Barrington+District+Report

= The Barrington District =

Introduction
The Barrington School District in composed of six schools; four elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school. The elementary schools in this district are Nayatt Elementary School, Primrose Hill Elementary School, Sowams Elementary School, and Hampden Meadows School. The middle school is Barrington Middle School, and the high school in this district is Barrington High School. To provide a comprehensive representation of this school district, this report analyzes the demographics of the school, school performance, the school's expenditure and funding, as well as the assessment and accountability of the schools. This analysis provides a clear description of the school district and of the schools that it is composed of.

Demographics
Barrington is, statistically, very much ahead of Rhode Island in terms of low drop out and suspension rates, yet it is not as diverse. Barrington has a high rate of students going to public school, 86.7% as opposed to 83.7% in Rhode Island overall. This can be an indicator of how the schools are doing especially with most of the Barrington community attending the public schools, yet there is a drop out rate of only 2.5%, as opposed to the 15.5% drop out rate of Rhode Island. This means that most of Barrington's students graduate, creating a more knowledgeable and educated society. The suspension rate in the schools of Barrington is about 12% less than high school suspensions than RI students in high school, and 6% less suspension than that of RI elementary schools. This district also has 9% less special education students than the RI rate, and 10% less than the middle school children of RI. This leads to a conclusion that the community of Barrington places a great concern and focus on doing well in school.

The issue of a disruptive learning community outside of the school that does not place enough stock in the education of their children is non-existent in the Barrington School District. The fact that 97% of Barrington's population are too affluent to have reduced/subsidized lunch, as opposed to the 62% of Rhode Islanders, shows that this is a community with little poverty. If poverty is not an issue and language barriers are not the problem, as only 1% of the population of Barrington have learned English as a second language, than it seems that Barrington is set up for success. Without the demographic barriers to hinder the students, it would seem that they would do well in school. Although 1% more of classes taught in Barrington are not highly qualified as opposed 4% in all of Rhode Island. This factor could hinder the schools of Barrington, however if the 5% of teachers are ones that are good teachers without high standing degrees than this would become a small if not non-existent issue. The fact that Barrington has a lower enrollment in the special needs classes than Rhode Island does, 4% less, just shows that the barrier of learning disabilities, although present, is not a major factor in many of the student's educational careers in Barrington. Thus further proving that when comparing Barrington and Rhode Island demographics, Barrington has little diversity but a lot of potential for success within it's schools.

Performance
It is clear that Barrington is a very successful district for schooling. Not just one or two of the levels of schools are above the expectations of Rhode Island, but all of them are. Elementary school, middle school, and high school are all above comparison group in every subject. This may have something to do with the fact that there is only one school for each level of schooling. In Barrington, there is one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school. Since there are not as many schools in Barrington, there are not as many children going to school in Barrington, which would limit the amount of diversity in students' proficiency in the various subjects that are tested.

Funding and Expenditure
The Barrington school district has a large amount of funding for their schools, with the majority of it coming from local sources. 90% of the money spent on the schooling system in this district comes from the local area. Compared to other districts in the state of Rhode Island, this is an extremely large portion of their funds. In the State of Rhode Island, the average amount of local funding is only 57%, however, the funding from the state is much greater than what Barrington receives. Only 10% of funding for Barrington schools comes from state and federal resources combined. The tax payers in this area are spending their tax money mainly on the schooling in their community. This shows that the community cares greatly about the quality of their schooling and doesn't depend on the state and federal funding for their school district.
 * = =====__**Funding** __===== ||= **Barrington** ||= **Barrington**
 * %** ||= **Rhode Island** ||= **Rhode Island**
 * = Local ||= $35.6M ||= 90% ||= $1184.5M ||= 57% ||
 * = State ||= $2.6M ||= 7% ||= $753.9M ||= 36% ||
 * = Federal ||= $1.2M ||= 3% ||= $143.5M ||= 7% ||
 * = Federal ||= $1.2M ||= 3% ||= $143.5M ||= 7% ||

While all of Barrington's education expenditures are rather close to the state average, one might be somewhat surprised to find that they are not higher. Despite the median income in the community being so much higher than the state's median income, not a single category of expenditures is above the state average. Regardless, the numbers are still similar to the state average, with a large amount of spending in the areas of special education, career and technical education, instruction, and general education. Their low Title I spending reflects the lack of poverty in the district.


