Politics & Government

Two Simsbury Schools Honored as State 'Schools of Distinction'

Henry James Memorial School and Tariffville School are among the

The governor recently released this year’s list of “Schools of Distinction,” recognizing schools that fall into one of three categories. Simsbury has two schools that rank among the state's top 10 percent of schools.

The first category ranks schools that have enabled students in traditionally underperforming subgroups to achieve at high levels. The subgroups include: students with disabilities, English language learners, Black students, Hispanic students and students eligible for free or reduced lunch. Achievement was measured by students’ scores on the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT).

The second category ranks improvement among schools – both those with a school performance index greater than 88 and those with a lower index.

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While all of Simsbury's schools rank above the state’s target 88 point mark, none were found to have made significant improvement. The category honors schools that are among the top 10 percent of schools making gains in their groups and have achievement gaps of less than 10 SPI points for the majority subgroups.

The last category ranks highest overall performance by the state’s schools – those that have performance indices greater than 88 points and perform in the top 10 percent of Connecticut schools. In this category, Henry James Memorial School and Tariffville Elementary School are recognized.

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In announcing the awards, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy had this to say about the schools that earned the distinction.

"I applaud the schools that are here today — their commitment to education is tremendous and they are part of the larger conversation about replicating what works in education.”

For a complete listing of this year’s “Schools of Distinction,” please visit: http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/nclb/waiver/distinction_schools.pdf


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