The school I have been observing at is located in a low socioeconomic area. The first week I was there the school was doing a fundraiser. They were doing a color walk and depending on how much money they raised the student got a shirt, color packet and/or a head band. The school did not want any of the students to feel left out. All of the students got to participate in the color walk regardless of if they raised any money or not. I did not actually get to see the students do the walk but I heard they had a great time. I did see a lot of parent volunteers. In the classroom, I never saw any parents come in to help out. I do know that one of the students has a mom on the PTA and she does a lot of volunteering at the school. This shows me that according to Bronfenbrenner the mesosystem of the classroom is week in some students and strong in others. There are times when the teacher will try and contact a parent either through a phone call or letter in the agendas and never hears back from the parents. One student told the teacher the reason her mom could not call her back was because “she did not have any more minutes on her cell phone.” There is also the fact that the teacher has three ELL students in her classroom whose parents do not speak English. It is very hard for her to communicate with these parents. The school does have an ESOL para but she is working with all 40 ESOL students and it is hard for her to make time to come and talk with the parents.
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