Coalitions 4 Success Participants Test Their Perception

Heide Trask, North Brunswick, West Brunswick, and New Hanover High Schools met this summer for session 2 of the Leadership Coalition I. The institute was divided into two goals. First, participants from each school met and aggregated data concerning their school’s LEP (Limited English Proficiency), at-risk and disenfranchised students. Using North Carolina Report Card data, as well as their own each group put together a PowerPoint that was later shared with the group as a whole. Diane Calhoun, Pat Smith, and Rick Neilson helped guide the groups through the information and helped show patterns toward LEP, ESL, and disenfranchised student groups. Secondly they attended a lecture by Dr. Bob Blundo, Coalitions 4 Success Co-PI, concerning strength based solutions and perception.

The participants worked on reflective practices to reveal what was working in their schools for LEP, ESL, and disenfranchised students, as well as the major challenges that come with it.
Erin Green from New Hanover High School identified and presented that some things working for them were their sheltered instruction program and strong support for the ESL program. Challenges seen by the group included: large class sizes, which prevented one on one instruction and the need for increased visuals in instruction. Demographic data showed that LEP and ESL students were lagging behind in passing End of Course testing.

Pender High’s group decided that their best practices were adopting bilingual text books and having a buddy system where ESL students were paired together. Also identifying disenfranchised students’ needs early helped to provided better services to students. Some challenges discovered were attendance problems, racial tensions, communicating with families, and reading comprehension. The demographics data showed that disenfranchised students’ parents had low attendance and participation in students’ school.

West Brunswick High School presented their best practices as having tutoring available for all courses and at various times to meet students needs, while the challenges are no onsite ESL teacher, keeping disenfranchised students engaged, and having structured educational procedures for ESL students. Demographics showed that one surprising group of disenfranchised students are white males, who show higher drop out rates.

Heide Trask High Schools’ presentation revealed that they have assessment tools and proper placement based on the test results of LEP/ESL students. Also the school provides academic intervention and remediation for students showing slow progress. The group found that the challenges they face include: unstable family life, pregnancy, gang affiliation, and state accountability programs which give them no academic flexibility. Demographics showed lower test scores for state EOCs by ESL students and high dropout rates amongst white males; similar to West Brunswick High.

Dr. Blundo, Coalitions 4 Success, CO-Principal Investigator and professor in Social Work led the group in the afternoon with discussions on perception and strength based solutions.

He introduced the participants to some tests in perceptions as seen below.

Connect all the dots with four straight
lines and without lifting your pencil.

Do you see an older woman or a younger woman?

Merriam Webster defines perspective as: the interrelation in which a subject or its parts are mentally viewed.

By introducing the participants to some fun brain activities with perceptions he showed that people see things in different ways; also that you must think out of the box in instances to discover the solution. Dr. Blundo put across the idea that people do the best they can and we are successful most of the time. “Envision a life beyond the problem” was the point he made concerning a strength based approach to helping disenfranchised students. He wanted participants to think of ways to help students without dwelling on the problem. Instead of saying to a student, “why were you out for five days” a teacher could approach the situation by saying, “how did you make it to school for two weeks straight.” In this scenario participants are left to think of ways to build on positive reinforcement for the student rather than dwelling on the problem which may be unmanageable. Dr. Blundo explained that a teacher can determine the upper limits of the capacity to grow and change and then help students reach that goal. He further proposes that “we best serve by collaborating with them.” Dr. Blundo showed that teachers exemplify the role model for students to discover a positive influence. A quote he put on the overhead from Blaise Pascal summed up the great epiphany for the afternoon, “People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the minds of others.”

The next meeting of Coalitions 4 Success is planned for August/September where participants will be meeting with representatives from Garza Independence High School to discover their success with the strengths based solution model that they have implemented in their school.