Fitch Senior High School 4.9

Robert E. Fitch Senior High School is a public high school located in Groton, Connecticut. It is the only high school for its district, and serves students from the district's two middle schools, Carl C. Cutler Middle School in Mystic and West Side Middle School in Eastern Point, City Of Groton.It serves the geographical region between the Mystic River in the east, and Thames River in the west, and has a northern boundary of the Ledyard town line. Major communities it serves include the City of Groton, the Town of Groton (including Naval Submarine Base New London Naval Housing), Groton Long Point, Noank, and parts of Mystic west of the Mystic River and south of Ledyard town line.The school has offered the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program since the 2004–2005 school year. By the 2006–2007 school year, 75 percent of students eligible for the diploma received it. The school also offers numerous Advanced Placement courses. The class of 2007 received $2 million in scholarships.In the 2006–2007 school year, 17.1 percent of the students were eligible for free or reduced-priced school lunches, up from 14.1 percent in 2002–2003. Statewide the average percentage is 22.9. The student body is 72.3 percent White, 12.5 percent Black, 7.4 percent Hispanic, 6.7 percent Asian-American, and 1.2 percent American Indian. A total of 4 percent of students speak languages other than English at home. Groton is the home of a U.S. Navy submarine base, and a relatively large number of students move in and out of the school district each year due to military transfers.HistoryThe original Fitch High School was built in 1928 next to the Town Hall on Poquonock Road, and was funded in part by the will of a local merchant, Charles Fitch, with the stipulation that it be named after his son, Robert E. Fitch. In the early 1950s, the district enrollment was larger than the school could handle. The school district decided to split to a junior high and senior high system. In 1954, the school district built a new school, the current Robert E. Fitch Senior High School, in its current location at the top of Fort Hill Road, and renamed the existing school Robert E. Fitch Junior High School.