On Wednesday, Aug. 27, The Daily Beast, a widely known online newspaper based in New York, ranked Staples High School as the 69th best high school in America. Staples was the only representation of Fairfield County on the list.

Principal John Dodig was excited to hear the news. “A lot of schools on the list are specialty or magnet schools which makes the award that much more remarkable,” said Dodig.

According to The Daily Beast, the scoring started with researching every school in the country with graduation rates above 85 percent, leaving 1200 schools in the running. After that, the schools were ranked using a formula which combined the school’s four-year cohort graduation rate, college acceptance rate, college preparedness, and college entrance exams.

With many standards to meet and competing with some of the top schools in the nation, it’s remarkable that Staples was able to receive the ranking that it did.

Aliza Gross ’16 was not surprised by the award, however. “We have really great teachers who care about what they do and their students,” said Gross.

On Tuesday, Sept. 2, Superintendent Elliot Landon sent an email to members of the Staples community to spread the good news. “Thank you, Westport, for enabling us to be the ONLY high school in Fairfield County to make the list. Great high school, great teachers and administrators and support staff, great town, great people.”

Staples has achieved other notable merits in the past year like winning the Blue Ribbon School Award and being ranked the 7th best school in Connecticut. Nonetheless, Staples continues to strive to be the best, in part due to Dodig’s goal of never being “satisfied with the status quo.”