Learning About California Public Schools

Mrs. Wirz's Fifth Grade Class:

I have now spent 2 weeks with Mrs. Wirz's Fifth Grade class and I am very happy that I am in her classroom. The kids are great, though occasionally rambunctious, and the class is very organized. I have found myself settling into my role, monitoring the class and working with kids one on one. Most of the time I walk the room during her lessons to make sure everyone is paying attention and doing as they should, then when they are working I go from one raised hand to the next to assist as needed. A lot of the kids need a whole lot of help. I have been stunned by the lack of reading skills and how far behind many students are for their grade level in both reading and math. Many of my students read picture books or very short chapter books. I have one student who I have been working with a lot during reading groups. She is in one of the lowest levels for the class. She is a new student to the school and has only been there a few weeks longer than I have. When I help her, I have her read aloud to me and I have noticed that a lot of the time she is guessing at what a word might be, judging by the first letter, instead of taking the time to sound it out. She stumbles over the simplest words and lacks the vocabulary necessary to understand what she is reading. When she reads out loud and rushes past words and reads others out of order, I think that a part of her has given. But I know that deep down she does believe in herself, at least slightly. Or perhaps a better description is that she wants to believe in herself. This same student came up to my on the playground one morning, really upset after her cousin has called her "mental." The other kids can see how far behind she is, but I am guessing that in her case it is a lack of proper education rather than inferior intellect that is holding her back. She went on and on to me about how she is not "mental" because if she was she would be in a special school. She has a point too. Not only is she at the school, but she does not even qualify for the resource room. Despite how far behind she is, she cannot get the extra help some students receive in special ed. Too many students fall into this category. It seems impossible to help them all and it is sad to see them struggle. But then there are the moments when they get something, just one small thing, and you see the pride radiate across their face. The other day this same girl walked me through the math problem she was working in. She had done the problem correctly and found two equivalent fractions. When I told her she was right, she could not have been happier. It is moments like that that make this first round project so gratifying.

Staff Development:

Our first week at FC Joyce was a short week for the students. Thursday was veterans day and the friday was a staff development day. As Americorps members we had Thursday off and then headed to school with all of the teachers on Friday. If we hadn't already felt we were part of the staff, we were now certainly on the other side of the education system from our days as students. The day was broken up into two sessions with lunch in the middle. In the morning there was one presenter who came. He was wonderful. His topic was "Reaching 'Hard to Reach' Students." He talked about behavior vs. Interpretation, how we can support or control, who are these hard to reach students (including some explanation or neurological matters involved), and the fight or flight reactions that we all experience and children cannot control. He shared many great example stories from his years working as a school psychologist and behavior analyst. Overall it was a very helpful, engaging, and worth while morning. The afternoon did not prove quite as fruitful. The presenter had been to the school before and had more workshops planned with the FC Joyce staff to work on Active Participation strategies to get students involved in class. Many of the strategies he talked about were good ideas and the teachers discussed what had been working so far, and maybe what didn't work as well. But the presenter was disorganized and not particularly captivating.

Still, many of his techniques are techniques that I have seen being used successfully in my classroom. The one I find the most effective of things I have not seen before is the use of personal student whiteboards. Each student in my class has their own small whiteboard and whiteboard pen that they keep in their desks. At certain points in class Mrs. Wirz will ask the students to pull out the boards and direct them when to answer certain questions on their board. When they have written their answer they are to put their boards in the "ready position," up against their chest so as to shield their response, and then when she says, they raise their boards into the air to reveal their answers. Instead of having the same kids who always raise their hands as the only kids answering questions in class, the white board time insures that every student in engaged, focused on the task at hand, and participating to provide an answer. I think it is great and I am glad that Mrs. Wirz uses it as much as she does. The kids love it too and are always eager to show what they have on their boards, some raising them up before the appropriate time.

SLI Documentary:

One of the team positions for Americorps NCCC teams is the Service Learning Initiator (SLI). Last week the SLIs from another team on campus invited us to their service learning event. They are working in another elementary school in our district, Larchmont Elementary. Their school has the same type of demographics as ours, but they have much fewer students because there school is headed towards closing. This is the last year it will be open and then most of their students will be moving over to our school, FC Joyce, adding to the overcrowding there. It was great to be able to talk with another group about some of their experiences in the schools. The main portion of the event was dedicated to watching a documentary entitled, California Public Schools: First to Worst. The documentary is rather focused on blaming the downfall of the California education system on a particular proposition that lower tax money, which is possible a bit limited and unfair in perspective. But either way it was a very interesting video to watch and showed some really truly unbelievable conditions at these schools.

