Category: Projects Spring 2017

Immersion Research – Guided Tour and Two Classes

The type of interactive immersion that I conducted was a Guided Tour and sitting in on a CTE class and on the start of an English class.

On the guided tour:

Principal Eid took us around the school and pointed out his favorite parts.

–       We started in the principal’s office, walked past the gym which he did not even point out.

–       Then he walked us down the Arts hallway. It was lined with lockers, and above the lockers were banners from the shows that Clay has put on. On the other side of the hall were classrooms and he showed us the orchestra classroom, the learning piano classroom (where they have a bunch of keyboards set up in front of computers), and the dance classroom (where some sort of interpretive dance/yoga activity was going on).

–       We then followed him past the cafeteria. The cafeteria is small, and the colors are not pleasant. It is probably one of the most unattractive rooms in the whole building.

–       He showed us the inside of the CTE classes – the dental program, doctor program, auto/car program and the welding program.

o   He was really passionate and excited about these.

o   Talked about how great they were for the kids, and how only Clay offers them — but kids from the other high school’s can bus to Clay to take the programs

–       After that we walked down some halls and saw the academic classrooms but did not check inside as there were classes going on.

–       There seemed to always be students in the hall’s and Principal Eid was constantly asking them to return to class.

–       He really emphasized:

o   The Arts and CTE aspects (first things he showed us).

o   How safe the building was (safety patrol people, police officer, gates, policies).

o   The quality of the teachers – he introduced us to almost all of them who we saw.

In the English class…

–       I was only present in this class for the first 15 minutes, but it pretty much took the teacher the whole time I was there to calm the class down

–       Kids kept walking in late and she would be stern with them

–       Kids showed up without pencils or paper

–       Her classroom was colorful and exciting, the walls were covered in pictures

–       It was evident that the kids in the class who were not excited to learn dominated.

–       There may have been dedicated students, but it was not evident who they were.

–       The teacher was kind to the students, patient, and clearly well-educated.

In the CTE class…

–       The CTE class was welding

–       The teacher of the class is a past Clay graduate himself

–       Kids walked in and the teacher told them to go get dressed in their welding gear

–       The kids in the class respected their teacher, he didn’t take any of their sass or procrastination

–       There were challenges they had to meet written on the board, and the kids seemed motivated

–       The class seemed to be structured more around building their specific skills, and there was no lecture portion

I personally felt:

–       That the school was a little boring looking for an Arts building. I had imagined more visual elements, more artwork displayed, and more colorful hallways.

–       It was beige all over, and could have been a little cleaner.

–       Potential Idea: have an art class have a unit focused on how to make the school look better each year.

–       That there were a weird amount of student’s wandering the halls at any given time.

–       That the staff we interacted with really care about the school and students.

 

Interview 6: *** Conducted Tuesday, 3/7, at 9pm in the Hesburgh Library

Name: Sophia Bevaqua

Gender: Female

Age: 21

Appearance:

Occupation: Student at Notre Dame – Art History Major, Gender Studies Minor

Background:

–          Lived in South Bend for 21 years (her whole life).

–          She went to Stanley Clark School and the Montessori Academy for primary and intermediate schools.

–          She attended John Adams (graduated 2013).

–          She lives in the Clay School District.

–          In HS she did environmental club, Java – a community service club where they helped south bend community, she had a job located next to Adams, she was a dancer.

–          Three sisters — oldest one went to St. Joe, next three went to Adams

Why Adams?  

–          Chose Adams for the IB, it really stood out because so few schools have it, she liked its focus on discussion based classrooms and heavy reading, and multicultural readings.

–          She received several IB certificates

–          She didn’t really consider any other schools. Her older sister went to Adams.

–          Did not take athletics into account.

–          Adams had a really intense IB Art Program, and they all got an endless supply of free materials, very successful feeder program

 

–          She didn’t always feel safe at Adams.

–          Freshman year quite frequently she got threatened about being “beat up after school” or “cut with a knife”

–          Junior year she got hit by a flying fist from a guy in the hallway of Adams

–          She thinks it is safer now, her little sister goes there. Little sister chose Adams cause Sophia and older sister went there.

How did she make her choice?

–          Just talked to people and got word of mouth, her dad is a prof and she talked to a lot of faculty kids, kids of profs look for education

–          Doesn’t know anything about the Riley or Washington magnet programs

–          Adams super diverse, thought about the diversity a little bit – dissuaded her from St. Joe

–          Tiers at Adams —- IB Kids all went to top 20 universities, AP kids went to state schools and good smaller private schools, Honors kids went to community colleges, lower rung never pursued any other education

–          Lower rung and honors rung made up the vast majority of the student body

–          All over the board for socioeconomic status, vast majority were lower class single parents who worked nights – all lived in the same neighborhood.

