. News and World Report rankings, ranking 32nd in the state and 354th in the nation.