Maine School Admin District 46

Maine School Admin District 46 is home to two schools: Ridge View Community School, an elementary school serving grades PK-8, and Dexter Regional High School, the district's only high school for grades 9-12. While the high school has shown steady improvement in its performance, ranking 41st out of 123 Maine high schools, the elementary school has consistently struggled, ranking in the bottom half of the state's elementary schools with a 0-1 star rating.

Ridge View Community School serves a predominantly white (95.8%) and economically disadvantaged student population, with 61.3% of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The school's low performance may be linked to its high chronic absenteeism rate of 6.3%. In contrast, Dexter Regional High School boasts an impressive 0.0% chronic absenteeism rate and an 82.8% four-year graduation rate, indicating strong student engagement and academic success. The high school's student-teacher ratio of 12 is higher than the elementary school's ratio of 9.9, suggesting smaller class sizes at the lower grade levels.

Overall, the data highlights the need for Maine School Admin District 46 to address the performance gap between its elementary and high school, and to develop targeted strategies to support the academic and social-emotional needs of all students, regardless of their socioeconomic or racial background. The district's predominantly white student population and the high rates of free and reduced lunch recipients at the elementary school suggest that equity and access to quality education should be key priorities for the district moving forward.