Coventry schools show mixed results in state accountability ratings; math and students with disabilities flagged for improvement
Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts
Subscribe
Summary
District presenter Amy told the committee Coventry’s overall ratings vary by school: several schools earned high ‘school quality’ scores, but Coventry High School’s math achievement and outcomes for students with disabilities lag, prompting targeted interventions and forthcoming curricular work.
Coventry — The Coventry School Committee on Dec. 11 received a year-end accountability briefing showing a mix of strengths and weaknesses across the district’s schools.
Amy, the district accountability presenter, told the committee the state’s system groups measures into three buckets — academic performance, student success, and college-and-career readiness — and combines two years of test data to produce star ratings. "Every year, our students participate in standardized testing," she said, and the state report card (reportcard.ride.ri.gov) aggregates proficiency, growth, absenteeism, suspension rates and diploma-plus measures into an overall rating that equals the lowest-scoring domain.
The high school earned a five-star overall rating, driven largely by high school-quality and student-success metrics such as teacher attendance. But Amy cautioned that the school’s math achievement was weak: "math achievement scores are an area that…received 1 point out of 4," she said, and students with disabilities at Coventry High were rated low across achievement, growth and graduation—leading the district to designate that subgroup as a targeted school for improvement. Amy said she has met with Brooke Macomber and the math department head to develop strategies to address the gap.
Other schools showed varied performance. The middle school and Black Rock School scored strongly on school quality and student success, with notably low suspension rates (middle school 3.3%) and high teacher attendance. Hopkins Hill registered solid school-quality metrics but weak year-over-year growth (1 of 3 points in both ELA and math), a sign cohorts are not making expected gains. Washington Oak narrowly missed a 5-star overall rating due to a one-point index difference; the presenter said the school’s index was 66 compared with a 68 threshold.
The presentation also called out districtwide disparities: economically disadvantaged students and some special-education subgroups trailed peers in achievement and growth. Amy encouraged committee members to review the RIDE report card for detailed data and offered to meet individually with members to discuss school-specific interventions.
The committee did not take action on the accountability measures during the meeting. Members asked whether Rhode Island was reconsidering high-stakes testing following news from Massachusetts; presenters said Rhode Island had not signaled changes and emphasized the state’s multi-measure approach and local assessments such as i-Ready.
The committee’s next steps include follow-up work with curriculum leaders and the math department to craft interventions for math performance and supports for students with disabilities.