North Miami Beach Senior High School's learning environment and academic proficiency

FL Standard 5: Learning Environment

Overview North Miami Beach Senior High, is a diverse student population focuses on improving school performance. As a school within the most populace and diverse counties in the state of Florida, my internship provided a very comprehensive experience as it relates to school improvement plans. NMB has struggled with challenges related to literacy and reading proficiency. Much like many other high schools in the nation, the schools are also looking to transition students in science, technology, engineering and math subjects. A critical element within these key performance indicators is the overall learning environment. Research has indicated that the learning environment is a critical element in the performance of students, their willingness to be vulnerable with other students. The learning environment also establishes student social skills that can be leveraged within the overall environment to further enhance subject level proficiency (Bolner, 1998).
As it relates to North Miami Beach Senior High, the student population is heavily Hispanic and African American. 97% of the student body of 1533 is a minority, with the majority being African American. This is higher than the both national and Florida average with is 62%. Unfortunately, this school has placed in the bottom 50% of schools, as it relates to reading and math proficiency score, for the last 5 years. The overall percentage of students achieving reading proficiency is just 32% which is below the national average of 55%. Alarming, even with these low proficiency scores, the school still graduates roughly 90% of its students. According to the US New and World Report, North Miami Beach Senior High School rants 7222 in the national rankings and 341st as it relates to Florida High Schools. This creates a cascading impact on the future of these students as they enter a competitive workplace with lower reading and math proficiency skills. As a result, many of these students are ill-equipped to competent with their more proficient high school graduate peers. Further compounding this issue is the lower socio-economic status from which many of these students are immersed in. Currently, 70% of students within the North Miami Beach Senior High are eligible for free lunch. The average annual incomes for families within the district are just $41,000 well below the national average of $65,000. In addition, the parents of many of these students enrolled have never attended or graduated from college themselves.
In summary, the high school currently struggles with math, reading, and writing proficiency, which has consistently lagged behind the national average. Despite these low proficiency ratings, the school continues to graduate roughly 90% of all of their students. As a result, these students are ill-equipped to enter college or compete for employment as compared to their much more proficient high school counterparts. Compounding the issue is an environment with low social-economic status predicated on an overall lack of education with the district itself. This ultimately creates an environment in which many graduates continue to lag behind their other high school peers.
To properly mitigate these impacts, the current learning environment within the high school is critical to enhance the overall student experience. The learning environment must create an atmosphere that allows students to seamless exchange concept and ideas within the classroom. Students should also be able to freely learn at their own pace. Finally, the collaboration between teachers and students must become much more robust in order to better hold parents accountable for what is taught within the home when students are outside of the classroom. Reflecting on the Standard The learning environment standard as noted above is critical for student success. For one it helps to develop a culture predicated on collaboration and learning within the confines of a diverse environment. It also develops a foundation which can be leveraged to increase proficiency with both reading and math concepts.
Although less discussed in literature, a strong learning environment also impacts the instructors themselves by creating an environment in which they can flourish as well. Florida, much like other states, is an experiencing a protracted increase in teacher shortages throughout the state. A large reason that contributes to this shortage is related to the learning environment. Teachers with low salaries, poor working conditions, and lack of education support ultimately result in teachers leaving the profession (Darling-Hammond, 2005). They are then replaced by new teachers facing similar circumstances, create a systemic problem with higher turnover (Gray, 2015). The literature suggests that states must first provide better working environments for teachers, particularly in low income and impoverished communities. In addition, states must lower attrition rates by improving salaries and improving mentoring opportunities. (Sherratt, 2016). As a result of improving the overall learning environment, teachers are much more engaged within the overall education process. This allows quality teachers to remain teaching as oppose to pursuing careers and other opportunities elsewhere. Teacher retention is a very compelling benefit that ultimately helps to lower turnover, increase engagement, and increase student proficiency with reading, writing, and math (Darling-Hammond, 2000). Summary of Activity #1: Lunch Duty To properly ascertain the work environment, it is important to review the dynamic in which students interact with one another. Lunch duty provides insight into the authentic features that underpin the overall learning environment within the high school. Here, the planning involved overserving students in the lunch environment for 15 school days to observe the interactions between students and they perceive the learning environment within the high school. The primary aim is to properly decipher areas in which to improve the overall learning environment to improve learning proficiency. During each segment I observed a different group of students interacting during the period. I took notes relate to conversations, any negative attributes, positive attributes, and common complaints from students. After three full weeks of observations, a review of the observations was conducted to better determine any common elements related to the overall learning environment. The activity was insightful as it provided a baseline by which to form a hypothesis as to methods to improve the learning environment. In total roughly 20 hours were spent with this activity.

