Kendall Central School District has placed first in Orleans County and in the top third of all school districts in an eight-county region based on a ranking by Buffalo Business First newspaper.

Business First graded 99 public school systems in the eight-county area using 32 statistical indicators compiled by the State Education Department. During the 1999-2000 school year, Kendall students exceeded the state standard of 140 points for the fourth-grade English Language Arts and math state exams scoring 170 points in English and 183 points in math. At the high school level, 57 percent of Kendall's 1999-2000 graduates earned Regents diplomas.

Looking at last year's core Regents exams, 95 percent of the students taking the English Regents exam passed, 91 percent of the students taking the Math Course I Regents passed with 42 percent achieving a score of 85 percent or higher, and 96 percent of the students taking the Global History Regents passed with 31 percent scoring 85 percent or higher.

The Kendall School District's focus for the past school year has been to address middle level performance on the state exams. The Board of Education has charged an ad hoc committee with issuing a recommendation in September regarding strategies for improvement. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Michael O'Laughlin said the state assessments are helping the district with the continuous improvement process.

The complete school ranking were released in a special publication accompanying the March 26 print edition of the newspaper.