Scituate+District+Report

//**School District of Scituate  by: Kristin Orabone, Samantha Wagner, Hannah Gardner and Jaime Botelho **//

The Scituate School District is composed of five schools located in the northern part of Rhode Island. Those five schools are Clayville Elementary School, Hope Elementary School, North Scituate Elementary School, Scituate Middle School, and Scituate High School. This district is completely rural and lacks diversity since most citizens are Caucasian. Looking at the district as a whole, there are a few characteristics that display an accurate picture of Scituate's School District. Those characteristics are the demographics, the students' performance, the schools' expenditures and funding, the assessment of the district, and its accountability.

According to the demographics of the Scituate School District, the district is similar to those in Rhode Island when one considers types of schools children attend, special education programs, drop out rates, and statistics about the teachers. A majority of Scituate’s adolescents go to public schools (89.1%) and only 0.8% are home schooled. In Rhode Island 84.4% of the students go to public schools and 0.5% are home schooled. This shows that public schools are attended by a majority of the children in Scituate as well as in the state. As for the special education services, Scituate’s are not much different than those in Rhode Island. Eighty six percent do not receive special education in Scitutate and 81.5% do not receive it in Rhode Island. Those who do have special education services in Scituate, 2% are self-contained and 12% are with only supports compared to 5.9% self-contained and 12.6% with supports in Rhode Island. Another similarity is the dropout rate. For Scituate and Rhode Island, there is an 11% chance a student will dropout. This is disheartening considering an average of only 89% of the students in Rhode Island complete high school. Furthermore, the teacher indicators show that 1% of the teachers (both in Rhode Island and Scituate) have emergency certification. Although this number is low, at least Situate’s teachers are not below the average for Rhode Island’s teachers. One can infer from this data that it is not mandatory for teacher’s to be emergency certified in Rhode Island. Finally, only 2% of the teachers in Scituate are not highly qualified and 4% of the teachers are not in Rhode Island as a whole. Along with these demographic similarities, there are also differences that must be noted.
 * Demographics**

Scituate’s School District does have differences compared to Rhode Island’s schools concerning lunch programs, diversity, bilingualism, and suspension rates. In Rhode Island, 67% of the children are not eligible for subsidized lunch programs and 93% are not eligible in Scituate. With this data, one can see that Scituate’s citizens are in a better economic position than the state’s citizens. As for the ethnic backgrounds of students in Scituate, 99% are white and 1% are Asian showing that it is not a diverse community compared to the state where 69.4% are white, 18% are Hispanic, 8.8% are African American, 3.1% are Asian, and 0.7% are Native American. In addition, none of the school children in Scituate receive bilingual education services, most likely because it is not needed. A positive part of the Scituate District is that the suspension rate per 100 students for the elementary schools, the middle school, the high school, and those in special education are significantly lower than the rate in Rhode Island. Two examples of this are that the high school rate is 25.4 for Scituate and 53.1 for Rhode Island and that of special education is 9.2 Scituate and an alarming 59.8 for Rhode Island. Looking at the data above, one can see that the statistics for the Scituate School District and Rhode Island are typically similar but there are still differences. In some cases this is positive such as the small percentage of classes taught by teachers not highly qualified and other times it is negative such as the lack of diversity in Scituate. Overall the chilldren in Scituate grades 3-8 are proficient or higher in math and reading. Sixty-four third grade children performed at a level proficient or higher in math and 80 children performed well in reading. Fourth grade students had stronger numbers in math, 68 student performing proficiently, but were 5 children short in reading. Fifth grade students performed best at the elementary level and in reading and math, and performed above proficient levels in writing. Seventy-one sixth grade students performed well in math and 81 performed proficiently in reading. The proficiency level rises when moving to seventh grade, but not drastically, only changing by a few students. Lastly, eighth grade students performed worse in math than sixth and seventh graders, the 67 eighth grade students comparing to that of the 71 sixth graders and the 72 seventh graders. The eighth graders had 87 students perform well in reading and 72 in writing. The children of Scituate perform proficiently as a whole. Also, the SAT scores and the NECAP exams of Scituate students all show a higher precentage of participation, scores, and proficiency than Rhode Island as a whole.
 * Assessment**