Summary of Activity #2: Participate in Planning the Back-to-School Activities of Students Using the information gained from Activity 1, a foundation was used to help determine back to school activities for students. Here, I partnered with school leadership and staff to properly plan activities for students once they arrive back to school in the fall. To begin, leadership of the school first set their strategic priorities for the year primarily related to improving literacy and math proficiency. Leadership also looked to develop college readiness particularly as roughly 97% of the student body is an underrepresented minority. As a result of these strategic priorities the staff of the high school formulated activities is in which the accomplish these strategic objectives. Next, leadership developed milestones and methods in which to evaluate the overall progress of the required strategic objectives. These evaluations would occur once per quarter with a corrective action being taken within the following quarter.
To properly achieve these goals, curriculum changes were required. Upon review, existing curriculum and teaching metrics were very antiquated relative to current education standards. This was primarily a function of the budget constraints imposed on the school. Namely, financial constraints heavily restricted the ability for the school to engage in programs designed to assist students in their ability to improve their overall proficiency. As a result, curriculum changes were needed to updated the learning activities to be much more conducive to learning. These changes included heavy use of collaboration and group activities designed to encourages students to learn from one another. In addition, the curriculum was changed to encourage much more flexibility as it relates to learning. This flexibility included using hybrid learning models which were established due to COVID-19. Here students can leverage the internet and technology to learn at their own pace. This allows students to mitigate many of the “one-size-fits-all” instruction approached that have contributed to the poor performance of the school in prior years. Likewise, these activities were evaluated on a much more frequent basis to help provide students with a constant stream of feedback in which to develop their proficiency.
In summary, the activities were change to help students collaborate more with one another to better learn from one another. Students often have a unique manner in which they communicate with one another which can differ materially from older instructors. As a result, students can help each other learn through collaboration and communication. Second, the activities also increased their technological basis to help provide flexibility to students as they continue to learn within the COVID-19 environment. Finally, evaluation and feedback were much more frequent at it allows students to see the results of their activities once they return to school. The combination of these elements in designed to help the school improve their proficiency in both math and reading. I total I spent roughly 15 hours on this activity. Summary of Activity #3: Interview a Member of the Custodial Staff and Shadow for a Time After completion of activity 1 and activity 2, the next activity required an allocation of time dedicated to shadowing staff. This activity was arguable the most beneficial and comprehensive of the three. For one, it provides a real-world review of the learning environment that permeates throughout the high school. Much like the lunch duty activity, It provided an authentic element into the elements that are used with the learning environment and how students directly impact with the stimuli within the learning environment.
Immediately from my activity shadowing, I saw the dichotomy between student’s behavior and involvement with one another. The difference with the classroom were both stark and dynamic. Certain students for example were well behaved and engage while others were distracted and often disengaged with the lesson. Those students that were disengaged often were ignored by the teacher, which indirectly validated the students lack of belief in their ability to learn the material. From my roughly 15 hours shadowing students, it became apparent that a segment of the student population needed personal tutoring or “one-on-one” instruction. Here, many of the students were struggling as they were two or three steps behind in their comprehension ability. Many passed their respective grades when in reality, they should have repeated the grade to ensure that the proper foundation was embedded within the learning capacity. Instead, many of these students were “passed” knowing their proficiency was not adequate enough to sustain their learning at the next level. As a result, the learning deficiency compounded overtime until it becomes nearly insurmountable at the later high school levels. This also aligns with the very alarming statistics presented in the introduction noting that graduation rates were nearly 90% where reading and math proficiency were near the bottom 50% of high schools in the nation. The problem appears to be an inability or unwillingness to hold students back a grade if they don’t display the required proficiency. During my shadowing, it was difficult to determine if this occurred due to simply a need to rid the teacher of a troubled student, racism, or simply laziness. Either way, through my shadowing activity, it was clear that students in the 11th and 12th grades were woefully unprepared with the skills needed to succeed in the world of tomorrow. Instead, these students will need to re-dedicate themselves to learning the foundation principles required to become more proficient within their math and reading coursework. Impact on Student Achievement My activities each directly impacted student performance. By far the greatest impacted occurred with activity three where I was able to directly interact with students and assist with their comprehension of reading and math materials. The first two activities help to inform the manner in which I would interact with the respective students within the classroom and learning environment. First, through my interactions with students I was able to connect with them on a much more personal level. To my surprise, a personal connection has a very material impact on the willingness of students to share their learning vulnerabilities. This ultimately allowed me to make a much larger impact on the learning environment as students were first, willing to make mistakes and second feel vulnerable doing so. For example, I help students who were not reading at an 11th grade level through one-on-one coaching. Together, we identified areas of weakness in both reading and reading comprehension. We formulated a plan to meet at least twice a week after school to practice. We focused on reading common material of interest, which, for this student was Jordan brand shoes. Through this activity, the student was able to improve their reading proficiency in a much more intimate, fun, and engaging manner.
As an aside, an element that was not mentioned in the activity description above, which is critical to overall learning environment, is the social stigma in minority communities associated with “Being Smart,” “Acting White,” or “Not being cool.” This stigma was pervasive with the high school and had a very strong grip on student’s inability to improve their overall proficiency. This invisible concept was akin to intangible cancer, slowly diminishing the life and vibrancy of the school. Simply put, it is “uncool” to be smart. This from the experience in the school was the single biggest detriment to minority improvement. When the students I helped where alone and by themselves, they showed a genuine interest in learning. However, with the classroom setting with peers, they often regressed to social norms established by the most popular or “coolest” student. It was a very surprising and interesting dynamic, which from my experience appears to complete undermine the overall learning experience. Those minority students who study, achieve, and are engage were ostracized and shunned by the very community in which they were apart of. They were often ridiculed as not being cool and were made fun of. This ultimately discourages others from becoming engaged in the learning environment as they prioritized social acceptance over reading and math proficiency. From my experience however, many students, when alone want to learn and want to achieve. It is simply when they are in a social construct that they desire to fit into, is when these desires dissolve.
The learning environment must therefore look to first encourage achieve and discourage those who attempt to undermine it as being “uncool.” These thought leaders with the student population have a surprising amount of influence on the behaviors of other students, which in turn impacts the learning environment. To properly improve it therefore, a need to celebrate achievement no matter how small is needed. Reflecting on Personal Growth These activities greatly enhance my personal and professional development. From a personal perspective, I was able to see first-hand how community dynamics can impact a student’s behavior and their future outcomes. I was able to determine how important the environment in which an individual is in, can materially impact their outcome. I also realized the importance of intervention when outcomes are not aligned with the desires of the individual. As it relates to education, social dynamics continue to play a large role in the learning dynamics of students. From a leadership perspective, it is important to establish a culture and an environment that is conducive to learning and that allows all individuals to flourish. I also recognize the power of engagement and recognition when process, no matter how small, is made.