Nayatt+School

= Nayatt School  = By: Matt Sheehan



Introduction
Nayatt School is an elementary school located in Barrington, Rhode Island consisting of grades kindergarten through 3rd grade. This is an outstanding school in many respects from testing reports, meeting and exceeding nearly all standards, and from SALT reports/surveys. According to the 2001 SALT report visit to the school, "Nayatt School is an exceptional learning institution committed to educational excellence and high standards of performance. The staff, teachers, and principal all desire to provide the best quality education. Your collaborative nature and reflective practices form a strong foundation that will continue to help children grow, learn, and develop."[1] The purpose of this report is to explore how this school performs above the state average and national standards. The main areas of focus are school performance, teachers and students, and family/demographics gathering data from SALT surveys and testing results.

School Performance
In terms of standardized testing, Nayatt School has consistently preformed very well. In the 2008-09 school year, Grade 3 had 91% of the children at or above proficiency level in math and 95% at or above proficiency in reading. Not only is this nearly 40% more students at proficiency level than the state (61% math, 68% reading) but out of the past 3 years this was their lowest scores. Math and reading scores were lower this year, with the highest being 95% proficiency in math in the year 07-08 and 97% proficiency in reading in the year 06-07.[2] The school as a whole has made Adequate Yearly Progress and is Regents Commended. The 2007-08 performance progress included a mathematics index score of 98 compared to the state average of 82. In reading they also performed above the state also at 98 compared to 86 respectively.[3]

The only complaint with this is that the performance has decreased slightly over the 3 years while the state average has increased steadily over those years. On further analysis of the SALT surveys there seems to be a decrease in many of the important teacher practices such as under the "Practices for Mathematical Reasoning and Skill Enhancement" section the question, "Mathematical concepts and reasoning are integrated into lessons" has decreased from a high of daily (6.7 out of 7) to 5.6 out of 7 or in between weekly and several times a week.[4] In terms of reading and literacy there was a big decrease from students reading from materials other than text books from 7/7 (daily) to 5.2(weekly)[5]. That could be considered a good thing in order to keep the lessons structured or a more negative thing since it decreases the amount students get to broaden their reading abilities. One impressive aspect is the area "students receive instruction in reading skills" was only 0.2 points off of daily in 08-09 and 06-07 and was done daily (7/7) in 07-08.[6] The results of these few areas of the SALT report is only a small portion of insight into possible reasons for such high scores and even for the recent drop. Here is concentrated to only teachers responses but to read more on the report follow the link to the citation and the web page below.

Lastly, as expected Nayatt school met all requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act standards and scored higher than the state and the district of Barrington in both reading and math in the 2007-08 year.[7]

Demographics
Nayatt School is in a very nice area being in a well to do part of the state. The population of school ethnicity is nearly all white with 94% of the student body. Asian, Hispanic or Latino, and multinational make up the rest of the school in very small amounts.[8] The percentage of males and females is 52/48 respectively with some fluctuations per grade level.[9] The percentage of white people at the school is also reflected in the town of Barrington as a whole, so their does not seem to be any special selection of students here. The fact that the school performs so well each year must have to do with the location and the family influences. Typically better off communities with a medium to high standard of living above poverty level perform much better in their schools. This is reflected in our overall report especially in looking at Providence and how the schools are performing poorly that have higher poverty rates and lower incomes. In contrast, Barrington schools perform very highly in regards to the state and also have high median incomes ($84,657 in 1999) and living standards.[10]

Family
According to the 2001 SALT report the main reason for such high performance is parent involvement and the strong foundation that students have coming into the school.[11] A strong base knowledge from parents this seems to be an essential factor in the students performance. According to the Census, 94% of Barrington residents have a high school degree or higher and 53.2% have a bachelors degree or higher.[12] Judging by the amount a typical resident makes one could assume the parents of students have well to do jobs possibly in intellectual areas which provide stimulating real world applications to aspiring students. Just for students going to Nayatt, the percentage of parents with a college degree is an impressive 91%! [13]

Not only are the parents highly educated but they are also involved and care about their child's education; the SALT survey confirms this. The teachers feel that the parents value education with over 50% responding that they seem "very" concerned with students education.[14] Upon looking at the parent SALT reports the parents seem to spend a lot of time on individual learning at home like reading to their child, or practicing spelling before a test. Their seems to be less involvement in terms of actual school functions such as PTO or going to events.[15] Unfortunately, the teacher SALT survey shows that the teachers only meet with parents to "increase involvement" or "discuss progress of their child" quarterly to several times a year. Now this was taken in 2008 where as the SALT report stated the importance of parent involvement back in 2001. It seems the parents have taken a lot more teaching into their own hands but do not meet with the teachers to really know how they are teaching. The fact that the school still performs so well shows that this is not a big problem but it seems the school could use more parent connections to school, not just through their children.

Teachers and Students
The students at Nayatt come in having a very strong base according to the SALT report as stated in the previous section. One of the strong points the reporters noticed was not only the strong base the students have but the "love of reading students exhibit", "the ownership students take for their own learning", and self management skills.[16] The report stressed analyzing and making connections for literacy along with increasing complexity of assignments and tests.[17] It seems as though the increase in work for students has certainly paid off in the incredibly high performance level of students.

