Westwood School District Ranked 14th in State

School administrators in Westwood this week received some recognition as they gear up for the start of the 2011-2012 school year on Tuesday.

In its annual list of the top schools in the state, Boston Magazine this week ranked the Westwood School District as the 14th best district in Massachusetts.

"We're pretty happy about it," said Westwood School Superintendent John Antonucci. "It doesn't surprise too much. We know, and I think we feel that we're one of the elite school districts in the Commonwealth."

Dover-Sherborn was ranked as the top district in the state, while Sharon was ranked 10th and Wellesley 11th.

The rankings were based on data gathered from consulting school officials throughout the state, as well as school websites and the Massachusetts Department of Education.

Among the factors involved in ranking the state's 135 districts were test scores from elementary, middle and high schools. Per pupil spending, student-to-teacher ratio and the number of AP classes were also considered.

"We try not to get too high or too low with these rankings," Antonucci said. "But what I also think is that in recent years, Westwood is in fact appearing very high on these school rankings. And something is going right. We're real proud of the work we're doing here. Once in a while it's nice to get some recognition outside of the district."

To Antonucci's point, Westwood received top rankings in other school rankings during the past year.

In June, Westwood High School was named the .

And last year, GreatSchools, a website providing information on more than 200,000 public and private schools in the country, ranked Westwood fourth on a list of the in the country.