2016-2017
f ox c hapel a rea s chool d istrict s tate of the s chools
2016-2017
State of the Schools
Awards and Achievements
Highlights
•For the eighth year, Fox Chapel Area
High School received a Silver Medal rank
from U.S.News & World Report. The
high school was also ranked among the
top 250 high schools in the nation and
received an “A+ Overall Niche Grade”
on niche.com, and was named among the
2017 Washington Post’s America’s Most
Challenging High Schools.
•The district was honored by the College
Board in 2017 with placement on the
7 th Annual AP ® District Honor Roll,
a distinction for districts that show
significant gains in student access and
success on Advanced Placement courses
and tests.
• Fox Chapel Area was accepted into Digital Promise’s League of Innovative Schools, one of
19 new school districts nationwide selected by the league for their innovative learning and
collaboration. League-member schools meet several times a year, and Deputy Superintendent
David McCommons, Ed.D., said, “As a member district, we have already benefited from
our involvement in the areas of connections, research opportunities, and collaborative grant
making.” The district is collaborating with two League-member schools in reimagining the
creation of media centers, partnering with a tech start-up to evaluate computational thinking
in first grade, and partnering with the RAND Corporation on a National Science Foundation
Grant in the area of digital fabrication and Fab Labs.
•High school junior Shania Khatri
participated in the Intel International
Science and Engineering Fair – the
Olympics of student science competitions.
Shania’s project was entitled “Using
Bayesian Network Modeling to Locate
Breast Cancer Genes.”
•A total of 147 high school students were
named Advanced Placement (AP) Scholars
by the College Board for demonstrating
college-level achievement on the AP
examinations taken in May 2017. Rohan
Chalasani, Alec Eckman, Mihir Garimella,
Sarah Hamilton, Elizabeth Heidenreich,
Yelim Lee, Darwin Leuba, William
“Tim” Marsh, Moira McCormick, Suvir
Mirchandani, Kristen Rabbitt, Jeremy
Rodrigues, Caroline Smith, Philip Swigon,
Thomas Swigon, and Nathan Wecht, all
seniors, qualified for the National AP Scholar
Award by earning an average score of 4 or
higher on all AP exams taken, and scores of
four or higher on eight or more AP exams.
10 Fox Chapel Area
• Fairview Elementary School was named a 2016 National Blue Ribbon School by the
United States Department of Education in September of 2016. Fairview was one of among
329 schools from across the nation selected to receive this honor. Representing Fairview,
Principal Rebecca Stephan,
Ed.D., and fifth-grade teacher
John Anderson attended the
Blue Ribbon ceremony held in
Washington, D.C. Each of the
Fox Chapel Area schools has
been named a national Blue
Ribbon School. This is the
second time that Fairview
was given the award, and
Fox Chapel Area High School
also was named a Blue Ribbon
School twice.