How Athletic Is Your School? Hatboro-Horsham Gets Average Ranking

Hatboro-Horsham School District ranked about average on new list scoring the sports and fitness programs of school districts, according to a new ranking by Niche.com.

The “Best Sports” study does not judge a school solely based on the competitive success of their varsity teams, but rather on the overall role that sports and fitness play in the daily lives of students.

Hatboro-Horsham was rated 60th out of 115 in the Philadelphia Metro Area, and did not make the cut for the state’s top 100.

Niche identified three of the key criteria analyzed in their methodology:

• Students report sports and fitness playing a significant, positive role in student life, including varsity sports, athletic facilities, and school spirit;
• Students actively take part in a variety of intervarsity sports offered by district schools;
• The administration is invested in the students and works to provide the best possible educational experience.

Of the factors considered in compiling the rankings, survey responses from Niche users were the most important, comprising 45% of the weight of the study’s results.

168 users responded to surveys and ranked various aspects of school district, including their sports.

“Performance of teams is very bad,” commented an anonymous user, identified only as a high school junior. “Fitness programs are not helpful.”

Other found school spirit to be inspiring, even when sports teams did not perform well.

Several local schools did very well in the rankings. Upper Dublin High School’s sports and fitness programs were ranked the 9th best in all of Pennsylvania.

Other nearby districts included 5th place Lower Merion and 10th place Downingtown.

Raw data also played an important factor in compiling the study, as 20% of the weight of the rankings was based on the number of sports offered by the school. The percentage of boys and girls that played a sport was also important.