Schools would be nothing without teachers and Nayatt has some great teaching staff that is experienced, dedicated, and caring. In 2008 nearly all teachers have taught for over 10 years with a quarter of the teachers having taught more than 25 years.[18] According to the teacher SALT survey the teachers have integration and interdisciplinary instructions and small group exercises weekly. Practice for math enhancement occurs slightly more than reading enhancement (both a few times a week), but they have instructions for both daily. The teachers also provide a reasonable amount of cross course instruction which is important for younger students to gain understanding and context. Under the critical thinking section the teachers value most that their students give peer feedback and keep journals, but they lack more writing assignments such as essay test or responding to newspapers.[19] As was stated in the 01 SALT report, Nayatt school needs to improve on their writing and that skill still seems lacking which is due to the fact that it does not seem to be included in teachers lessons according to the data from SALT surveys[20]. Hopefully this area was not left behind in terms of importance because it is not tested for in No Child Left Behind for Elementary. Based on the consistent dedication it seems writing is just one factor that is lacking and undervalued at this school. Overall the teachers are well educated in their areas with many having specialties in either Elementary education and more specifically, it seems, in reading which could attribute to why the school performs better in reading than in math.[21]

Conclusion
Nayatt school is an amazing school with great teachers, parents, and students. Their performance on tests in reading and math are much above the state average and they are making Adequate Yearly Progress as well as meeting the No Child Left Behind standards. There are many reasons for the great learning potential at this school and it first stems from the environment these children live in. Most families provide support, encouragement, and involvement in their student's education and pass along a sense of importance of education which accounts for the children's love of learning. [22] The teachers are highly qualified, experienced, and provide the tools and energy necessary for students to feel safe and thrive. So many factors make up this great school and Nayatt provides a leading example of how to run a great Elementary school.

> Retrieved November 1, 2010, from []
 * 1) ^ RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (n.d.). Nayatt School SALT Report. Retrieved October 31, 2010, from []
 * 2) ^ Rhode Island Infoworks. (n.d.). Nayatt School, Barrington; Assesments. Retrieved October 26, 2010, from []
 * 3) ^ Rhode Island Infoworks. (n.d.). Nayatt School, Barrington; Accountability. Retrieved October 26, 2010, from []
 * 4) ^ Rhode Island Infoworks. (n.d.). Nayatt School, Barrington; SALT Survey Reports. Retrieved October 26, 2010, from []
 * 5) ^ Rhode Island Infoworks. (n.d.). Nayatt School, Barrington; SALT Survey Reports. Retrieved October 26, 2010, from []
 * 6) ^ Rhode Island Infoworks. (n.d.). Nayatt School, Barrington; SALT Survey Reports. Retrieved October 26, 2010, from []
 * 7) ^ Rhode Island Information Works. (n.d.). Nayatt School, Barrington; 2008 No Child Left Behind Report Card. Retrieved October 31, 2010, from []
 * 8) ^ RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (n.d.). SALT Reports; TSRS; Student Demographics. Retrieved November 1, 2010, from []
 * 9) ^ RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (n.d.). SALT Reports; TSRS; Student Demographics.
 * 1) ^ US Census. (n.d.). Barrington town, Bristol County, Rhode Island - Fact Sheet - American FactFinder. Retrieved November 1, 2010, from Link
 * 2) ^ RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Educatino. (n.d.). Nayatt School SALT Report. Retrieved October 31, 2010, from []
 * 3) ^ US Census. (n.d.). Barrington town, Bristol County, Rhode Island - Fact Sheet - American FactFinder. Retrieved November 1, 2010, from Link
 * 4) ^ RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Educatino. (n.d.). SALT Reports; Parent Reports. Retrieved November 1, 2010, from []
 * 5) ^ Rhode Island Infoworks. (n.d.). Nayatt School, Barrington; SALT Survey Reports. Retrieved October 26, 2010, from []
 * 6) ^ RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (n.d.). SALT Reports; Parent Reports. Retrieved November 1, 2010, from []
 * 7) ^ RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (n.d.). Nayatt School SALT Report. Retrieved October 31, 2010, from []
 * 8) ^ RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (n.d.). Nayatt School SALT Report. Retrieved October 31, 2010, from []
 * 9) ^ Rhode Island Infoworks. (n.d.). Nayatt School, Barrington; SALT Survey Reports. Retrieved October 26, 2010, from []
 * 10) ^ RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Educatino. (n.d.). SALT Reports; Staff Reports. Retrieved November 1, 2010, from []
 * 11) ^ RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (n.d.). Nayatt School SALT Report. Retrieved October 31, 2010, from []
 * 12) ^ Rhode Island Infoworks. (n.d.). Nayatt School, Barrington; SALT Survey Reports. Retrieved October 26, 2010, from []
 * 13) ^ RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (n.d.). Nayatt School SALT Report. Retrieved October 31, 2010, from []