Amanda's School

At Shawn Feinstein at Broad Street Elementary School, there are over 45 teachers/faculty members. It is a K-5 elementary school and had 372 students enrolled at the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year. Over half of those students are Hispanic, and 319 or 86% of the students enrolled have a free or reduced lunch. The attendance rate is at 93.9%, which is better than other schools. 

The area the school is in isn’t the nicest area and I was a little nervous going in the first time but its something I got used to.  There are two banks right across the street so there is a lot of traffic when trying to park. As i approach the building I see bars on the windows and a buzzer on the door. Walking into the building I see the gymnasium or all purpose room to my left, stairs to the classrooms on my right and the main office straight ahead.  As I walk in the office, the secretaries always stop what they are doing to say hello and make sure I'm all set.  The principle is normally in there as well so I say good morning and.  I say hello and introduce myself to him and start heading to the classroom. The time that I spent in this school reminded me of my elementary school so it was a fun experience.

Marisa's School

Frank D. Spaziano is an Elementary School for students in grades 2-5.  It is a brick building with many locked doors and a buzzer to get inside.  The school is in a crowded area, with roads on 3 sides of the building.  The other side has a pavement area that serves as the children’s playground.  It is barely big enough for 4 cars to park side by side, yet multiple classrooms go out at a time for students to play.  There are almost 600 students at this school and only 36 full time teachers.  My high school had 800 students and that was the only high school in town.  This number is outrageous to me for an elementary school with minimal grades to have.  How can anyone expect the students to sit still and focus in a school that has so many kids?  They wonder why most of the students need one on one help, because there are just too many trying to learn from one teacher that it is bound for someone to fall behind.  This school also has a 20% rate of chronic absences.  This means that many students fall behind in the curriculum because they are not in class to learn the lessons.  Most of the absences are due to issues at home.  For example, many of the parents of the students at the school have no job or are making minimum wage.  Almost 94% of the students qualify for subsidized lunches.  That is almost everyone that goes to the school that has a financial issue at home.

Rachel's School

George J. West Elementary School is a large school filled with a diverse population in a seemingly low-income area.  When arriving to the school one of the first things you will notice is that it is an old three-story brick building with bars on the windows. There are roads in both the front of the building and the back. There is a grassy area across the street from the school but no area on school ground [on their side of the road] for the children to play. The only playing area they have is on pavement. However even this area is crowded, leaving little room for the young children to run around and let out some energy.

There are signs on the front doors, one in English and one in Spanish. For every English poster there is one in Spanish. This instantly tells the visitor that they will be walking into a diverse area. The secretaries speak a language other than English until they see the visitor and switch to something they assume the person can understand. The principal is a white woman. Her assistant is also a white, English speaking female. This is an interesting factor in the schools environment because the other teachers’ are Latino.

            Most of the students I have seen in this school are African American, Latino, Native American, Chinese or Portuguese.  There is only one white girl in my class. The other students speak multiple languages. You can see it on their face, and hear it in their names. They also speak with slight accents, something they picked up from home, by speaking another language or because their parents taught them how to speak and they pronounce the words like their parents. 

All in all George J. West is a diverse school affected by poverty, the code of power and language barriers.