The Charlotte area's top 20 public high schools

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — As CBJ continues its review of top-ranked schools in the Charlotte region, it’s time to focus our attention on public high schools.

[RELATED: The Charlotte area's top 20 public elementary schools]

A handful of high schools that are part of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools register among the area’s 20 best, according to new rankings from research and review site Niche.com, which takes into account traditional, charter and magnet schools.

Ardrey Kell High School, for instance, comes in as the top overall public high school in the region, Niche finds. The south Charlotte high school received an A+ for its overall grade as well as for academics and college prep. It ranked at No. 375 out of the 18,841 best public high schools in America.

[RELATED: The Charlotte area's top 20 public middle schools]

For this set of rankings, Niche analyzed U.S. Department of Education data on academics and student life as well as parent and student reviews to determine the top schools in each area. In addition to categories like academics, which carries a weight of 60%, Niche assigned specific grades to criteria such as diversity, teachers, club and activities, health and safety, resources and facilities as well as sports, among others.

This slideshow provides a full look at the Charlotte area's top 20 public high schools, according to Niche.

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