Characteristics of Isom Elementary School in Lynden School District

80.00%

70.40%
70.00%

60.00%

49.90% 50.10%
50.00%

40.00%

30.00%
22.40%

20.00%
12.60%

10.00% 7.10%
2.20%
0.00%
Race Gender Transitional Bilingual Migrant

White Hispanic Other (Asian, African American, Native) Male Female

2.C
This assignment was done in my Teaching and Learning 333 course, which was an
introductory class for the ELL endorsement. This class taught basic theories surrounding ELL
students as well as to form a foundation that will enable future teachers to make informed
decisions concerning linguistically and culturally diverse students. This assignment was about
the demographics of the elementary school I went to as a child. Through this assignment I used
the OPSI’s school report card to graph the statistics concerning students at this school. From
there, I was able to compare data and evaluate any special programs the school offered for ELL
students. Through an analysis of the students and the correlation between the percent of
Hispanic students and the town economy, in terms of immigrant status’ and SES status’, I was
able to evaluate the school’s transitional bilingual program. This assignment shows that I am
aware that students come from different backgrounds, with different needs. People often have
assumptions when it comes to immigrant and migrant students, most of which are centered
around being low SES or low learning. This is incredibly wrong however. The migrant population
in Lynden, and many other places, are not low SES and the students are very high achieving.
These students come from supportive families and they are eager to learn, they just need help
learning English first. This assignment really reminded me how diverse my future classroom can
be, and how I need to make sure to stay away from making assumptions about my students. All
my students, no matter their background, can be successful. Having diverse backgrounds
should have a positive impact on student learning, and this is another way this assignment
shows that I understand the impact these things have on my students. Students will come into
my classroom bearing weight from things like, which SES class they’re in, their religion, gender
identity, and race. My job and goal as a teacher is to take these differences and use them to
help make that student successful. These differences can positively impact student’s learning
even if they seem like a negative impact at first.