Cumberland+District

District Description: Cumberland Alexa Levesque

The school district of Cumberland is made up of 6 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, and one high school[1]. In Rhode Island, NECAP scores are used as the marker of achievement for public school students. In the early years of education, grades 3-8, the NECAP scores of the children in the Cumberland School district are all above average for the state of Rhode Island.Once high school hits however, there is a huge dive in the proficiency of the students in Cumberland. This happens once Math and Science concepts begin to become much more difficult to grasp. This could be attributed to in a way "weeding out" the students who do not have a high level of math or science ability. Most likely, however, this has more to do with a lack of instruction in these areas, either in lower school, or in high school.[2]

The statistics about teacher preparedness, seem to be relatively on-point with the rest of the state, both having only 1% of teachers with emergency certification. Cumberland also only has 3% of teachers who are not "highly qualified" compared to the state percentage of 4%. This can be cited as an example of the effect that good teachers do have on student success. Since these statistics are all equal or better than the rest of the state, this can attest to the fact that the test scores for Cumberland are, for the most part, average, or above average, for the State of Rhode Island. This also shows that even though the majority of these teachers are "highly qualified", there will still always be students who will not reach proficiency on these tests for whatever reason.[3]

Safety information indicates that the District of Cumberland is only slightly below or slightly better off than the state average. For example, the attendance rates are all at least 2% higher in Cumberland than in the rest of the state's average. The graduation rate is only a bit higher than the state's average, 79.5% and 77.2%, respectively, however, the 5 year graduation rate is higher than the state's average, meaning that even if the students have not graduated in the "normal" four year time span, within one extra year, more have received their diploma in Cumberland than the average across the state. There is a relatively moderate to low incidence of suspension compared to the state, especially at the middle school level.[4] The financial state of Cumberland as a whole is about average in comparison with the state, falling somewhere in the middle of the various towns. In Cumberland, the finances seem to be somewhere between those of Central Falls, the lowest, and East Greenwich, the highest. The median family income in this area seems to be of one, middle class, income, or two lower-income jobs. This varies from the median income of a place like Central Falls which appears to be made up of one minimum wage job at most. This means that the families, for the most part, are moderately comfortable in their living situation. Unlike in East Greenwich however, the average family probably does not have a huge amount of extra money for luxurious lifestyles, and it is likely that the families still work many hours, possibly at these low-earning jobs, leaving some strain on family life or finances.Also, unlike either of these areas whose per pupil expenditures are both above $14,000, Cumberland only spends $11,090 on each student. There could be a number of reasons for this such as a low amount of special educational services or older textbooks. Still, it would seem that a town that has an overall average financial state would spend at least the state average of each student.[5]

There is a relatively low concentration of children who receive subsidized lunches as compared to the state's 44% rate. However there is still a 22% rate of children which is still high considering that the median income for the entire town is above average. This leads me to believe that although there are people who are financially stable, there must be other areas within the state where there is a large concentration of poverty, bringing the overall percentage of the district who need lunches provided for them at school.[6]  Overall, Cumberland, statistically,seems to be average as far as Rhode Island schools go. There are some statistics however that would lead one to believe that there must be some concentrated areas where there is a break in the "norm". The percent of subsidized lunches for example is much higher than would be anticipated based on the average income of families. The NECAP scores are also at or above average, for the most part, in Cumberland. Because of these scores, it can be seen that regardless of income, most of the children are proficient at least to the rate of the rest of the state.

> Cumberland School Department. “District Schools | Cumberland School Department.” Web. 8 Nov. 2012. > Rhode Island Department of Education. “InfoWorks! Rhode Island Education Data Reporting - RIDE.ri.gov.” //Inforworks//. 10/26. Web. 26 Oct. 2012. > Rhode Island Department of Education. “InfoWorks! Rhode Island Education Data Reporting - RIDE.ri.gov.” //Inforworks//. 10/26. Web. 26 Oct. 2012. > Rhode Island Department of Education. “InfoWorks! Rhode Island Education Data Reporting - RIDE.ri.gov.” //Inforworks//. 10/26. Web. 26 Oct. 2012. > Rhode Island Department of Education. “InfoWorks! Rhode Island Education Data Reporting - RIDE.ri.gov.” //Inforworks//. 10/26. Web. 26 Oct. 2012. > Rhode Island Department of Education. “InfoWorks! Rhode Island Education Data Reporting - RIDE.ri.gov.” //Inforworks//. 10/26. Web. 26 Oct. 2012.
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