Education in Norwalk, Connecticut

There are an assortment of public, private, and parochial schools in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Post-secondary education

There are four post-secondary schools within the city of Norwalk:

There are also other post-secondary schools in nearby towns.

The Norwalk Hospital runs an internship program associated with the Yale School of Medicine and a nursing program associated with Norwalk Community College.[3]

Norwalk Public Schools

Norwalk Public Schools
Location
Southwestern Connecticut
Fairfield County
United States
District information
Type School district
Grades K-12
Established 1678 (1678)[4]
Superintendent Dr. Steven Adamowski
Budget $133 million (2005-06)
Students and staff
Students 11,000
Athletic conference FCIAC
Other information
Website www.norwalkps.org

Norwalk was granted a town charter by the Connecticut General Court in 1651. On May 29, 1678, town records mention the establishment of community-supported teaching activities with a passage that reads:

"At a town meeting... voted and agreed to hier a scole master to teach all the children in ye town to lerne to Rede and write; and that Mr. Cornish shall be hierd for that service and the townsmen are to hier him upon as reasonable terms as they can."

The school that was established in the 1670s was located near the Ludlow Square area of East Norwalk (near the former Roger Ludlow Junior High School).[4]

Recent Norwalk public school graduates have gone on to attend universities such as Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Harvard, MIT, New York University, and Wesleyan. The current superintendent of Norwalk Public Schools is Susan F. Marks, Ph.D.

In the 2005-06 fiscal year, the school system spent $26.7 million on special education services, nearly 20 percent of the total school budget.[5]

The State Education Department announced on January 28, 2008 that Norwalk was one of twelve districts in the state that it would help to close student achievement gaps.[6]

Low test scores of Norwalk Public Schools

Ponus Ridge Middle School is well known around the city of Norwalk, Connecticut for having some of the lowest test scores in the city. The CMT scores in 2006 through 2009 were on average 20% below state averages. For reading, the scores were about 20% below state average. For writing, the scores were about 25% below average. For math, the test scores were about 20% below average.[7]

West Rocks Middle School is not as well known for having low test scores, but it fits the pattern most other Norwalk Public Schools. CMT scores for reading, writing, and math have steadily increased in grades 7 and 8 since 2006. The average CMT grade for a 7th or 8th grader in 2006 was a 68%. With the slight passage of time, by 2009 CMT scores for 7th and 8th graders in the fields of reading and writing have increased to an average of 70%, and the math scores have increased to an average of 80%. The state average for 7th grade reading was 84%, the average writing grade was 81%, and the average math grade was 86%. The state average for 8th grade reading was 80%, the average writing score was 84%, and the average math score was 85%. The test scores for 7th and 8th grade are generally 10 points lower than state averages. The CMT scores for 6th graders have rapidly dropped from 2006 to 2009. West Rocks' 6th grade student CMT averages in 2006 were 69% for reading, 83% for writing, and 77% for math. By 2008, the scores were 60% for reading, 62% for writing, and 67% for math. The state averages for reading, writing, and math were 80%, 83%, and 87%, respectively.[8]

High schools

There are three high schools in the Norwalk public school district, for grades 9-12:

In 2006 the state of Connecticut reported that Norwalk's 653 graduates represented a 95.7% graduation rate.[9]

Middle schools

There are four middle schools in the Norwalk public school district, for grades 6-8:

Ponus Ridge Middle School

In the 2005-06 school year 42.3 percent of the school's 640 students qualified for free or reduced-price lunches. A total of 40.3 percent of students come from homes where the primary language is not English. The primary language for many students is Spanish, but students also come from homes where Chinese or Haitian Creole are spoken. The school building was constructed in the late 1950s. On May 14, 2007, several state legislators toured the school in an attempt by Fairfield County lawmakers to educate them about the need for more state education funding in the richest county in the state.[5]

Roton Middle School

In the 2002-03 school year 27.5 percent of the school's 517 students qualified for free or reduced-price lunches. A total of 34.2 percent of students come from homes where the primary language is not English. The school building was constructed in 1966.[10]

Elementary schools

There are twelve elementary schools in the Norwalk public school district, for grades K-5:

Radon levels in 2007-2008

State-mandated radon tests in early 2007 found rooms in five elementary schools with levels above the "federal action limit" of 4 picocuries per liter for the colorless, odorless gas. (The gas naturally occurs in Fairfield County and comes up from the ground from the decay of radium. It is the second leading cause of lung cancer, after smoking.) The 700 tests, conducted every five years by state law, found actionable levels of radon in Rowayton, Naramake, Cranbury and Wolfpit elementary schools as well as Richard C. Briggs High School. Mitigation work, including air-suction devices, was done on just over a dozen rooms at the various schools, then a follow-up test was done which found one Wolfpit classroom located farthest away from the air-suction devices still had 5.1 picocuries per liter, so an additional device was installed in early March 2008.[11]

