C-D-A-E-S...We are the best!

This year I have had the amazing opportunity to work at Community Day Arlington Elementary School (CDAES).  Having worked as a classroom assistant, social studies teacher, and after-school program coordinator at an elementary school through AmeriCorps my first two years out of college, I wanted to continue my work in education before I committed to law school.  So far, it's been a wonderful experience and I feel so privileged to be part of CDAES' first year staff.
 

CDAES is a special kind of hybrid.  Although the school is part of the Lawrence public system and is considered a regular public school (serving students from the neighborhood), our classrooms operate in a very charter-school-like manner.  Currently, the school serves K-1st, but will be serving up to 4th grade next year.  We have 8 classes total and the majority of our students are English Language Learners.
 

As a generalist, I get to do a little bit of everything.  I help administer tests (specifically any kind of ELL/ESL tests), assist teachers when their co-teacher is out or, if both teachers are out, serve as a substitute.  When I am not doing either of these things, I am working in specific classrooms that have specific needs.  Classroom instruction at our school is data driven and similarly, so is my schedule.  After a cycle of testing (MAP or STEP), we look at what classrooms might benefit from extra assistance.  K-1st grades spend a lot of time building and strengthening literacy skills, so naturally a lot of the assistance I provide is in that area.  I typically take a small group of students (2-6) and work with them on skills they are having trouble mastering or skills they need to practice.  This can include basics like working on letter sounds, to building words, to rhyming, to guided reading.

Most of my previous classroom experience was with 2nd-5th graders, so working with K-1st grades has been a new adventure!  Academically, the school year moves a lot more slowly, as much of our time is spent on reinforcing basic skills, but behaviorally and socially, you see so much more progress than with older grades.  Most of our kindergarteners came to us never having attended preschool and even some of our first graders had limited schooling in the US, so naturally there was a period of adjusting to the classroom structure.  It really is amazing to see how much each student has grown and I look forward to challenging our little ones and seeing them continue to learn, grow, and succeed.

New Year, New Projects, Same Old Stereotypes

The new year has gotten off to a great start here in Southeast DC at Achievement Preparatory Academy.  Our brand new online application went live on January 2^nd and we’ve already got 10 applications for the 2012-2013 school year.  My old supervisor decided to leave the school, but my new boss is actually someone that worked here before and has just come back.  We’re already forming a great working partnership and I’m shadowing her on school tours for prospective parents so that pretty soon I can start giving the tours myself.  Tomorrow (yes, work on Saturday) we’re going to the DC Charter School Expo at the Washington Convention Center, so hopefully we’ll drum up a lot of interest and get some new applications in.  Exciting!  Recruitment is a huge task that lasts basically the entire first half of the calendar year (while enrollment / registration / paper work follow up / residency verification is the second half) and I’ll be playing a crucial role.  If my APA recruitment is anything like my recruiting new freshman for the Princeton University Band we’ll be sitting pretty for the next school year.

I want to share a story with you, avid readers of our blog, that my boss shared with us yesterday at staff close-out.  A man from an organization that might be giving a grant to our school was here visiting yesterday from California.  He was trying to catch an early morning cab from Dupont Circle, which is a super-ritzy fancy part of NW DC to our school, which is located in notorious Ward 8 of SE DC.  To be blunt, and describe the difference between NW and SE in black and white terms, NW is white, SE is black.  Three different cab drivers turned down the man when he asked to be taken over to Wahler Place SE.  One cabby even told him, “Why would you want to go there?  Nothing good ever comes out of that place.”  And this man, who hasn’t been to our school before but has talked extensively to our leader and founder, and read the press releases, defended our school and said, well let me tell you about this amazing school in this not-so-great neighborhood.  Clearly, you must not have heard of them if you’re going to say things like that.  So maybe nothing else good comes out of our seedy, run-down neighborhood in SE, but WE are a good thing.  A great thing.  Our DC CAS scores show that we have completely eliminated the achievement gap between our students and white students in DC, and gone most of the way towards eliminating that disparity in reading.  I feel like I constantly have to defend where I work to new people I meet, those who are shocked or worried about me for being a young white female working in this community.  And yes, I’ve endured shocking cat calls and harassment at the local gas station and Burger King, but the things that we do within the walls of this school make it all worth it.  I am so proud to be a part of this school and I’m excited to play such a role in the future of the school.  Because truly, the school would not exist without its students, so we need to get butts in those seats!

p.s.  Not to be outdone by Subha, check out my advisory’s entry into APA’s Holiday door decorating contest.  We got second place, but only because 1^st place used a Christmas card that plays music to enhance their door.