Casalnuovo !

Jenae Casalnuovo
Dr. Katie Lewis
EDUC 4180
8 September 2017

Describing Short Elementary School

This school year, I am placed at Short Elementary School for my teaching observations

and student teaching. It is nestled in the Gerstle Park neighborhood of the west end of San

Rafael, California. This upper-middle class residential area is lined with countless trees and has a

central park as its defining feature. The park boasts picnic areas, barbecues, a basketball court, a

tennis court, and a new playground. At Short, there is one class per grade for kindergarten

through second grade, and two classes per grade for third through fifth grade. The average class

size is approximately 22 students. Since its reopening in August of 2010, Short Elementary has

been run on a looping system, meaning that each teacher stays with their class for two school

years before the students move on to a new teacher.

The sign on the front of the school building, visible from the street.
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As you approach the front of the campus, there is a staircase and a handicap-accessible

pathway that lead to the entrance. After walking through the front gate, the main office is located

on the left. This includes the front administrative desk, principals office, staff office, storage

closet, two staff bathrooms, and staff room. There are two doors that lead outside from the staff

room one to a private outdoor table for teachers to eat lunch at, and one to the blacktop.

Directly across from the office front door is a welcome bulletin board with the names and

photographs of all the staff members.

The welcome board by the school entrance, across from the office.

If you continue down the open-air hallway past the office and bulletin board, there are

two doors on the right that lead into a building with several classrooms, speech and resource

rooms, and student bathrooms. If you follow the path to the left, you will see classroom doors on

the left and the blacktop on the right. There are tables under the awning, up against the outside of

the classroom walls, for students to eat snack and lunch at. The blacktop, as well as the grass
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field around the corner, are open for all students to use, no matter what grade they are in. This is

not the case, however, for playground usage. There is one playground for the lower grades, and a

separate playground for the upper grades. On the left-hand side of the blacktop, in between the

two playgrounds, is a building that houses both the cafeteria and the library.

The classroom doors and student tables on the left of the open-air hallway.
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The blacktop for all students to use. The upper grade playground can be seen on the

right-hand side. The grass field is located just beyond this playground, to the right

(not pictured).

The cafeteria side of this multi-purpose building, with the lower grade playground

to the left.

In terms of special programmatic attributes of Short, the staff has implemented Toolbox,

created by Dovetail Learning, to help foster social-emotional learning. This program teaches

students to integrate twelve specific tools, such as the breathing tool and the patience tool,

into their repertoire of self-regulation skills. There are reminders about these tools hung up on

bulletin boards across campus. In addition to this program, the principal and teachers place a big

emphasis on the importance of respect within their community, and there are posters hung up

around school that show students what respect looks and sounds like in each campus location.

Students help create the guidelines on these posters, and can then refer to them if a question

arises about their behavior in said space.

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A bulletin board located by the blacktop that reminds students about their Toolbox

tools and what respect looks like on the playground.

Short Elementary is considered a model school, however, for its implementation of a

program other than Toolbox: Be GLAD. This acronym stands for guided language acquisition

design. It was created with the underlying foundation of supporting English language learners

and helping them advance their acquisition of English and gain literacy, but it accomplishes even

more than this with its inquiry-driven, project-based curriculum. It builds in linguistic support

during regular content instruction so that English learners are able to work on their language

fluency while still accessing the content at hand. Educators who are certified by this program are

taught 35 strategies that revolve around focus and motivation, input of new knowledge, guided

oral practice, and reading and writing development. Some specific strategies include using
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inquiry charts, creating cognitive content dictionaries, implementing sentence patterning charts,

and teaching ear-to-ear reading.

Research data supports Be GLADs effectiveness. For instance, 89% of high school

students who received GLAD instruction passed their math classes, compared to the 6% passing

rate of English language learner students who did not receive this instruction. The same success

is shown in regard to English classes 94% of high school students who received GLAD

passed, compared to only 13% of English learners passing without it. This success rate is

particularly promising for a school with a student population like Short Elementarys. Roughly

94% of the students are Hispanic, and the majority of this group speaks Spanish as their primary

language. Across all of the student population, 86% are English learners. The reason for this is

mostly due to the fact that it is used as a schooling site for students whose neighborhood schools

have impacted classrooms. One of the main schools in this district experiencing this issue is

Bahia Vista, located in the Canal neighborhood of San Rafael, which is predominately Hispanic.

The majority of Shorts students take the bus from the Canal to Gerstle Park every morning.

There are some students, though, whose families specifically chose for them to attend Short

because of its effective implementation of Be GLAD. There is also a small number of students

for whom Short is their neighborhood school.

In addition to statistics about ethnicity and language, it is important to note that almost

84% of students qualify for free lunch, meaning that their annual family income is under

$15,171. On top of this, about 11% of students qualify for reduced lunch, meaning that their

annual family income is under $21,590. This classifies Short Elementary as a Title 1 school, thus

allowing them to receive financial assistance to help their students meet state standards. The
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student population is composed of 51% males and 49% females. Approximately 10% of students

have been identified with a learning disability, which is average for a school in California. Its

percentage of students who were absent fifteen or more days per year is 14%, which is higher

than the state average of 9%.