The King’s Fork High School Wind Ensemble Concert Band has achieved the city’s first superior ratings at a district band assessment in 13 years, its band director said.

The school couldn’t be prouder, Jason Taylor said, after student musicians earned the honor in the District IV Concert Band Assessment at Chesapeake’s Great Bridge High School earlier in March.

“It’s not necessarily a competition,” he explained. “Each band gets ranked as far as their rating. If there’s 30 bands, each of them could potentially rank (at the) superior level.”

But that would be exceedingly rare, Taylor indicated, adding that “maybe” two or three other high school bands received superior ratings at Great Bridge this year.

“In Suffolk, this was the first time anyone in our band has had this kind of achievement,” he said.

“The kids are extremely excited. They worked so hard — some of them have worked four years to earn this.”

The King’s Fork students knew their performance was a good one as soon as they had climbed down from the stage, Taylor indicated.

“The group was very happy with their performance, and now they are getting ready to do it again when they do to Toronto for the national assessment,” he said.

King’s Fork’s national-assessment performance will take place in Canada April 19, Taylor said, adding, “We’re hoping that we will be able to represent our city well, and we’re hoping to be able to achieve superior ratings there as well.”

Taylor, raised in Suffolk and a Nansemond River High graduate, has directed the band at King’s Fork High School since 2009. Prior to joining the King’s Fork faculty, he was a naval officer and a bomb technician.

He said he is “very proud” of what his students accomplished on the stage in Chesapeake.

“I couldn’t be more proud of them,” he said. “They have done exactly what we have asked them to do. They deserve it.”

At the end of 2012, eight King’s Fork students were among 10 Suffolk public high school students named to the 2012 District IV Concert Band.

Taylor reports that the number of students at his school getting involved in band is on the rise, citing scholarship potential as one of the main reasons.