Alyssa+Rosado

Brown Deer Phase 1 **Brown Deer’s Community** Brown Deer is a village located in northern Milwaukee County. The village population is approximately 12,000 people within 4.5 square miles. The village is accessible by the Milwaukee County Transit System as well as conveniently located between two expressways. Some of the services the village provides are a police department, library and recreation department. Within the village is a large county park, Brown Deer Park, and the Milwaukee River. The Brown Deer School District has three schools; Dean Elementary, Brown Deer Middle School and Brown Deer High School that serves the community. **Brown Deer School District** The Brown Deer School District’s goals are to improve student achievement to 100% by 2012 in all content areas with an emphasis on improving the reading, writing, and math skills of the student population. The district is targeting 21st Century skills as the key to success in our ever changing world. To effectively attain these goals the district recognizes the importance of parent and community involvement. The mission statement is, “The School District of Brown Deer is a learning community committed to graduate students with skills and a sense of purpose to adapt, thrive, and excel in a changing world.”



Enrollment was fairly steady through the10 years of 1996-97 and 2006-07 with numbers ranging between 300 and 400 students. The lowest count occurred during the 2005-06 school year, but enrollment has steadily increased the last 3 school years. The data from the 2008-09 school year shows that the student population has nearly doubled since 2005-06 with 572 students.



There is a slight increase in student enrollments with a primary disability over the past two school years. The increase occurred primarily in the category of speech or language disabilities. Based on an increase in student population there has been an overall decrease in percentages of the students classified by a primary disability, with 90.5% of the student population w/o disability in 2002-03 and 83% of the students’ population w/o disability in 2008-09.

Based on the data, the students are 90% proficient or better on the Social Studies WKCE, which indicates that Social Studies is an academic strength. The students also performed better on Math with 84% of the population proficient or better. The students’ performance on the Reading, Language and Science categories all indicate a lack of skills with students that scored proficient or advanced between 68-74%.



All of the teachers at Dean Elementary are fully licensed. The district utilized emergency licensed teachers during the 2003-04 school year. The number of teachers has increased 22 to 35 full-time teachers from 2002-03 to 2008-09 school year.



The student attendance has remained steady over the last 12 years. Although the student population has increased, the students’ attendance rate stayed within 1%. During the 1996-97 years there was a 96.7% attendance rate compared with the 2007-08 years of 95.6% attendance rate.

Resources } [|www.dpi.state.wi.us/sig]


 * Alyssa Rosado **
 * School Profile- Data Collection Process (Phase II) **

1. As you walk through the school, what evidence do you see that the school practices culturally responsive practices? At my placement there are several examples that the school performs culturally responsive practices. There are posters that exhibit several different ethnicities of people enjoying books throughout the hallways. I also witnessed several different examples of artwork from various cultural regions throughout the world.

2. In the classroom in which you are placed, how are issues of race, class, and culture addressed? I did not witness any interaction that suggested there was content or instruction tailored to include race, class and culture within the classroom. The students while working on a language arts project verbalized several misconceptions and generalizations about race and culture. The classroom had a cultural blindness in the fact that there was no effort to combine culture and learning.

3. Look at the child and adolescent literature in your classroom or the school library. How well does it represent multiple cultures? Does it represent the cultures of the students who attend the school? Interview someone at the school who is responsible for selecting and ordering literature. How is the issue of multicultural representation addressed in the book selection process? Within the classroom I did not see any special emphasis on the culture of the students or any other culture worldwide. There were tubs of books in the reading corner, but most of the selections were not addressing those issues. In the library there was a wide variety of books that represented many cultures. There were books set aside to commemorate Women’s Month and within that section there was cultural and socioeconomic varieties offered. I spoke with the librarian and there is a special effort to include multiple cultures when books are bought for the library. I was also told that the students have expressed interest in books that deal with controversial topics that teens face. I witnessed several books displayed on the top of the shelves that place a special emphasis on including African American authors, which half the student population is African American. In the books that can be chosen for the book clubs there is also a wide variety of topics and cultures represented.

**School Profile- Discussion (Phase III)**

1. What did you discover? Were you surprised? Briefly talk about an area you either found positive, supportive, or maybe toxic. ( 1 paragraph)

What I found was a neutral stance on cultural awareness. Although there seems to be attempts at fostering a knowledge of all cultures, ultimately in the instruction I witnessed I felt the school was lacking. The environment is not toxic by any means. The school actually has a great degree of diversity that should be celebrated and honored and I feel it is only on a surface level, but not deeply. The students conversation that I witnessed made me feel that the students are very interested in the differences that each one brings to the classroom. I am surprised that the classroom teacher does not incorporate more culture, especially since he is the social studies teacher. The library did offer a great variety of texts and the classroom teacher would be wise to incorporate some of the diverse perspectives in his classroom. Overall I feel there is much that could be done within the classroom I witnessed to include multicultural experiences, especially for the students to learn about eachothers' backgrounds.

2. Discuss how you as a new educator in the building could begin to contribute, shape, or change the school culture. ( 1 paragraph)

I would offer the students meaningful opportunities for learning about other cultures by including literature rich in culture and varying viewpoints. As I teach social studies I will include many perspectives on the historical periods the class is studying. I would invite the students to share their personal stories and connections to the material. I find this part extremely important since the classes are so diverse to begin with. The students would learn so much from each other by sharing their perspectives. I would make sure I create a classroom that respects individual differences and celebrates each students uniqueness that they bring to the classroom.