No Child Left Behind Act in Norwalk

In 2006, all high schools, three of the city's middle schools and nine of its elementary schools, along with a "community school" were cited as falling behind in standards for the federal "No Child Left Behind" Act. Three elementary schools had not met the standards (which rise year by year) for two years in a row, so students in those schools are offered the choice to go to a Norwalk public school that hasn't been designated as needing improvement. "Whole school" problems are school-wide, "subgroup" problems reflect groups such as white, black, Hispanic, Asian and American-Indian children; English language learners; students with disabilities; and economically disadvantaged students.[12]

District Reference Group H

Norwalk is one of eight public school systems in District Reference Group H, a classification made by the state Department of Education for the purpose of comparison with the achievement levels of similar schools and districts. District reference groups are defined as "districts whose students' families are similar in education, income, occupation and need, and that have roughly similar enrollment."[13] The other seven school districts in the group are Ansonia, Danbury, Derby, East Hartford, Meriden, Norwich, Stamford, and West Haven.[14]

Charter school

The Side by Side Community School is a charter school that is located in South Norwalk and serves grades pre-K through 8th. It was started in 1997, soon after Connecticut's charter school law went into effect, by a group of public educators. This regional school serves students from Norwalk as well as from surrounding towns.[15]

Parochial

The All Saints Catholic School, serves grades pre-K through 8th. It is operated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport which consolidated three previous Norwalk elementary schools (St. Thomas, St. Philips, and St. Mary's) and closed the former Central Catholic High School to open the All Saints in the former Central Catholic High building on West Rocks Road.

The Congregation Beth El on East Avenue runs the Nitzan preschool as well as the Navasky Hebrew school for part-time religious instruction of children who are enrolled full-time in other elementary schools.

In 2008 the Connecticut Friends School purchased the White Barn Theatre in the Cranbury neighborhood in northeast Norwalk. The Quaker school plans to build a new solar-powered 24,000 square feet (2,200 m2) campus on the property with occupancy expected by the fall of 2009 for grades K-8.[16]

Private

Since September 2004 the Montessori Middle School for grades 5-8 has been in Norwalk and is currently at 24 Lois Street (off of Westport Avenue). It is associated with The Montessori School for elementary grades in nearby Wilton.[17]

Since September 2007 the Winston Preparatory School of New York City has operated a branch campus along West Rocks Road in Norwalk. The school specializes in students with learning differences in grades 6 through 12.

See also

Notes

Former Franklin Street School, about 1907
  1. ↑ "Gibbs College to close Northeast campuses". Retrieved 2008-05-06.
  2. ↑ "University of Phoenix - Campus Locations". Retrieved 2009-05-06.
  3. ↑ Norwalk Hospital. "Hospital History". Retrieved 2008-05-22.
  4. 1 2 Beard, Patten (September 1954). "Norwalk's Old Schoolhouse". Connecticut Circle Magazine.
  5. 1 2 Chamoff, Lisa, "Legislators tour Norwalk school: City would like larger slice of state funds", news article in The Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut, May 15, 2007, pp 1, A4
  6. ↑ "State Education Department Working with 12 Districts to Close Achievement Gap" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-05-16.
  7. ↑ http://www.greatschools.org/modperl/achievement/ct/678
  8. ↑ http://www.greatschools.org/modperl/achievement/ct/683
  9. ↑ Connecticut State Department of Education. "Connecticut Public School Graduates". Retrieved 2008-05-16.
  10. ↑ Connecticut State Department of Education. "Roton Middle School Norwalk School District STRATEGIC SCHOOL PROFILE 2002-03" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-05-16.
  11. ↑ Chamoff, Lisa, "Radon levels reduced at 5 schools: But Wolfpit Elementary faces more tests", The Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut, Norwalk edition, p A11, A13, March 18, 2007
  12. ↑ "3 schools must offer parents a choice," article by Matt Breslow in The Advocate of Stamford, Norwalk Edition, August 24, 2006, accessed same day
  13. ↑ Connecticut State Department of Education. "STRATEGIC SCHOOL PROFILE 2006-07 Norwalk School District" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-05-16.
  14. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-02-24. Retrieved 2007-03-06. Web page titled "Find a Community: By Educational Reference Group (DRG)" at the "Discovery 2007 / An initiative of the William Caspar Graustein Fund" Web site, accessed March 25, 2007
  15. ↑ "Side by Side Community School - School History". Archived from the original on 2008-10-22. Retrieved 2008-05-16.
  16. ↑ "Connecticut Friends School; White Barn Campus Project". Archived from the original on October 11, 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
  17. ↑ "About Us, The Montessori School, Wilton, CT 06897". Retrieved 2008-05-20.
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