“We’re Number Four!That statement may not make for a rousing high school cheer, but it’s a pretty proud proclamation of Bainbridge High School’s place in the pantheon of central Puget Sound secondary schools.BHS ranks fourth among 66 public high schools in King, Kitsap and Snohomish counties in two key prestige categories – reputation ranking and first-year University of Washington student grades – as compiled in the Seattle Times School Guide, an annual comprehensive guide to regional homes of secondary learning published this week.BHS also had the fourth-highest Washington Assessment of Learning math, reading and writing scores, all behind only the International Schools of Lake Washington and Bellevue, and Newport High School. It was also just one of three schools to rank in the Times’ top 10 for each of its seven major ratings – the four WASL categories, reputation, UW grades, and Advanced Placement index scores.I had a guy working with a program with our football team come up to one of our coaches the other day and say, ‘I’ve been to over 300 high schools, and I haven’t seen one yet that compares to what you have here, in terms of academic achievement, athletic facilities and community involvement,’ said Dave Ellick, Bainbridge High School principal. That’s something we realize every day.Woodward Middle School, while not receiving top-10 rankings in the WASL categories, ranked in the upper 20 percent among 100 middle and junior high schools profiled by the Times. From its listening scores, with 91.1 percent of the seventh-graders meeting state standards, to its writing (80.1 percent), reading (73.6 percent) and math (59.9 percent) figures, the school compared favorably to its counterparts.Both schools also placed in the highest percentiles for class size, suspensions and/or expulsions per 100 students, and unexcused absences.Other figures showed both schools as institutions that get the biggest bang for the district’s buck. When it comes to the district’s tax rate per $1,000 ($4.56), the average annual salary for experienced teachers ($39,180) and expenditure per student ($5,819), Bainbridge’s cash-strapped school district – currently facing some difficult staff- and program-paring decisions – ranks in the bottom half of the 27 districts surveyed.Our kids work really hard, our test scores hold up real well – and we do it without too much help from Olympia, said Steve Rowley, Bainbridge Schools superintendent.The rating that, in Rowley’s view, shows that Bainbridge schools don’t give in to a growing grade-inflation problem elsewhere is the UW grade list.The university keeps track of how students from area high schools do after their first term at the Seattle campus, averaging together five years’ worth of students from each school. The 118 students sampled from Bainbridge posted an median grade-point average of 3.17, behind only the International School of Bellevue, Vashon Island and Auburn Riverside – all of which had significantly smaller samplings to offer.When you have so many bright and articulate kids to work with, that certainly makes our staff’s jobs a lot easier, Ellick said. “