Stonington School District

The Stonington School District, located in southeastern Connecticut, serves 1,680 students across four schools spanning grades PK–12 and ranks 47th out of 153 Connecticut districts with an overall 4-star rating. The district includes two elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school, with weighted spending per student around $18,950 and a student-to-teacher ratio of about 10.2:1.

Stonington High School is the district's top performer, ranking 12th out of 133 Connecticut high schools with a 95.3% graduation rate and proficiency far above state averages in ELA (77% vs. 55.3%), math (57.4% vs. 31.3%), and science (79.5% vs. 50.5%). At the elementary level, Deans Mill School stands out with a 97th-place ranking out of 491 elementary schools, the highest ELA (72.3%) and math (74.8%) proficiency in the district, and the lowest chronic absenteeism at just 4.8%. Stonington Middle School is solid, ranking 50th out of 258 middle schools, with 7th-grade proficiency at 73% in both ELA and math. West Vine Street School is the district's relative underperformer at 206th out of 491 elementary schools, despite having the highest free/reduced-lunch rate (40.35%).

The biggest red flag is chronic absenteeism at Stonington High School at 20.8%, well above the district's 13.4%. Meanwhile, West Vine Street School maintains strong attendance (7.3%) despite higher poverty. Deans Mill School outpaces West Vine by 16.3 points in ELA and 12.7 points in math, yet their science proficiency is nearly identical (64.0% vs. 63.9%). Notably, Stonington Middle School has the lowest student-to-teacher ratio (8.2) but not the highest test scores, showing that staffing alone doesn't drive performance.