Bringing Something New Into the Classroom

I have butterflies in my stomach—I almost feel like I’m going back to school to learn too. Being at the same school for multiple years gives me an advantage and insight I would never have walking into a new school. Last summer, I sat down and talked with the Principal about what this school really needs. She expressed concern about socialization skills, particularly among the kindergarten and first grade students. Kindergarten teachers would come to her in tears, asking for psych evaluations of their students. Rather than sitting quietly and coloring, students threw crayons around the room. Students would fight and chairs would be thrown. The classrooms were chaotic and the kids just wouldn’t listen.

Of course, there is nothing psychologically wrong with these kids, they just don’t know any better. Five and six year olds with troubled family lives, never having toys of their own, do not know how to share or respect authority. These are skills that many of us learn at an early age, sometimes before we can even walk or talk, but with an unstable family life or sometimes no consistent authority figure, what may be second nature to many of us, doesn’t exist for children growing up in poverty.

After learning of the new challenges at my school, I was THRILLED to go back to my team and develop a new curriculum, focusing on socialization skills. The curriculum has been developed for all grades K-12, but we put a lot of focus on the younger grades, knowing mastering these skills can make the greatest impact on these kids’ lives.

I can’t wait for tomorrow. I’m excited to meet the kids and hit the ground running with what we can achieve together, but I’m most excited about this new socialization curriculum plan. Kids need to master socialization skills in order to be ready to learn in school and in turn, make the classroom conducive to learning.

Another School Year Ahead

Just one more week and it starts again—I’m excited and nervous all at the same time about the new school year. My life as a social worker is filled with challenges, successes, failures and the overwhelming desire to make a difference in children’s lives. Even if I only reach one child this year, that’s one child who has found a better outlook on life, new skills to help him achieve and a better chance at success.

This is my fourth year as a Social Worker Supervisor with Partnership with Children and my third year in this same school. Every year starts out the same with kids entering the classrooms, discussing their summers with old friends and meeting new classmates, but each year always develops a little differently. I hope for the best, that we can really reach these students and impact their lives, but in truth you never really know what will happen until the year ends. My yearly goals never change—improving school attendance numbers, helping students achieve socially, emotionally and academically and keeping parents engaged in their children’s lives.

The weeks leading up to the new school year are very busy. Each year I work with my team (usually another social worker and a few interns) and the school’s principal to determine which students are most in need and how we can best support these students. Our approach is multifaceted—we work in classrooms, with small groups and with individual students. The principal will usually choose 3-4 classes with the highest need that we will work with once a week, selecting a curriculum that will best meet their needs. We also operate 4-5 small groups which focus on topics such as peer mediation, bereavement, boys only, girls only, etc. These groups are generally mixed in grade levels and students are pulled out of their regular classes once a week to participate. For students most in need, we will work with them on an individual basis, assigning them to either a social worker or intern. All in all, we work with approximately 180 students, grades K-5th, just in this one school.

Once the students are identified we need to contact their parents for consent, which gets tricky sometimes. Some families don’t have internet or even phones, making personal visits the method of choice. There are also language barriers and other family challenges. It’s our job to make sure these parents fully understand our role in the schools and make sure their children are getting the best possible support.

The most fun of all is decorating the Partnership with Children classroom! We make sure we have supplies, signs are hung and the room is warm, bright and inviting. We’re excited to meet a new group of students, get to know their personalities, home life and struggles and figure out how we can fit in and help them achieve success. Let the new school year begin!

Barriers to Attendance

When you think of your high school days you may remember the excitement of freshman year and even better, the thrill of knowing that you’ll soon be attending college. But for a lot of adolescents in New York City high school brings a whole new level of complexity and stress even before they start their freshman year.

In eighth grade students apply to as many as 12 high schools they would like to attend out of the hundreds that exist in New York City. The city’s high schools have different focuses (technology, arts, etc.) and differing levels of academic requirements (some are highly selective according to exam scores, grades, etc). Given the diversity of options students need a lot of guidance in determining which schools will make the best fit for them. What I have seen often in working with inner-city high school students is that they did not apply to schools which are the best fit according to their interests, academic standing, and/or location; they may have applied to certain schools for the wrong reasons (i.e., the schools their friends applied to); and in some cases they were not accepted into any of the schools that they chose. It’s key for parents to guide their children’s selection of high schools and to be knowledgeable about what schools will be best fit in terms of academics, focus, and location. And, of course, students' grades and attendance rates in middle school play a crucial role in determining which high schools they can attend.

From my experience working with high school students, the daily commute is one of the biggest “barriers to attendance”. Some of our students travel up to two hours each way to school every day. The commute is exhausting and unsafe in neighborhoods that are desolate during early morning hours, and when combined with other issues like being forced to look after siblings, being bullied, and health problems, it dissuades students from attending school. The more school such students miss the more disengaged they become from their education. It’s a slippery slope that all too often leads them to being held back and dropping out from school altogether.

Part of my job is to find ways to get students motivated to come to school despite the hardships they face. I do this by engaging students in activities they show interest in and by building a sense of positive community through our small counseling groups, which provide students with a safe environment where they can share about the issues in their personal lives. The groups also help make school a place where students feel they are listened to and supported. For other students just knowing that Partnership with Children social workers are aware if they have shown up for school or not helps them feel cared for and acknowledged. These seemingly small measures go a long way in motivating high school students to come to school and to do their best.

These are just a few of the factors contributing to the complexity of attending high school in New York City. In my next post I’ll write about helping our students understand the system of earning academic credits and how credits impact their standing in school and potential to graduate in four years.