BELL TOP SCHOOL

Set in TROY, New York, BELL TOP SCHOOL is a modestly sized elementary campus, run under EAST GREENBUSH CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT. It enrolls 304 students across grades K through 5. By comparison, New York's public schools average about 443 students each, so BELL TOP SCHOOL sits 31% below that benchmark.

Across the 7 schools in EAST GREENBUSH CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT (4,085 students total), BELL TOP SCHOOL accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

In terms of who attends, BELL TOP SCHOOL shows that the largest single group is White, at 78% of enrollment. Beyond that, the school shows 7% Asian, 7% multiracial, 6% Hispanic, 2% Black. Compared to Rensselaer County overall, the school's racial mix sits in roughly the same range.

In terms of school funding signals, Staff filings list 28 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 10.8:1 students per teacher. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 12.8:1 average. Roughly 18% of students at BELL TOP SCHOOL qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. Set against Rensselaer County (around 46%), the school's rate is somewhat below typical.

After controlling for student poverty, BELL TOP SCHOOL performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 68.2%, the actual is 74.1%, a residual of +5.9 points.

Around the school, Rensselaer County reports that the typical household earns roughly $87,915 per year, about 38% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 8%. In all, Rensselaer County runs 42 public schools (combined enrollment of about 19,274 students), of which BELL TOP SCHOOL is one.

Nearest neighbor: NORTH GREENBUSH SCHOOL, around 1.8 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, BELL TOP SCHOOL comes 2nd of 8 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 49.9%.

Geographically, the school is in a commuter-belt area.

Over the past 7-year window. BELL TOP SCHOOL's enrollment has held roughly steady since 2018, when it stood at 304 (now 304). Over the same period, the White share increased from 74% to 78%. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 13.8:1 in 2018 to 10.8:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, members of the BELL TOP SCHOOL community share and discuss science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.