Click Here to watch the documentary

Every month one of my jobs as my team's Photojournalist (along with my friend and team member Allison) is to submit to the Pacific Campus's monthly newsletter, the Common Ground. Here was our submission this month:

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Brought to you by Green 2 and the wonderfully entertaining children of FC Joyce Elementary School

Danny has a pink lunch box. When one student ridiculed this color choice, another jumped to Danny’s defense: “It’s okay, Dude. Real men wear pink.”

One fourth grade boy asked Catherine, “Are you a boy or a girl?” A fellow fourth grader came to her aid, "She's a girl!"

Compliment or Insult? Carly was asked one day, “Not to be rude, but are you a hippie?”

Green Two’s first day on the yard of FC Joyce Elementary, one student spotted Brett and called out, “I want to play with the large one.”

Carly: “How do you catch a squirrel?” Fourth Grade Girl: “You climb a tree and act like a nut.”

Carly: “What’s your favorite planet?” Student: “Not Jupiter” Carly: “Why not?” Student: “Because they sent my brother here.”

One of Taylor’s students wanted to get to know him: “Do you have kids?” “Do you live with your mom?” “Do you believe in God?”

During his specialty class in the Pre-K classroom, one child asked to sit on Brett’s lap. Once settled, the student announced, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Every child at FC Joyce when seeing any Green 2 member: “Americorps! Americorps! Americorps!”

“You can’t talk to my Americorps like that!”

“I’m going to do Americorps when I get big.”

Americorps! Americorps! Welcome to FC Joyce Elementary School

Since returning from Camp Mendocino, I have been trained in Shelter Operations, been officially inducted as a corps member, and have begun working with my team at F. C. Joyce Elementary School.

After induction on Thursday morning, 3/4 of the teams headed off in various directions to different locations and different projects. Since we are staying in Sacramento, we could get right to work. We pulled out of the parking lot ahead of many teams and headed just down the street to our first day of school. The first two days (Thursday and Friday) were really orientation days for us at FC Joyce. We will start working in the classroom tomorrow (Monday) but our first two days proved to be very full and exhausting days of work.

First thing we did was meet with the principle of the school, Dr. Tori England. She is wonderful and it is very encouraging to see how engaged she is in the school, how well she knows the student body, and how in control she is. She told us a lot about the school, the students, and the work we would be doing. We had already heard the basic stats and demographics about the students before starting the project, but Tori and the school counselor, Kimmy, further enforced the realities of these kids home lives. I had known that about 93% of the students live at or below the poverty line. What is didn't know is that poverty is considered $9,000 a year for a family of four. I can not even comprehend how a family of four could live off of so little. That number shocked me. Kimmy also explained that there are some children at the school who are homeless. One family, understanding potential dangers of sleeping outdoors in rough areas, sleeps each night in a tree. The parents tie the kids into the tree. This was another shocking story. Dr. England also explained more to us about Serna Village. Serna Village is transitional housing for people recovering from drug addiction. Many kids at the school live here and some have just recently been reunited with their parents who are now trying to get their lives and their families back on track. Serna Village is rent free and families can stay there until their youngest child is 18 years old, so many families that move in, stay for a long time.

After hearing this sobering data, Tori showed us around the school and then we had some free time to eat our lunches. We headed out to the playground and sat together on the blacktop with our matching lunch boxes that Abby had bought as part of our project reveal. Almost immediately when we came out in front of the kids we started hearing "Americorps! Americorps!" They were so excited to see us there. Americorps NCCC teams have been working at FC Joyce for several years, so the kids are very used to our rotation schedule and they know what to expect from corps members. The main thing that want from us is attention. The kids are all so friendly and affectionate. It was incredible. Within seconds of being on the playground, kids were coming up to us and giving us hugs before we had even introduced ourselves.