–          The IB program has parents who are not divorced and have white collar jobs.

Other Commentary on South Bend Schools:

–          Every School has a stereotype,

–          St Joe seems like it is the Notre Dame feeder school. She thought it had too much emphasis on religion, that it was very cliquey and very preppy, and that it didn’t have the reviews for different teachers that she wanted.

–          Considered Clay because it had a great arts program and she lived closer to Clay, but she didn’t know anything about it really outside of the arts stuff and that alone wasn’t enough to persuade her.

–          “Washington and Riley are horrible schools”

–          Didn’t consider Penn because it is so far away, and massive “4000 students is too far away”. She also didn’t hear anything super positive about the teachers there.

Interview #1: Principal Eid Mansour

 

Principal Eid is the current principle of Clay High.  Before accepting the position, he was a well-known, highly valued teacher at John Adams High school.  His interview provided valuable insight about the culture and positive message that Clay is trying to achieve.  He provided knowledge about the formal process of enrolling in school, as well as the tactics that Clay is allowed to use to attract students.  He provided insight about the struggle to reach out of district students because there are restrictions on the contact the Clay can have.  They can market to Clay Middle School and Brown because they are their feeder schools, but cannot advertise to other middle schools unless it is strictly about the Magnet program.  They sent a group of teachers to the middle schools to do so, but there are strict guidelines on what can/cannot be talked about.  This has shown to have some positive results, as magnet numbers for next year went up from 85 to 100, but it falls short of the ideal magnet enrollment of 150.

The school tried to host an orientation day where they invited all 8^th graders to come to the school to see what being a student at Clay High School was all about.  They would go through a mock class schedule, eat in the cafeteria, provide free pizza and transportation (which they had sponsors for), and have informational sessions, but they were not allowed to do so because it may interrupt the flow of the instructional calendar.  Clay can only really market themselves within the boundaries of their own walls.  They make efforts to host events such as concerts, plays, and sporting events to attract people to see their facilities, experience their environment, and interact with some of their staff.  They constantly try to make improvements like the new gym they put in and new large flat screens scheduled to be installed soon.

Principal Eid also mentions an issue between Advance Placement testing and the International Baccalaureate program that Clay has.  There is an argument about whether or not the IB program is achieving the same results as AP.  Many people aren’t valuing IB testing as much as AP because they believe that it is more prescriptive and boxes teachers in forcing them to teach things that most students don’t need.  AP exams are given more college credit that the IB tests.  Principal Eid also talked about an effort to get South Bend to pay for IB testing for students because they currently only pay for AP.

 

Interview #2: Laura

 

Laura is a former John Adams student, but chose to send her only son to Clay.  They live out of the district (walking distance from Riley High School), but chose Clay specifically for their Magnet program.  Her decision had a lot to do with the open houses that are held at the Century Center around November.  This is where she gained all of her knowledge about what each school has to offer.  “It helps a lot.” Her son plays a lot of instruments, so she wanted to give him the best opportunity to satisfy his hobby.  Her son She was very active in the decision making process and is still active throughout his high school journey.  For Laura, her son’s friends had no impact on the school that she wanted to send her child to at all.  Because she lives out of district, and her child has to arrive at school early before bus transportation arrives, she has to drive her son to school every morning because she is very satisfied with the magnet program.  “They focus on him, and have tons of opportunities.”  With this being said, she only knows a few parents who feel so strongly about the magnet programs, but none at clay.  After reviewing the interview, although she didn’t say specifically, it seemed that this is a result of not talking about it with Clay parents and not a result of dissatisfaction in other parents (but this is just an assumption that we didn’t address during the interview).

Laura’s other main reason for bringing her son to Clay was because of Principal Eid.  She had him as a teacher when she was in school and had only stellar remarks about him.

• “Parents that went to John Adams that were his students, I know they’re going to follow him wherever he goes to, especially now that he’s the principal”
• “every kid loves him”
• “hes very tough, but everybody likes him”

The last point she touched on was the lack of Hispanic community at Clay relative to Adams.  “It is a known thing in Hispanic community that most Hispanics go to Adams, unless kids are really focused on their kids branch they want to study, just because Adams is prioritized as Hispanic high school.”  She says that regardless of where students live, much of the Hispanic community will send their kids to Adams, even all the way from the west side of town, because they are categorized for having a better Hispanic presence.  Laura mentions that building a more Hispanic presence at Clay, especially with more Hispanic teachers, would attract more people in her Hispanic community, but feels that Clay is not doing anything to attract these students which is limiting their enrollment.

