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Craig Williamson
ADED 42292
Prof. Swarts
September 30, 2015
Assignment #2 School Culture
1. What are the family/community and cultural assets for your students? What does/do
the cultures of the families of your school community mean for your teaching?
Howland city schools list these three statements as their core beliefs. 1) A
student-centered learning environment is essential for success. 2) School, home and
community collaboration are necessary to achieve responsibility in our schools.
3) Academic excellence, professionalism and respect are developed by defined
procedures for achievement, ethics and pride. Through my discussions with faculty
members at Howland Middle School it is easy to see them attempting to put these core
beliefs into action.
As it pertains to parents, family, and community Howland does their best to
involve the students parents whenever possible. Though a beginning of the year meet
and greet parents have the opportunity to meet and hear from their students teachers
and begin to understand their students upcoming curriculum. This is also a unique
opportunity to allow parents to know what will be expected over the upcoming school
year as well as changes to rules or policy. Were I a full time teacher there I believe this
would be an excellent opportunity to accomplish two different goals. Firstly it would
present me with an opportunity to not only make sure that parents had a copy of my
classroom syllabus, it would also allow me to create a second parental syllabus which
could be used as an opportunity to keep the parents involved through at home
discussion. Secondly this would present me with a chance to present parents with a
much smaller condensed version of my teaching rationale to ensure they fully
understand my goals in the classroom.
Over the last decade Howland has also fully switched over to an entire online
grade book. This system allows both students and parents too quickly and easily
discover current grades; but through the system every teacher is able to upload any
relevant documents such as make up assignments, in class worksheets, or take home
review sheets which allow parents to better interact with their students curriculum. This
also allows for instantaneous explanation and scaffolding by allowing a teacher a space
to provide feedback to both student and parent when an assignment maybe lacking.
As for activities for students, both the school and the community support local
teams and groups. The community supplies sporting programs separate from the school
teams for younger students. These include football, basketball, baseball, softball, and
soccer. As a large school district students have all of these options available to them
when they progress in age in addition to other programs such as tennis, golf, cross
country, track and field, and bowling. There are also programs to encourage excellence
in other non-sport related fields such as band, gifted art programs, math challenge
teams, and academic bowl. Howland City Schools and the community offer a well-

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rounded opportunity for students to be involved outside of the classroom. For me these
programs offer an opportunity to be an active participant around the community.
Whether through coaching or attending other events simply for support it offers a
teacher the chance to interact both with your students and their parents outside of the
classroom setting and show that you care about their growth not only academically but
also as a well-rounded maturing adolescent.
2. Provide some demographic and other data about your school.
The Howland Local School District is located in Howland Township, Trumbull
County, in Northeastern Ohio. Howland Township is one of two urban townships in
Trumbull County. At the last census; Howland Township had a population of 19,106.
Just over 28% of those homes had school-age children. Howland educates
approximately 2,960 students each year. Fifty-seven percent of the money used to
educate our students during the 2013-2014 school year came from local taxes while
thirty-six percent came from the State. Last school year, Howlands graduation rate was
91.4 % and we met 87.5% of the state indicators on the Ohio Achievement Tests.
Howland spends an average of $8,340 per student which places it middle of the pack
among districts in Ohio.
To say that Howland is diversity challenged may be an understatement. Of the
total township population 92.7% are identified as white alone, while 3.4% are identified
as African American, no other group accounts for more than 1.4% of the population.
While the schools are slightly more diverse than the city itself due to open enrollment
the school is still very white. Unfortunately the only group in Howland schools that
seems to be growing are those who have been declared economically disadvantaged.
That number has risen over steadily over the last 10 year. While Howland has an
estimated median household income $10,000 a year greater than that of the average
household in Ohio ($58,922 compared to $48,081), the percent of children attending
schools who are economically disadvantaged has risen to over 31%. Some of this can
be attributed to open enrollment from more economically challenged urban centers, but
much of this is due to the median age of Howland residents increasing. Older adults not
having children with established wealth are remaining in the city; however the younger
adults who have started families over the last 15 years are more economically
challenged.
Another troubling statistic is that when judging Howlands effectiveness at
improving scores in math and reading they are slightly above the state average,
receiving a B on their last district report card. However when you adjust for
improvement among students who rank in the bottom 20% and students with IEPs that
number drops dramatically and their recent grade in both categories was a D.
These numbers present both a challenge and an opportunity for me as a new
teacher when planning my curriculum. I will need to play special attention to my
struggling students and students with IEPs to make sure they are receiving the proper
scaffolding needed to be successful in my class. Also I will need to make sure that I
work closely with Councilors and Intervention Specialists to ensure I have the proper
knowledge and support to guarantee my students success. As for the culture of
Howland, the lack of racial and cultural diversity means that I need to make sure that I