 * = **Expenditure** ||= **Barrington** ||= **Rhode Island**
 * Average** ||
 * = Total ||= $10,798 ||= $12,700 ||
 * = Instruction ||= $7,220 ||= $7,665 ||
 * = Instructional support ||= $1,411 ||= $2,169 ||
 * = Operations ||= $1,561 ||= $2,169 ||
 * = Leadership ||= $507 ||=  ||
 * = <span style="display: block; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; text-align: center;">Other Commitments ||= $676 ||=  ||
 * = <span style="display: block; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; text-align: center;">General Education ||= $6,954 ||= $7,246 ||
 * = <span style="display: block; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; text-align: center;">Title I ||= $69 ||= $536 ||
 * = <span style="display: block; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; text-align: center;">Special Education ||= $15,311 ||= $16,382 ||
 * = <span style="display: block; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; text-align: center;">Career and Technical Education ||= $8,858 ||= $9,220 ||
 * = <span style="display: block; font-family: Times New Roman,serif; text-align: center;">English Language Learners ||= $6,818 ||= $7,931 ||

Assessment
Barrington is a very high-performing district. The numbers and percentages displayed are from 5th, 8th, and 12th grade testing measures. This information shows how well the students are performing on standardized testing and if they are truly ready and prepared to continue on to the next level of education.

The education that the students receive in elementary school sets the stage for the rest of their education, so it is very important to test that the students are prepared to move on to the next level. When it comes to 5th grade testing, Barrington has higher numbers of students in the proficient and proficient with distinction percentiles compared with the state of Rhode Island overall. Barrington has 50% proficient with distinction in math, 41% proficient with distinction in reading, and 61% proficient with distinction in writing. This is significantly different than the state in whole, with only 15% proficient with distinction in math, 15% proficient with distinction in reading, and 28% proficient with distinction in writing.

By the time a students reaches their eighth grade year, they should feel very well prepared for their future and move on to high school. The students of the Barrington school system have proven that they are very much prepared to move forward at this point. The same pattern arises when examining the testing information for 8th grade testing. Barrington has 47% proficient with distinction in math, 49% proficient with distinction in reading, and 30% proficient with distinction in writing. This is also significantly different than the state in whole, along with the fifth grade information, with only 13% proficient with distinction in math, 14% proficient with distinction in reading, and 8% proficient with distinction in writing.

The year or two before a student goes to college are important years in a student's education. Not only do they learn important scholastic information, but they learn what their strengths and weaknesses are academically, and this information assists the student in guiding their future in a certain direction. Although the students are higher in their education when it comes time to take the SAT's, the pattern of increased scores in Barrington over the rest of the state persists. In the math section, Barrington scored an average of 591 over the state average of a 487. The district of Barrington scored over 100 points higher than the state average. The same goes for reading, where students in Barrington scored an average of 556, where the state average was a 483. In the writing section of the exam, Barrington scored an average score of 559, compared to Rhode Island which has an average score of 479. When it comes to the percentage of seniors taking the exam in Barrington district and the state, Barrington has an overwhelming number. 89% of Barrington seniors took the exam, where only 57% of Rhode Island seniors took the exam.

What this information shows is quite simple; Barrington district is one of the highest performing districts when it comes to standardized testing and sets an example that lower-performing districts in Rhode Island state should look to.

Accountability
While Barrington is a very academically successful community, there is no diversity within its schools. Barrington is a primarily white community. In elementary, middle, and high school the students test well above the standard in both math and English. The White elementary school students received 95.0 and 95.8 respectively in Math and English, which was above the standard, which was 84.1 for English and 74.5 for Math. The students with disabilities, however, did not meet the standard but still did well with 80.2 in math and 83.7 in English. These scores increased slightly in middle school. The students scored 96.0 in Math and 97.6 in English both of which were above the standard, which was 78.6 for English and 64.1 for Math. The students with disabilities scored 80.1 in English and 90.6 in math which was also above the standard. In high school, however the scores decreased. The students received 87.1 in Math and 95.2 in English which were both still above the standard, 75.0 for English and 63.2 for Math. They have a 96.3% graduation rate which is almost 20% above the state standard of 79.2%.

Conclusion
This district produces some of the best performing and most successful students in the state of Rhode Island. These students outperformed the rest of the state in testing measures, and had above the state average percent of students considered proficient in math, reading, and writing. Studying how the different aspects of the Barrington School District relates to the performance and success of the students is something quite fascinating to see. From this report, it is clear that the Barrington School District is one of the most self-sufficient districts in the state of Rhode Island. The majority of the funding in the area is self-produced with very little assistance from the state. This is a very affluent community that is greatly involved in the education of their children, and this is reflected in the level of student performance and achievement.