User's Guide: Reading the Reports

School Report – Page 1
Field 3: Demographic profile

WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT

You are looking at a demographic description of who is in the school. The pie charts show the percentages of the total school population who are identified with the characteristics that are described in detail below.

WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR

You are looking to get a sense of the school’s composition and diversity.

Eligibility for subsidized lunch

Eligible for free or reduced (price) lunch: students whose family incomes fall
below certain income (poverty or near-poverty) guidelines. This measure
indicates the percent of students who were eligible for free or reduced-price
lunches in October 2001.

Not Eligible: Students whose family income falls outside the low-income
guidelines as of October 2001.

Ethnic background

Asian/Pacific Islander: A student having origins in any of the original peoples of
the Far East, Southeast Asia or the Pacific Islands, e.g., China, Japan, Korea,
the Philippine Islands and Samoa.

Black: A student having origins in any of the African-American racial groups, not
including people of Hispanic origins.

Hispanic: A student of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American
or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.

Native American: A student having origins in any of the original peoples of North
America, including American Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts.

White: A student having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, North
Africa, the Middle East or the Indian subcontinent.

Receiving ESL or bilingual education

Bilingual: A student who receives instruction in English and another
language to support content-area learning while learning English as a second
language.

English as a Second Language: A student who receives content area
instruction solely in English while learning English as a second language.

In both programs: A student who receives instruction for a part of the day
in both a bilingual and an ESL program.

Receiving special education services

Part-time regular/resource program: A student whose Individual Educational
Program (IEP) services are provided in alternate or regular education settings for
less than 50% of the school day or week.

Self-contained program: A student whose Individual Educational Program (IEP)
services are provided outside of the regular education classroom for more than
50% of the school day or week.

Parents’ education

While the data for the other pie charts are collected by the school and apply to the school as a whole, individual test-takers report the highest level of their parents’ education directly on the test materials. Thus, the pie chart for parents’ education applies only to the children in the one grade who took the test. However, for elementary schools we use the parents’ education level as reported by students on the highest grade tested within that school because the information is more reliable than the data from lower grades.

 

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For further information call the Rhode Island Department of Education at 401-222-4600 x2231. Information Works! is produced in collaboration with the National Center on Public Education.