Each of the San Ramon Valley Unified School District's comprehensive high schools ranked among the 220 best in California, and one finished in the top 1% in the nation, according to the latest U.S. News and World Report "Best High Schools" list.

Dougherty Valley High in San Ramon led the way at No. 42 in the state and No. 281 in the United States in this year's rankings by the news publication.

In the report published last week, Dougherty Valley was recognized as a Gold Medal high school for finishing in the top 500 of the nearly 20,000 high schools included in the national list. California, San Ramon Valley and Monte Vista each received a Silver Medal honor for ranking among the top 2,173 schools.

San Ramon Valley High in Danville ranked No. 118 in the state and No. 742 in the country. San Ramon's Cal High finished at No. 188 in the state and No. 1,103 in the U.S., and Danville's Monte Vista High came in at No. 218 in the state and No. 1,245 in the nation.

Rankings were calculated by looking at student performance on state-mandated standardized tests, how effectively schools educated black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students, maintaining a graduation rate at or above 68% and performance on AP and IB exams to determine the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level work, according to report's methodology.

Data were compiled from 19,908 qualifying public high schools in 50 states and the District of Columbia, with almost 2,400 California high schools featured on the list.