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am focusing on minority opinions and points of view to ensure my students learn

empathy and to look beyond their own culture for answers to social problems. This
presents an opportunity to engage my students and open their eyes to ideas and issues
which they have never been presented with, and hopefully broaden their experiences
and ways of thinking to help build engaged and active citizens in a global community.
3. What are the broad social and political factors in your community that could influence
your teaching? What do these mean for your teaching in the fall.
Howlands location near major urban centers such as Akron, Cleveland, and
Pittsburgh present the opportunity to talk about urban issues that students growing up in
Howland may have never been exposed too. In addition to these I think its always
important to attempt to pull local issues such as levys, pollution, and other issues facing
the community into the classroom for debate and discussion. I also believe that it is of
utter importance to include national issues which I find culturally important or the
students find interesting. For this reason I will continue to use Mrs. Pappass Friday
current events sessions to generate appropriate and respectful debate over local and
national issues.
Some of these examples could include researching candidates for local
elections, researching statewide issues such as pollution or fracking; and drawing from
national debates on issues such as race, equality, and entitlements. This coming fall
presents an opportunity as I will be teaching during the presidential primary season, and
this may allow me to introduce my students to the political process at an early age in an
attempt to teach them credible sources to search for information on candidates and
platforms. I believe it is essential to instill this sense of democratic citizenship in my
students, which at its base level includes interest and participation in the electoral
process.
4. Describe your students in terms of social/emotion development, academic language
development, and academic development. Then describe what these findings mean for
your teaching?
Much of my post placement research has centered on age appropriate pedagogy
for students in middle schools. Nothing of what I have seen so far in my school has led
me to believe that these educational studies are incorrect. Students in 7 th grade are
cognitively developing faster than they have at any point in their development. When
challenged their capacity to meet challenges is growing at an extremely high rate.
However socially and emotionally they are at an extremely delicate point. They are just
beginning to dissociate with their parents ideas and opinions on issues, and developing
their own moral, ethical, and social ideas. They are beginning to crave attention and
approval from their peer group in a way they never have before, and this leads to them
longing and desiring activities that allow them to work and interact with their classmates.
It is also extremely important to foster academic development in skills and ways
of thinking. Students need to begin to develop appropriate habits that can serve them
later in their educational career. The ability to establish credibility, the ability to think
historically, and the ability to translate those skills both orally and through written texts is

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of utmost importance. It is important to identify early which of these areas your students
may be lacking in as they transition from their primary schools into middle school to
prepare them for high school, college, and the workforce.
As a teacher these issues may influence my methodology more than any other
factors. Focusing on both literacy and historical literacy is of the utmost importance to
me. Allowing students to think in big ideas and begin to discover what issues in the
world mean to them as opposed to being told what they should mean is essential. While
doing this I must design my lessons in a way that fosters these ideas, and also satisfies
their need for community and peer group interaction. Methods that promote interaction
such a roleplaying, debates, and group discovery is essential at this time. These and
other methods similar to them have been shown to have both the greatest lasting
impact, as well as generate the most excitement among students of this age group.
Ensuring that my curriculum and methods match the social and cognitive needs of my
students is perhaps the most crucial path a teacher in middle school must navigate.