Top 23 Schools Districts In Rhode Island For 2020: New Rankings

Barrington has the top-ranked school district in Rhode Island, according to new rankings released Monday by Niche.The education ranking and review site ordered nearly two dozens school districts in its 2020 rankings, and we compiled the top 23 below:

1. Barrington Public Schools
2. East Greenwich Public Schools
3. Narragansett School System
4. North Kingstown School District
5. Portsmouth School District
6. Exeter-West Greenwich Regional School District
7. New Shoreham School District
8. Lincoln Public Schools
9. South Kingstown School District
10. Chariho Regional School District
11. Cumberland School Department
12. North Smithfield School Department
13. Smithfield Public Schools
14. Foster-Gloucester Regional School District
15. Bristol Warren Regional School District
16. Middletown Public Schools
17. Beacon Charter School
18. R.I. School for the Deaf
19. Cranston Public Schools
20. West Warwick Public Schools
21. North Providence School Department
22. Scituate School Department
23. Coventry Public Schools

>>>Don't see your school district? Check out the full list here.

Niche looked at more than 94,000 public schools, 4,100 private schools and nearly 11,000 school districts across the country. The rankings are meant to help parents and students find schools that best fit their needs.

“Unlike traditional school rankings, which rely almost exclusively on test scores and academic performance, Niche’s rankings provide a real-life view of what it’s like to attend a given school,” the company said in a news release.

Comments from current students, alumni, and parents are included in the analysis, as well as observations about things like campus life, extracurricular activities, sports options, diversity, and programs for gifted and special needs students.

“Parents and students need more than test-score data,” Luke Skurman, CEO at Niche, said in the news release. “They need to understand what it’s really like to attend a school before they start the application or registration process.”

For the first time, Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, were ranked the top private and public high schools, respectively, in the nation.

2020 top public high schools:

1. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology
2. Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
3. Walter Payton College Prep
4. Stuyvesant High School
5. Bergen County Academies

2020 top private high schools

1. Phillips Exeter Academy
2. St. Mark’s School of Texas
3. Phillips Academy
4. The College Preparatory School
5. Trinity School

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.