After lunch, we helped with the school's recent cookie dough sale. The kids had submitted order forms and now we were sorting out all of their sales and labeling the names, then once classes were dismissed we helped distributing the filled orders to the kids and their parents. In between the sorting process and the end of the school day we headed out in pairs to quickly drop in on all the classrooms to get a feel for each of the teachers and grades and figure out where we might want to be placed for the remainder of the project term. We continued this process the next morning and then once everyone had been to every class we met with Dr. England in the teacher's lounge to sort out our positions. I had decided that I wanted to work in 4th or 5th grade. I was leaning towards 4th and ended up with 5th. I will be working in Mrs. Wirz's 5th grade class. I am feeling a little nervous about it, because Mrs. Wirz seems a little intense, but she is clearly a well organized teacher which is a quality I definitely look for. We also selected our specialty class, where we will work 1 hour each day. I will be working in the library!

Standing on our home states on the FC Joyce Yard

After selecting our classes we spent about 2 and a half hours with the kids out on the yard. They rotated through their various lunch periods and we stayed playing with the kids and then heading into lunch whenever our grade level was scheduled to eat. In the cafeteria it was a special lunch day for an achievement program, "Reach for the Stars." The program was created to motivate students and I believe it was started last year. Scores are looked at each month and if a student goes up even just one point from the previous testing, they get a bracelet. It continues throughout the year, so they can end up with quite the bracelet collection.

Here is an article and slideshow that I found about the beginning of this program from last year: http://www.twinriversusd.org/newsroom/spotlight/?q=34

The slideshow also includes a picture of last year's NCCC team. It seems the program started off with quite a bang and excitement. The kids are still very jazzed about it. The scores have risen from the start of the program and the school is aiming to reach the score of 800 goal this academic year. The main challenges facing FC Joyce right now lie in the budget for the district. Schools are closing and Joyce is being forced to expand. The school has grown considerably since last year and will be growing more to include 8th grade next year.

After lunch was over, our team headed back to the cafeteria to prepare the room for an all school assembly. We were to be welcomed to the school. How better to make an entrance then wearing some super cool gold star costumes (see below). Once the whole school was in the cafeteria, Dr. England introduced us, music came on (the cupid shuffle to be exact), and we ran down the center aisle. Then we did the cupid shuffle and Dr. England called us up one at a time to tell the school whose classes we would be placed with. Later in the assembly there were some technical difficulties, and to fill up time the teacher who was running the event called us back up to play a game. "The game" was that we each had to do our best horse impression. This was a surprise and potentially embarrassing, but really nothing is embarrassing in front of elementary school kids. They seemed to get a real kick out of the whole affair.

Green 2 in our star costumes with Principle Dr. England and Kimmy the School Counselor

After the assembly, we cleaned up and then set up for the Boys and Girls Club after school program that we also work at. We spent two more hours playing with the kids until 5pm when we quickly scooted back to campus to change and eat dinner before returning to the school at 6pm for a special event hosted by the 7th grade class and inspired by the Toy Story theme to this year's reach for the stars campaign. It was movie night and we watched Toy Story 3 with students and their parents. I love that movie!

It was a wonderful and exhausting first two days at FC Joyce. The teachers all warned us that we should really try to prepare ourselves for Monday in the classrooms. We thought we were exhausted after the first two days, but I guess we don't really know yet what we are in for. We shall see how this week goes. Oh boy!

If I have the energy, I will update again soon. In the meantime, I hope all is well with everyone. Update me on your lives too!

Also, if you are interested, check out the School's website: http://joyce-trusd-ca.schoolloop.com/

Four Days at Camp

It is a rainy Sunday in Sacramento. I am currently sitting in Temple Café (a great little coffee shop Maggie Thomas introduced me to), sipping hot chocolate and eating a delicious croissant, safe from the wet and windy outdoors. There could not possibly be a better opportunity to take a few minutes and update everyone on the goings on the past week. A week ago was our first day back on campus after spending four days in the redwood forest at Camp Mendocino. It is unreal to me that it has only been a week since then. So much has happened in between. But really, that belongs in a different post, and I will get to it soon.

First…Mendocino.

Similar to the rain today, it was raining our entire time at Mendocino. Groups that went ahead of us had beautiful weather, so our bad luck with weather was definitely a bit of a downer, but we did not let it ruin our time in the woods. I was so excited to be going to a summer camp. As most of you surely know, I have been a summer camp enthusiast ever since my first summer on the shores of Lake Ossipee at Camp Nellie Huckins. Mendocino is definitely a different place than Huckins. It is a camp for the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco and many of the campers that attend the summer camp are there either for free or at a discounted price. It is a in a rather remote location, only accessible by excessively windy and narrow mountain roads which caused some discomfort for those on my team who experience motion sickness (not me, thank God).

