Emilie+Tubman

**Oak Creek - Franklin School District Shepard Hills Elementary**


 * Phase 1: Data Collection Process**

This semi- rural community currently has a population of 35,223. The demographics of Oak Creek Wisconsin consist of mostly white ethnicity, with smaller percentages of African-American, Native-American, Hispanic, and Asian as well. According to the city website, many of Oak Creek’s resident’s enjoy the suburban lifestyle, while still being connected with the Milwaukee metropolitan community. Oak Creek is divided into 22 communities that all have diverse characteristics, which are based upon the physical location and cultural background of the community.

The Mission Statement of the Oak Creek-Franklin joint school district is as follows; The Oak Creek-Franklin Joint School District, together with our community partners, will provide an educational program in a positive learning environment that will inspire, challenge, and engage students in order for them to develop their full potential and become responsible, respectful, productive citizens. The goals of the Oak Creek-Franklin school district include providing education that support life long learning for each student, providing an education that will challenge and support the student’s academic growth, and support a partnership between home and school.

The following graph shows that most students are of a white ethnicity. The second highest percentage of students is Hispanic or Latino. The third highest group of students is of Asian ethnicity. The fourth highest would be African-American, and the fifth would be American Indian. According to the graph, the ethnic group that has seen the highest increase in population compared to other years would be Hispanic or Latino. There has also been an increase of Asian students in this school district as well compared to other school years listed. Overall, the Oak Creek-Franklin school district, despite having a majority population of white students, has many cultures represented in their current population.

The Oak Creek-Franklin School District contains nine school buildings (Six elementary and k-5, two middle schools, and one high school). The enrollment of all students district wide for Oak Creek-Franklin was 1,301 in the 2008-09 school year. Because of the trend on the following graph, I can only expect the current count to be an increase from the past year.

As of November 2008, student performance on the WKCE test for fourth grade is shown above. It tells us that most students have a proficient level for all of the subjects tested. The subject in which students had most problems was math. The subject that had the highest number of advanced students was Social Studies. An interesting fact that I observed was the number of students that performed minimally in Language Arts compared to the number of students who performed minimally in reading.



As of November 2008, the eight graders in the Oak Creek-Franklin school district performed well on the reading section of the WKCE. Most students were at a proficient or advanced level. Again, math had the lowest amount of advanced students, but did have the most number of proficient students. The language arts section of the test had the most students in both minimal and basic performance.



For the 2007-08 school year, the attendance was very similar compared to the numbers of previous years. About 95% of students came to school every day in the 07-08 school year. The highest attendance rate came in 2006-07 with about 97%. For the years depicted on the following graph, the attendance of Oak Creek students has been fairly consistent.



In the Oak Creek-Franklin School District, many students are planning on attaining a higher level of education. Most students are attending a four year institution. The second largest group of students are attending a two year institution. A fact that I thought interesting was the increase of students who are joining the military compared to years past. Our world culture has definitely had an impact on this statistic.



In the Oak Creek-Franklin school district, there has been a recent increase in higher degrees for teachers. All teachers must have a development plan in which they give themselves goals and benchmarks to meet in order to become effective practitioners. In the 2008-09 school year, many of the teachers received their higher degree, giving the district its first increase in qualifications in four school years.



=Phase Two: Data Collection = = = In the Oak Creek - Franklin School District, there are many different cultures represented among its students. From my observations in Mrs. Vance's classroom at Shepard Hills Elementary, most cultures are represented that are present in the school district. One of Mrs. Vance's main goals for each school year is to have a close classroom community. This I believe reflects her belief's on cultural competence. Each school year, Mrs. Vance places students within "tribes" and has community building activities that feature each student throughout the process. I had the chance to see one of these activities, in which each student brought one item that they treasured to class. They had a few minutes to share with their tribe about why they chose that item. After every student had the chance to share, tribe members had the chance to share with the entire group about another member's item. It was really interesting to see how each tribe member had listened intently to every other member. During this discussion, Mrs. Vance made sure to point out how important it is to treat others as you would want to be treated, no matter what. In my own opinion, I would say that the community is Mrs. Vance's classroom is extremely close and culturally proficient.

As I looked through books in Mrs. Vance's classroom, I did not see a wide variety of culturally proficient choices available. The students in this particular classroom are fairly independent. They like to choose their own personal books for readings, which Mrs. Vance lets them do. The choices that students choose, which are listed on a board, are fairly multicultural due to the many different cultures present. The students are assigned to read a certain number of books outside of class. The books should be from different genres and topics. Many students enjoy this freedom to choose, which motivates them to read more than necessary for the assignment. On my last day at Shepard Hills, I visited the library to look at the different types of books present. The library was quite small, but had a moderate amount of multicultural books available. I wasn't able to speak with a person who was in charge of choosing books, but was informed that there are units across many grades that incorporate multicultural perspectives and promote diversity and social justice.

Overall, Shepard Hills Elementary school is between a culturally competant and proficient school. For the resources that they have available, I could see signs of proficiency, but I had to look harder that I thought. Shepard Hills did have many more multicultural books and culturally proficient themes than I have seen at other suburban school settings.  **Phase 3: Discussion of Findings ** 1. Through my experiences at Shepard Hills Elementary School in the Oak Creek school district, I learned a lot about the role of cultural proficiency. In a fairly diverse community, Oak Creek did have some opportunities for growth, but overall tried to encompass the feeling of community and family throughout their school. The most positive aspect that I experienced was in my own classroom. The teacher, Leah Vance, made each and everyone of her students feel like a valuable part of a team. From my overall observations of the entire school, I feel that there could have been more done to encourage diversity. With such a diverse population of students, I would was hoping to see a higher value of cultural proficiency. 2. As a new educator, I think my own personal goal will be to contribute something new and exciting in the field of cultural proficiency. I would love to make my classroom feel like a family during my first year of teaching. There will be many learning experiences for myself during this year, but what I want most is to have a community that is comforting to all of my students with learning as a universal goal. I also would build my own library with books representing all ethnicities. Even if I end up teaching in a community that lacks in cultural proficiency, my classroom will have an opportunity to expand their own view of multiculturalism.  