Signature School is a charter high school located in downtown

Evansville, Indiana Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...

on the Main Street walkway. The school opened in 2002 as Indiana's first public charter

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

. It has been consistently

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, by a number of publications, as one of the top high schools in the

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History

Signature School began in 1992 as a half-day program with 213 students. It offered both morning and afternoon classes and allowed motivated high school students to enroll in higher-level courses. In particular, the Accelerated, Compacted, Enriched Program (ACE) was developed for

freshmen A freshman, fresher, first year, or frosh, is a person in the first year at an educational institution, usually a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. Ara ...

and sophomores who seek advanced English, foreign language, math, and science offerings. By 2001, Signature School had 278

part-time Part-time can refer to: * Part-time job, a job that has fewer hours a week than a full-time job * Part-time student, a student, usually in higher education, who takes fewer course credits than a full-time student * Part Time Part Time (styliz ...

students. After the passage of the Indiana

Charter School A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of autono ...

Law, the staff applied for a full-day program, adopted more courses into the curriculum, and changed the school to a

charter school A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of autono ...

. In December 2001, Signature School submitted a charter-seeking conversion status to the

Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation The Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation (EVSC) is a public school corporation serving Evansville, Indiana and Vanderburgh County; its boundary includes the entire county. It is the third largest school district in the state of Indiana, beh ...

(EVSC), and on February 25, 2002, EVSC approved the charter – making the school Indiana's first public charter

. The first

graduation ceremony Graduation is the awarding of a diploma to a student by an educational institution. It may also refer to the ceremony that is associated with it. The date of the graduation ceremony is often called graduation day. The graduation ceremony is al ...

for Signature School students was held in May 2003 in the

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. The first graduating class consisted of 42 students.

Profile

Signature School is part of the

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(IB) Programme. Many classes offer a combination of both AP and IB credits.

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offered at the school include French,

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, and

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. The student-to-teacher ratio is 20 to 1. Students and parents can access grades and other information from a server called PowerSchool. Community service is a part of the mission of Signature School. All students are required to perform more than 100 hours of service to their school, local, and global communities. The class of 2021 logged 9367 hours in four years.

Rankings

In 2017, the ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

'' named Signature “the third most challenging high school in the U.S.". '' U.S. News & World Report'' ranked the school the 21st best public high school in the U.S., the sixth best charter, and number one school in the Midwest in 2013. The

Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...

named Signature the 5th best

in America in its list entitled "Top High Schools 2014". In addition, Signature School has been declared a Blue Ribbon School. In 2010 and 2011, ''

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'' ranked the school as the seventh best in the United States. In 2011, the ''

'' ranked the school the eighth best in the United States. Out of about 22,000 high schools nationwide, '' U.S. News & World Report'' ranked the school the 53rd best in 2011. Previous ''

'' rankings have declared Signature 54th (2006), 99th (2008), 27th (2009), 7th (2010), and 7th (2011). Other ''

'' rankings of the school include 126th (2007), 97th (2008), 23rd (2009), 7th (2010), and 8th (2011). In 2020, Signature was named the #1 Most Challenging School in the Nation according to th
Jay Mathews Challenge Index

Campus

Signature School is located in several buildings in downtown

on the Main Street walkway. These include the fourth floor of the

; the Robert L. Koch II Science Building, which is attached to the Gerling Law Firm offices; the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams (philanthropist), Georg ...

(for PE classes); and the Browning Rooms at Central Library. The school's main building is attached to the

. The building now known as Signature School was originally a hotel, later gutted and remodeled to serve as a school. In 2015, Signature School received $2.5 million in funding for the building of the new science center as part of the Regional Cities Initiative. The Regional Cities Initiative aims to help communities across Indiana transform their regions into nationally recognized destinations to live, work, and play.

References

External links

Signature School
{{Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation (EVSC) Schools in Evansville, Indiana Public high schools in Indiana High schools in Southwestern Indiana IHSAA Conference-Independent Schools Charter schools in Indiana Educational institutions established in 1992 1992 establishments in Indiana