Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Diverse Communities
Public School System. Phelps Luck is a tight-knit community with great diversity, but also
increased poverty levels compared to many other HCPSS schools. According to the 2017-2018
school year statistics, 62.6% of Phelps Luck’s students received free/reduced lunch (Fact Sheet,
HCPSS.) These students are in lower socioeconomic classes and therefore often struggle, due to
those engagement factors. In addition, 17.7% of students at Phelps Luck have limited English
proficiency. Similarly, their vocabulary, and often the parents’ vocabulary, is affecting their
Addressing Diversity
At PLES, the media center works diligently to support students and the larger community
through an understanding of the poverty levels and families with limited English. First and
foremost, the in the library, we do not issue fines for lost books. Students in K-2nd may only have
one book out at a time, whereas 3rd-5th can have two books out at a time. If students have not
returned a book, they will not be able to exceed their checkout list until they have returned it;
they are given “overdue” slips to bring home. However, if students are unable to return their
books after an extended period of time and therefore missed book checkout for over a month,
these students are granted “another chance.” The thought behind this is that students may live in
Regarding our larger population of ELL students, we have a Spanish section and ensure
our lessons have appropriate differentiation. Oftentimes, new students enter our classroom with
less than a day, let alone an hour, of notice. The transient nature of students in the area means
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that we must always have options for Spanish-speaking students. Fortunately, many of our
students speak English and Spanish; these individuals do translate for new students.
To support students and the ever-changing community, Phelps Luck has incorporated
healing circles into a daily general-education classroom routine. I have utilized these within my
classes and seen the incredible engagement during this timeframe. Additionally, the media center
is a place where students are able to access information they may not otherwise see.
The poverty which many of our students face is often discussed and PLES has
implemented a year-long collection of PDs that focus on the book Engaging Students with
As I stated in the daily journal, this was a wonderful environment for open communication.
Although I would have preferred to read the text prior or to read a specific section, this did give
us all a basis for discussing a new topic. There was opportunities for educators to collaborate on
ways they address this in their classroom and to understand the larger implications of home life
on student engagement.
The role of the media specialist regarding engagement and poverty revolves around
equitable access to resources. We are responsible for aiding students in their access to resources
as well as teaching them info literacy skills. The seven engagement factors, which we discussed
during this meeting, are health and nutrition, vocabulary, effort and energy, mind-set, cognitive
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capacity, relationships, and stress level. These are strongly connected to socioeconomic status