Claremont Academy
Claremont Academy is a small high school in the Worcester Public Schools district. It hosts 478 students grades 7 through 12 and is directly connected to Woodland Academy, an elementary school where most students attending Claremont began their public education. Figure 1 is a graphical breakdown of student demographics at Claremont Academy.
Most students are Hispanic, accounting for over 75% of the student population. This is comparatively higher than the same statistic for the entire district where Hispanic students represent 46% of enrolled students. Claremont Academy also has significant portions of its student body that are categorized by the state of Massachusetts into a selected population as seen in Figure 2.
These percentages follow similar trends in the district and indicate a bilingual or non-English speaking population. Across the board, MCAS scores for Claremont Academy fall in the lower range of “Partially Meeting Expectations,” one of the four scoring categories for the MCAS. These averages are less than those of both the overall district and state as of 2023.
Looking into the ACCESS exam results shown in Figure 3, we can see that most ELL students are in the 1 – 3 range in all categories. One noteworthy exception to the trend of the data in is the high amount of Oral proficiency level 1 students, in comparison to the other domains.
Claremont Academy has 60 full-time teachers whose demographics are different from those of the students as seen in Figure 4. Most teachers are white and identify as female, which is consistent with the trends of both the overall district and state. Going into the 2023 school year, Claremont Academy experienced a 29.2% turnover rate for their teachers which is higher than both the district and state statistics from the same year.
Across all subjects, Claremont Academy offers its students both dual-enrollment courses (through a partnership with Quinsigamond Community College) and Advanced Placement (AP) courses through the College Board. Seven AP courses are offered: English Lang / Comp, Spanish Lang, US Govt & Pol, US History, Human Geography, Statistics, and Biology. Most test takers receive scores 1 – 2 with the notable exception of the AP Spanish Lang exam which saw 100% of test takers receive scores 3 – 5 in the 2022 school year.
Finally, upon graduating, students at Claremont Academy tend to pursue either work or college. As seen in the data in Figure 5, of the students who choose to attend college, over twice as many have chosen a 4-year college over a 2-year college. The next largest subset, work, is not defined in any more descriptive manner.
Claremont Academy is the second-smallest high school in the Worcester Public Schools district but is home to a wealth of diverse students whose education is the clear priority of the teachers and administrators in the building. From my observations, the school is uniquely community based and close, a quality that is beneficial to an overall sense of belonging. I am writing this at the beginning of my student teaching journey, but I’m excited to continue learning more about the quirks and cultures of its learning environment.
References
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (2023). School and district profiles: Claremont Academy. https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/general/general.aspx?topNavID=1&leftNavId=100&orgcode=03480350&orgtypecode=6