It was wet upon our arrival, but no currently raining. The air was crisp and it felt amazing to be outdoors. We moved our stuff into our cabins and then explored and killed some time before our official tour of camp. Then it was time to go see the big tree! We had heard of the biggest tree at the camp and were eager to witness its grandeur, so we headed down the train tracks. We did end up finding a tree that was quite impressive, but later found out it was not actually “the” big tree. It was a fun adventure nonetheless and a better work out seeing as we ended up walking probably at least a mile more than necessary. We did end up going to see the real big tree our last night at camp with Abby to show us the way. It was dark when we went, so I could not get good pictures, but it was really a breathtaking sight.

After our adventure, it was time for dinner followed by a Green Unit game time where we played “The Newly Team Game,” a fun spin off of the newlywed game.

The next day we woke up and headed out to PT at the normal time of 5:30am, just to find out that the rain pouring down meant PT had to be canceled. They held an optional PT in the cafeteria which I decided to attend (I was up anyway). The remainder of the morning, my team had 1 on 1 meetings with our team leader, giving us a great deal of free time/ nap time. I snuggled up in my sleeping bag, drifting in and out of sleep while listening to the rainfall on the cabin and the music of Jack Johnson playing from my friend’s ipod. It was a much-needed break. Then I met with Abby and it was time for team building to begin. We were scheduled to go out on the ropes course, but we started out with the team building exercises indoors, hopeful that the rain would calm down by the afternoon when we were going to head out to the high ropes course and zip line. The indoor activities went very well. Our team works well together and we were able to really see improvement throughout the day. A lot of the trainings that we have had as part of CTI (Corps Training Institute) have had to do with knowing yourself and knowing how to work with others. It sounded a bit corny to me at first, but I really do feel like I am learning a lot about myself that I did not previously know. I won’t go into details, but I can definitely tell that this year will be a tremendous growing and learning experience for me and I am so happy that I am doing this.

After the indoor activities, the rain had not calmed down, but it was time to head out to the ropes course anyway. It was completely worth it to go out in the rain. I had never done a high ropes course before. A few aspects of it were definitely a bit frightening, especially with the slippery and cold conditions, but it was hugely satisfying to accomplish. And then we each ended with the zip line! Another first for me, I love love loved the zip line! Despite the rain, the day had been a huge success. We were soaking wet and cold, but happy. Abby collected our wet clothes to dry in the laundry room and we changed into dry and warm clothes, our coveralls. Because of my height I had to get large coveralls, but I swim in them and look rather ridiculous. Oh well, they were warmer than just pants.

After dinner that night, each team got up in front of the unit and did a skit of some sort. Our teams skit was very well received. The 1 on 1 meetings we had the day before had been dedicated to going over our ILPs (Individual learning plans) that we had filled out about our goals for the year and beyond. A big portion of the ILPs was dedicated to Life After Americorps goals. This is what our skit was about. We had three different people go to the team leader in the skit and when the team leader asked “what do you want to do with your life after Americorps” we went into dream sequences. The final dream sequence involved Dominique performing a rap that she wrote when she was 12. In one word: amazing.

The following day, we knew the rain was predicted and we did not have to get up for PT! We got to sleep in until 6am and then after breakfast we were prepped and ready to go for our service day. Now, the day before, as we were doing the team building exercises, several teams were doing their service days in the rain digging trenches along the road that leads to the camp. What unpleasant work. Well, lucky for us, we did not end up continuing their project the next day. One of the men who runs the camp has a sister who works at a community center in Fort Bragg, about 45 minutes from camp. The community center needed a considerable amount of help setting up for their Halloween carnival and haunted house, so we headed back to civilization and spent the day setting up for Halloween at the Starr Community Center.

That night was our last night at Mendocino. We had a fire in the fireplace of the cafeteria and did some reflections lead by our unit leader. Then we played games and made s’mores.

Saturday, before leaving, we had PT in the morning, running ladder runs back and forth throughout camp, we cleaned the cabins and bathrooms, and then we had Amer-Olympics for some friendly competition between teams. Then after a unit photo and team photos, it was time to hit the road and head back to Sacramento, where I immediately took one of the most satisfying showers ever and settled back in to life on campus.