10 Year Demographic Trend Report
The DEI guiding principles, goals and action steps for this year are informed in part by demographic trends from the past decade. The charts and tables that follow show the student demographic changes in Amity Region 5 school district over the last ten years. The data comes from the Connecticut Department of Education’s Ed Sight.
These demographic changes inform the Amity school community’s planning and actions in areas of inclusion, equity, and belonging. This report covers demographics on race, free and reduced lunch eligibility, students with disabilities, and high needs students. All charts have corresponding tables in Appendix A. The charts show the years along the X axis and the district-wide count of students on the Y axis. The percentage labels indicate the percent of the student population in that category for that year.
FREE AND REDUCED LUNCH ELIGIBLE
Chart 1.1 shows the shift in our free and reduced lunch eligible students. Free and reduced lunch numbers are often used as a proxy for socio-economic status of a group. Since the 2013-2014 academic school year we have gone from 5% to 14% of our student body being eligible for free or reduced lunches. We have seen a 63% increase in the number of students eligible over the last ten years. Most of this increase has occurred in the last 5 years. These counts represent those students eligible under the guidelines and are not affected by special eligibility provisions that were in place during the COVID pandemic.
Chart 1.1
RACIAL DEMOGRAPHICS
In Chart 1.2 you can see a shift in the racial makeup of the district over the last ten years. Again, the Y axis shows the student count and each racial identity block within the column is labeled with the percent of the student body for that specific year. Hispanic and Asian identifying-students had the largest percentage increases. The Hispanic population as grown from 4% to 9% of the student body (an increase of 91%). The Asian population has gone from 11 to 15% of the student body (an increase of 17%). The white population has declined from 80% of the total student count to 69% (a decrease of 25%). Students who identify with two or more races has gone from 1% to 4%. The Black or African American population has remained somewhat steady at 3% or 4% over the last ten years.
Chart 1.2
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
Chart 1.3 shows students with disabilities enrolled at all Amity’s campuses. This student count does not include students with disabilities that the district is fiscally responsible for, for example, out-placed students. While the overall number of students with disabilities went up slightly over the last decade, the total percentage has remained steady at 12% to 13%.
Chart 1.3
HIGH NEEDS STUDENTS
Chart 1. 4 displays high needs students at all of Amity’s campuses. High needs is a category that includes students with disabilities, free and reduced lunch eligibility, and English language learners. The total number of high needs students in the district grew from 351 to 504 (an increase of 43%). As a percentage of the total population, Amity’s high needs students grew from 15% to 25%.
Chart 1.4
