Zora Neale Hurston Elementary is an "A" school located directly behind W. Thomas Middle School (a feeder school to Braddock and most local gangs). It is located in a suburban area off a busy street (Coral Way). Most students in the school come from low-income immigrant families, 70-75% of all students are on free or reduced lunch. The residential area feeding the school is a large, predominantly blue collar, Hispanic trailer park. As a result most parents of students at Zora Neale do not speak English and are not educated beyond middle or high school. This fact has posed a problem recently as FCAT scores have come back and are not all positive, the handicap is that many well-meaning parents cannot help the situation as they cannot read with their children in English.
At Zora Neale I observe with Mrs. Mabel Granda, a ten-year teaching veteran. She has spent four years at and inner city school and the last six years here at Zora Neale. I met Mrs. Granda when she was my ESOL 4902 instructor at Nova and later learned from a mutual friend and MDPS employee and Mrs. Granda was an excellent teacher and that I would greatly benefit form observation time with her, which I have.
Mrs. Granda's class is made up of higher-level 2nd graders involved in the bilingual education program. This means that one subject (in this case Social Studies) is taught in Spanish, in addition to daily Spanish classes with a separate teacher. Also unique to her group is that Mrs. Granda has been involved in a cycle program where teachers follow their students from 1st to 2nd grade, thus maintaining the same group for two years. I feel this helps because you can dedicate more time to establishing order, rules, and procedures at first knowing you will have two years to enforce them. I also feel this is a positive program because it allows you more of an opportunity to establish real connections with your students.