The students at Scituate Schools seem to be well rounded students considering how well they preform on standardized tests. The schools were not identified for improvement and the district made adequate yearly progress. There are only five schools in Scituate and the high school is considered average. So one could say that the town of Scituate is an average to above average preforming district because of how well they scored on standardized tests. The school performance of the Scituate elementary and middle schools are considered high preforming according to the school preformance pie chart. Out of the three elementary schools, one preforms below comparison in reading and the other two are above comparison to similar students statewide. The Scituate Middle School performs the same as the comparison group in Math, Reading and Writing. The high school is above average in math and problem solving skills and average in reading and writing compared to similar statewide student averages in this area. Overall the Scituate school district is an average-above agverage preforming district in Rhode Island. Scituate spends less money per pupil than the state as a whole. In total, the district of Scituate spends $11,495, $2,624 less than the state. Scituate spends about $598 less than the state on instruction alone and about $662 less on instructional support. The district only spends about $100 less than the state to operate its schools, about $200 dollars less in leadership expenses, and $1,145 less on other commitments. Scituate spends about $400 less in Title I, $3,621 less in special education, and $4,249 less in career and technical education. Scituate only spends more than the state of Rhode Island in general education, about $300 more than the state, and English language learners, about $2,717 more than the state.
 * Performance:**
 * Expenditures** **and Funding**

In comparison to Rhode Island as a whole, Scituate receives most of their funding from the local government. Twenty percent of their income comes from state and federal sources but they heavily rely on what the state does for them. This shows a dedication of the tax-payers to the well being of the youth of Scituate. When questioning the reasons for where the funding comes from we need to consider if the reason the local government has to come up with so much of the finances is because the state isn't contributing enough to sustain the community.

In the district of Scituate the only target, categorized by race, that is discussed according to the math and English Language Arts (ELA) standards for the state is the white population. The reason for this is probably because there are only 23 African-Americans citizens, 32 Asian citizens, 55 Hispanic citizens, and 7 American Indian citizens. These statistics represent Scituate's population as a whole. There is information included for students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students, but this is only present for elementary accountability. The white target group exceeded all of the state standards for math and ELA in elementary, middle and high school. The students with disabilities in elementary school (75.3) slightly exceeded the state standard (68.1). The economically disadvantaged students in elementary school exceeded both the math standard (68.1) and ELA standard (80.1) with a 84.3 in math and a 85.3 in ELA. At the high school level, Scituate also exceeded in the state's standard for graduation rate. The state standard is 75.3% and Scituate is 88.6%. Clearly the Scituate district is doing very well with meeting the state's standards. Group** ||= **Elem Math** ||= **Elem ELA** ||= **Met Standard?** ||= **Middle Math** ||= **Middle ELA** ||= **Met Standard?** ||= **High Math** ||= **High ELA** ||= **Met Standard?** || in math did not meet standard in ELA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA ||
 * Accountability**
 * = **Target
 * African American || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA ||
 * Asian || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA ||
 * Hispanic || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA ||
 * Native American || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA ||
 * White || 91.0% || 92.9% || yes || 90.3% || 93.2% || yes || 89.3% || 91.8% || yes ||
 * Students with Disabilities || 75.3% || 76.5% || met standard
 * English Language Learners || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA ||
 * Economically Disadvantaged || 84.8 || 85.3 || yes || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA || NA ||
 * All Students || 90.8% || 92.7% || yes || 90.2% || 93.2% || yes || 89.4% || 91.9% || yes ||

Conclusion:
The Scituate district consists of five different schools. There are three elementary schools, one middle school and one high school. This district mainly consists of caucasian students; the reason for this being that the population of Scituate consists mainly of the white race. The schools in this district overall are doing well in meeting the state's standards. Many of the schools even exceed the state's standards. This district gets the majority of its funding from the community rather than the state unlike many other school districts in Rhode Island. Overall the Scituate district is performing well on standardized tests and is located in a safe rural community.


 * References **