Case Study Demographics
The nature of the study is to gather insight from a school that has a reputation of
preparing students for the 21 st century, and is full of high expectations that also promote
teacher innovation and student achievement. The district that the researcher used is a
suburban school district located in Southwestern Pennsylvania. The district is comprised
of six municipalities that cover a 36 square mile radius. With approximately 35,000
residents, there are over 1500 students enrolled in grades 9-12 at the high school grades.
The students represent a wide array of economic, cultural and religious backgrounds.
From 2003-2011, the high school exceeded the state average in both math and reading
literacy on the state assessment, Pennsylvania System School Assessment (PSSA). In
2009, the high school students have scored proficient on the PSSA with 82% of tested
students scoring proficient or advanced in Math; 85% in Reading and 93% in writing. In
2010, 86% of the students scored in the proficient category, while 55% of the tested
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population scored in the advanced proficient category in all categories of reading, math,
writing and science. Over 92 percent of the 2008 graduating class reported continuing
their education in some post-secondary schooling. The high school students also continue
to outscore the state’s students in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), by one hundred
points in the three areas of critical reading, mathematics and writing. The 2008 state
average for critical reading is 494; 501 in mathematics and 483 in writing. The high
school students scored 561 in critical reading; 581 in mathematics and 560 in writing.
Like many school districts, this particular high school, believes in providing