Context

In my classroom, there are 12 white students, three are Chinese students, one Latvian
student, one Indian student, one part Native American student, one Brazilian student, one
Vietnamese/Filipino student, and one French student. Even though the school qualified as a Title
1 school, my class has all middle to upper class students in the socio-economic scale. Most of the
students come from the high class neighborhoods close to the school, others have their parents
drive the long commute to have their child in the Chinese immersion program. The parent
involvement level is high with parents constantly checking in on their children and asking what
they can do to help their child's learning. The religions mentioned in class by the students were
Christianity, Hindi, and none.
There are three ELL students. The languages spoken at home are: Portuguese, Latvian,
Chinese, English, and a little French. All students in my classroom spend half of their day
learning in Mandarin and the other half in English. 93 percent of the students have tested at or
above their reading level in both Chinese immersion classrooms. One ELL student has a rare
kidney disease. Her parents are unsure of what is going to happen, because no doctors know
what to expect. She was adopted and her family loves her very much. She struggles with mostly
vocabulary, but also takes time, repetition, and scaffolding to learn. A few students struggle with
attention, but have not been diagnosed. Mrs. D has moved them closer to her to help and gives
them the option to do their homework at a separate table away from the group if they can not
focus. Student Is visual processing is not complete and has begun a program, suggested by her
eye doctor, to help her process what she sees. She struggles with copying down, following along
with the class, and phonics. When asked to spell Call she spelt it Cond. She uses a PVC pipe
phone while reading or a special ruler that helps her follow along with on a page. Student C has

sensory issues and needs breaks when overwhelmed. Mrs. D has put him by the door, so that he
can step out when needed. He also has the choice of using a weighted sock to decrease his
anxiety. There are six students that Mrs. D pointed out for being exceptional problem solvers,
while others exceptional spellers (Mrs. D). The class is filled with athletes. Mrs. D recognized 10
for being athletically set apart from the rest of the group.
Meadow Brook is an elementary school with 524 students (search for public schools).
388 students are white, 93 are Asian/Pacific Islander, 26 are Black, 10 are Hispanic, 4 are
American Indian or Alaskan, and 3 students are two or more races (search for public schools).
The male to female ratio is 267:257 (search for public schools). Suburbs surround the school and
a nature preserve is connected to the school grounds as well. Even though most kids come from
the middle class surrounding neighborhoods, there is diversity in social class: 16% still have free
or reduced lunch (Search for Public Schools). The school qualifies as a Title 1 school. This
means that a great enough percentage of students are at or below the poverty line which qualifies
the school for government programs such as tutoring. The school as a whole ranked high in the
86th percentile in the entire state (2013-14 Top to Bottom Ranking School Detail). The school
uses common state standards and has MAP testing three times a year to keep teachers
accountable and see improvement in scores over the course of the year. For math, the school uses
enVisionMath which follows closely to core standards. Normally, they have a Chinese translation
of enVisionMATH, but we will be using the English version that the rest of the school uses for
this unit: enVisionMATH Common Core-grade 3, by Scott Foresman and Addision Wesley.
The crime rate within a mile radius is 0 over the past 15 years (Meadow Brook
Elementary). Over half of the houses had a basketball hoop and a 1-2 were as big as the chapel.
All the lawns within a mile were cut short and very green. Runners and walkers use the paths in

the nature preserve. The back of the playground was connected to a neighborhood with no fence
between the twoseeming that the school feels safe in the surrounding area. Most of the parents
drop off their kids with cars that were bought in the past 5-8 years and were very clean. Even
though there were busses, lots of parents dropped off their kids and even some had both parents
dropping them off. There were a fews business outlets 2-3 blocks away including a food market.

References
Meadow Brook Elementary. (n.d.). Retrieved September 23, 2015, from
http://www.crimemapping.com/map.aspx

"Search for Public Schools." National Center for Education Statistics. Ies, 2014. Web. 23 Sept.
2015. <http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/schoolsearch/>.

2013-14 Top to Bottom Ranking School Detail. (2014). Retrieved September 22, 2015, from
https://www.mischooldata.org/DistrictSchoolProfiles/ReportCard/TopToBottomRankin
g/TopToBottomRankingSchoolDetail.aspx?Common_Locations=1S,9306,1142,90&Common_LocationIncludeComparison=False&Common_SchoolYear=13

Teacher: Mrs. D (entire first paragraph that wasn't observed)