Our Impact

100% Graduation, Year After Year

Since 2005, every single Carver senior has graduated high school on time. Nearly all continue directly to college, with most being the first in their families to do so.

College and Beyond

Carver students don’t just graduate—they persist. Carver students are defying these national odds. 88% of Carver scholarship recipients complete degrees or certificates. 66% of all Carver High School graduates earn a college degree within six years—well above national averages. In 2025, 32 graduating seniors earned admission to selective colleges, including Howard, Wellesley, Penn State, UConn, and the Savannah College of Art and Design. $157,500 in scholarships was awarded in 2025.

Building Strong Foundations

Carver’s impact begins long before high school. Our after-school programs for grades K–8 consistently achieve 85%+ average daily attendance—a clear sign of student and family engagement. 1 in 5 Norwalk Public School students is a Carver student. Carver’s Grade 5 students represent 53% of all Grade 5 students in the district.

Broad and Deep Reach

In fiscal year 2024–2025, Carver served 3,364 students across every Norwalk Public School, Side by Side Charter School, Bridgeport, Stamford High School, Naugatuck High School, and the Carver Community Center. Our 65+ before- and after-school and summer programs span academic support, enrichment, wellness, and college/career readiness.

Certified teachers lead programs and use evidence-based curricula aligned to school-day instruction. Students also received free transportation, healthy meals, SEL and wellness services, and extended-day support. All programming was grounded in culturally responsive practices and enriched through close family and community engagement.

Workforce Readiness

Carver continues to grow its innovative Earn & Learn paid internships. In FY 2024–2025, more than 180 high school students earned wages while supporting Carver’s younger students in classrooms and community programs. Each intern completed 180 hours of work at $17 per hour while benefiting from mentorship, career exploration, and structured reflection.

Carver’s Future Readiness Coordinators, embedded in both Norwalk high schools, connected hundreds of students to internships, career pathways, and college readiness supports. These positions are among the most effective bridges from high school to higher education or workforce opportunities in our region.

Measuring Individual Student Performance & Growth

Carver measures progress across reading, math, science, critical thinking, and creative expression in a close partnership with our partnering schools and school districts. Our interactive dashboards provide detailed insights into DIBELS, NWEA MAP, and SAT outcomes data. Carver students are improving on the DIBELS literacy assessment and MAP Math and Reading. Carver is advancing student excellence and closing opportunity gaps while continuing to address pandemic-related learning loss.

DISTRICTWIDE IMPACT

Carver’s student performance data, surveys, parent meetings, years of after-school and summer programming, and research from multiple fields and sources demonstrate that Carver students and the school district improve with Carver.

The recent release of the Connecticut State Department of Education’s 2025 assessment results and chronic absenteeism data underscores the measurable impact of Carver’s districtwide partnership model. Carver’s summer, before-, and after-school programs—delivered in every Norwalk public school—are an integral factor in the district’s success.

  • Academic Growth: For the first time, Norwalk Public Schools’ growth in English language arts and mathematics exceeded the state among all students. Importantly, Norwalk’s high-needs students—who represent the majority of those served by Carver—have surpassed their statewide peers in growth for three consecutive years.

  • Achievement & Proficiency: Norwalk ranked first among Connecticut’s large cities in the Performance Index for English language arts, math, and science, as well as in proficiency for all three subjects. These outcomes align directly with Carver’s academic enrichment and tutoring initiatives.

  • Attendance: Carver’s consistent engagement with students and families is reflected in Norwalk’s declining chronic absenteeism, now at 17.9% overall and 22.2% for high-needs students—both significant year-over-year improvements.

  • Graduation Success: Carver’s long-term pipeline of support contributes to Norwalk’s 92.6% graduation rate, outpacing the state by nearly 4 points. Multilingual learners—one of Carver’s most heavily served groups—saw graduation rates rise sharply from 70.9% to 79.3% in just one year.

These results are not isolated—they are evidence that when students have access to consistent, high-quality, out-of-school-time learning experiences, they achieve at higher levels, attend school more regularly, and graduate prepared for college and careers.