Name: Karisa Wilson
Section: 002
School Attended: Willard Elementary

School Background & Contextual Factors (min. of 1 page)

Willard Elementary is a school that would be described as a neighborhood school. There is not a busing system for the students, most walk to school or are dropped off by parents. The school provides educational services to a total of two hundred and seventy-one students. This school is located in what I would consider an urban community and serves a large majority of students from poverty. There are ten classrooms at Willard Elementary with an average of twenty-two students per class. Willard Elementary actually has ten percent of its students labeled as chronically truant.
The ISAT scores at Willard are below the state …show more content…
Not one race or ethnicity has over a fifty percent standing in this school. White students make up forty-four percent and Hispanic students make up forty percent. The black students make up ten percent and students of mixed races make up about five percent of the student body. These percentages are very different than what the demographics of the teachers at this school are. When looking at the teachers ninety-four percent of them are white. Only about five percent are Hispanic, the other races do not even make up one percent of the population. Throughout the diversity in this school approximately thirteen percent of the students are English-language learners. The teaching staff also has little diversity in regards to gender. The female population makes up seventy-nine percent of the staff and males only make up twenty-one percent. The principal actually told us that there was only one male teacher in Willard Elementary. In this school there is a large majority of students that receive free or reduced lunches, approximately seventy-three percent of the student body come from low-income families. There are also two percent of students at this school who are actually …show more content…
This percentage ore so affects the ability of the students to concentrate on the learning at hand. It is quite possible that some of these students only get fed at the school during the day. It is very hard to concentrate on the board or what the teacher is talking about when they are hungry. The percentage of low-income students is reflected in the test scores they produce. Not because kids that live in poverty are unable to learn but because kids in poverty have other things running around in their minds other than the math problem up on the board in front of the classroom. We also talked in class about the issue of the culture of poverty. I did not see this reflected during my visit, but some of the teachers might expect less from the students at this school because of the stereotypes associated with poverty. If less is expected of the students then they do not try as hard an in turn their grades will suffer. The twenty-one percent mobility rates of students also would have an impact on the students learning environment. It would be difficult to concentrate on schoolwork when your friends are constantly leaving and new students are coming into your classroom. At a young age it is much easier to be distracted by what is going on within the classroom.
Two Interaction Observations (approx. 2