Interview #1: Sue

 

The first parent interview was at parent-teacher conference night with Sue.  She is the mother of a current Clay student and very active in his high school career, but she wasn’t very active in the high school decision process.  Their family lives in the district, so she was set on sending her child to Clay well before the 9^th grade.  The most important thing to her was that her child wanted to go to school with the students that he grew up with his entire life.  She minimally considered other schools, but the biggest driver was her son’s friendships.  “It was important to be with people he was familiar with.”  Her child is not involved in the magnet program, but has knowledge of the AP classes and programs that Clay offers.  “There’s a ton offered here.”  Sue, however, found out about these programs after she had already made the decision to send her child to Clay.  She attended an introductory event for the parents before the freshmen begin school, but this served as more of a reinforcement and not a decision point.  Overall, she was very satisfied with Clay because she believed that her child was happy here.  She explained that her child went through “rough periods”, but the support from the guidance office and teachers was great.  “They do a great job”.

Analogous Immersion

 

My College Decision Process:

 

When I was in school, I never had a choice of where I wanted to go.  It was completely up to my dad.  In fact, I unwillingly moved schools constantly and had no say in the decision.  Before college, I had gone to a total of 9 different schools in 3 different states.  My college decision however, was the first opportunity I actually had to pick my own school.

My goal had always been to play sports in college.  Growing up a 3 sport athlete, I believed that sports would be a means for paying for college.  Combining my athletic skills and good grades, I was focused on doing everything I could to go to a good college for minimal cost.  I was being recruited by a few schools for football, but decided to apply to Notre Dame because of the close proximity to where I lived and the fact that my dad wanted me to at least apply.  After nearly forgetting that I even applied to Notre Dame, my acceptance letter came in and I took my first visit with my family.  We toured the campus and talked to people from admissions and learned that most, if not all of my schooling could potentially be paid for once the necessary information was processed.  I had a few other offers to play football, but nothing as prestigious as Notre Dame, yet I was still waiting on my acceptance decision from the two ivy league schools that I had prioritized.

After getting denied, I had to decide between playing football at a few local schools for relatively little cost or going to Notre Dame for virtually no cost.  When comparing the possibility of going to this prestigious university with no financial burden to my family, the decision to give up playing sports was a no-brainer.  As much as my life had been capsulated by sports, making my family’s life a lot easier and more pleasurable was the only factor I really needed to consider when I chose to come here.

Interaction

 

Graffiti Wall

 

For the interactive immersion, I went to Clay high school and stood in the hallways as they got out of their last class of the day.  I asked students to write down a word or two answering the question, “What made you decide to come to Clay?”  Some students continued to walk past ignoring us asking for help, but I was able to get 24 responses before the hallways emptied.  Because we stood at the wall while students responded, we were able to limit the answers to ensure that most answers were appropriate and valid.

I gathered interesting results from the graffiti wall.  Each response fell in one of the following 4 categories: sports, the magnet program, friends, or the student didn’t have a choice (their parents made them or they had to because they live in district).  Sports, the magnet program, and friends totaled 8, 7, and 6 responses respectively while not having a choice fell below with 3 students.

The most surprising thing about these results is the fact that the most dominant response was sports, yet when I asked everyone about how their sports teams were, there were mostly only negative responses.  If sports are valued so highly as an attraction factor, Clay could be losing a lot of students to schools with better sports teams.  The magnet program and choice to be with friends followed our expectations.  From this group, we didn’t have many kids say they didn’t have a choice of what school they wanted to attend which may provide insight that the parents are not as involved in most students’ decision as I may think.

One thing to think about is the overlap of all of these categories.  This interaction doesn’t really allow us to analyze the synthesis of some categories.  We need to think about how they all play a role together.  The response “friends” may lie fundamentally in the fact that people often form their friends in elementary and middle school, therefore rely heavily on the district even though students may not acknowledge this as their decision variable.  These numbers may not accurately reflect whether students have much say in their decision even though they may believe they do.

 

Immersion

 

For the immersion, I attended Parent teacher conferences.  This was my first time going to Clay High School, but it reminded me of any other high school that I had been to.  The doors were open to parents and there were staff members near the entrance and strolling through the hallways.  The staff was courteous and helpful in pointing us in the right direction.  We were able to meet many administrators and teachers and get to experience the Clay atmosphere the way that Clay wanted parents to see it.

This visit to Clay was surprising because I expected a lot more parents and teachers to be there.  I expected it to be easy to interview a ton of parents quickly and get valuable information, but as we roamed the hallways, we felt like we would never find a parent to speak to.  The staff explained that there was an open time period where any parent could come.  There was no particular order or schedule for who was going to show up.

When talking to the staff, we realized that parent-teacher conference days do not typically reflect the range of students that are at the school.  Most of the parents who come to these conferences are some of the best performing students because there is a correlation between parent involvement and educational success, as well as behavioral issues.  Many of the students they repeatedly create problems do not show up to events like this one.