Napa schools squeaked past the state average on standardized test scores, according to California’s annual school rankings released Wednesday.

On a scale from 200 to 1,000, Napa Valley Unified School District scored 755, a slight increase over last year’s results.

The state average is 728. Eight hundred is considered “excellent.”

The news is cause for celebration, according to local school officials, who note that Napa Valley Unified School District’s demographics closely mirror those of the state.

The ranking system, known as the Academic Performance Index, measures schools’ and districts’ performance based on standardized tests administered to students the previous year.

According to Wednesday’s results, NVUSD outpaced the state average in all subgroups except among Asian students, who scored exceedingly high both locally and across the state.

White students in Napa surpassed the 800-point target by 21 points. The state average for white students is 806.

Napa’s large Hispanic student population scored about on par with Hispanic students across California, outranking them by 11 points with 677.

Students with disabilities exceeded the state average significantly, by more than 50 points, at 588.

While scores among demographic subgroups offer up good news for Napa compared to the rest of the state, most local schools have yet to reach the state’s 800-point target.

Elementary schools in Napa scored the highest, with almost half at or above 800 points.

Among middle schools, only one out of five reached 800. One out of three high schools scored above 800.

While many schools increased their API significantly, some dipped and most stayed about the same.

According to another API calculation that ranks school from one to 10 — 10 being the best — 12 NVUSD schools maintained the same state ranking as the previous year, 12 moved up one to three ranks, and nine moved down one to two ranks.

Three-fourths of NVUSD schools rank between five and 10.

Overall, the results yield only a slight increase. Still, local schools are inching their way up slowly. Over the last five years, NVUSD’s scores have increased by 77-points. All but a small handful of schools have improved over the last three years.

These overall scores will later contribute to a new ranking that will determine whether a school is designated as being in “Program Improvement.” Schools in Program Improvement can be subject to multiple requirements, including having to work with an outside administrative team that makes decisions about how the school is run.

Currently, eight schools in the district are in Program Improvement.

Upvalley, Calistoga Joint Unified dipped by seven points, from 702 last year to 695. Of the 602 students included in Calistoga’s API calculation, 355 are designated as English learners, an obstacle school officials have cited in the past as the district’s biggest challenge when it comes to standardized tests.

St. Helena Unified hardly budged at all, moving from 777 to 778. The district outscored the state by 50 points, putting it only 22 points from the 800-point goal.