For years, many viewed New London High School as the school not to go to. After all, it was a high school with free lunch for all of its students because so many of them qualified, with 90 percent of students from New London below the poverty line. More than 85 percent are Hispanic or African-American.

Too many, including New Londoners themselves, believed that the only thing its kids could do well was play basketball and football. One only had to read the outcry in The Day when the Board of Education implemented a minimum GPA requirement to participate in such sports to understand what the community believed of its high school students. Many parents took their children and fled to private, parochial and public schools in communities such as Montville, Waterford, Groton and East Lyme. Anywhere but New London, seemed to be the predominant thinking.

That perception was underscored by the realities many students face. On any given day, students come to school hungry, or without a coat, hat or gloves in cold weather. They might have spent the night on a friend’s couch because of an abusive or dysfunctional situation at home. They may live in neighborhoods where drugs or violence are a problem. They may come from a single-parent household, that parent surviving paycheck to paycheck, working two or three jobs to pay the bills.

There are students who arrive at the high school campus before 7 a.m. and have to be asked to leave the building after 9 p.m. School is a safe place for them. The school represents one of the few places in many of their lives where there are clear limits and boundaries, with adults who care enough to enforce them.

With that as a backdrop, why ever would I urge parents to consider New London High School, not only a as viable option for their child, but a good one?

New London students refer to themselves and their community members as “Whalers.” When you ask alumni or students today why they love being a Whaler, they say that students are accepted for who they are. They say that cliques, peer pressure, bullying, the pressure to use drugs and to live and dress in “Pata-Gucci” styles, are all but non-existent in New London. They report that not only do they feel accepted, but they feel that the other students, even those they do not know, have their backs.

If you are a Whaler, you belong.

One such student was Ruben Johnson. In 2011, Ruben died tragically of a brain tumor at the age of 16. At the 2012 graduation, the president of the student body spoke for 20 minutes about Ruben and all that he represented that makes New London High special.

Ruben was exceedingly bright and did very well in his classes. His test scores, however, meant nothing to his peers or to his community. Who he was as a person, his ability to come back from hardships and course correct, his humor, his acceptance, and above all else, his clear humanity, was and is what mattered most.

Ruben Johnson, while exceptional, was no exception.

Unfortunately, test scores have become the end all/be all litmus test for not only educators, but for parents as well, in determining the quality of any given school. Test scores and word of mouth are frequently the only information realtors give to their home-buying clients to describe schools in their various communities. However, without actually walking the halls of the schools or talking to the educators and students in those schools, test scores are a story half told.

True, for many years New London was ranked academically as one of the worst high schools in Connecticut. Over the past six years, however, the administrators, faculty, staff, students and parents, as well as the community, have all worked tirelessly to improve student achievement, reduce suspensions and expulsions, decrease dropouts and increase graduation rates. They have been so successful that, unsolicited, “U.S.News and World Reports” rated New London High as one of the best in the country based on improvements in student achievement.

What hasn’t changed, however, are the challenges its students face and the intangible “Whaler Pride” that suffuses the school. Those challenges and that supportive environment are what give its students the edge over test scores.

As an employer or a dean of admissions of a college, the traits that New London students exhibit are the ones I would want in my workforce or on my campus. An ability to work as a team, a comfort level with diversity, and a resilience to overcome adversity all are qualities that will stand our students in good stead. Perhaps this explains the number of our students who have gone on to colleges like Yale, Columbia, Connecticut College, the Coast Guard Academy and the Naval Academy.

These schools, and any number of employers, know to look beyond test scores; and so should parents.

Nicholas A. Fischer is a former superintendent for New London Public Schools and still lives in the city. You can contact him at nickfischer45@gmail.com.