The Make-Up of My Service Learning Group (Prompt #1)

I am completing my service learning project hours in an after school mentoring program that we will call "The Down City Center". The tutoring facility is made up of mainly spanish speaking students. After speaking to the instructor I found that many of the students are from the Dominican Republic. These students are offered this program through their high schools which are less than a hundred feet away. We will refer to the two high schools as "Purple High" and "Crimson High". Students and parents sign an agreement to enter this tutoring program. Parents sign their children up to attend a certain number of tutoring hours each day. After school the students come to the Down City Center and sign in. If their parents have requested they attend the full tutoring session they must be at the center from 3pm until 6pm but most students attend from 3:30pm until 5:30pm. Volunteers come to the center to offer tutoring in all subjects but the number of volunteers differs daily and the supervisor does a great amount of tutoring on days with few volunteers. The make up of students on my visits have so far consisted of 1 Purple High student and the remainder of students all being Crimson High students. The State Learning and Achievement Assessment rates these schools very differently.

Purple High: making "adequate yearly progress" and has hit 19 out of 19 target standards. Purple High has no ESL program and less than 1% of the students are receiving special education services. White and  Hispanic populations are roughly the same size at 35% the rest of the students are 20% Black and 11% Asian. Only 50% of Purple High Students are eligible for free or reduced price lunch. In grade 11 all students are above proficiency standards in mathematics, reading, and writing when compared to all other Rhode Island high schools. The population of this school is not mobile at only 3% but 99.3% graduate. This school has an entrance exam.

Crimson High: making "insufficient yearly progress" and has hit 20 out of 24 target standards. Crimson High is rated below all other Rhode Island High Schools in mathematics, reading, and writing. 63% of the population is Hispanic, 20% is Black, 10% is Asian, and 6% is White. 81% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch. 5% of students in ESL and 8% identify as bilingual. Crimson has both self-contained and supported special needs classrooms. Crimson High has a highly mobile population at 33% and graduation rate of 72.8%.

Crimson High benefits from the tutoring done in the Down City Center far more than Purple High. I interested to interact with students that are trying to improve themselves but I wonder why the tutoring center is not packed everyday considering Crimson High's failure to meet standards. The structure of this program makes it ideal for Hispanic students as they receive additional ESL class on Tuesdays and Thursdays from Brown University students. I look forward to reporting more about my service learning project at the Down City Center.