Leadership School Context

Fries Avenue Elem. - 1980s

Main Entrance

Fries Avenue Elem.- 2022

Behind Auditorium

My Expereince at Fries Avenue

I first came to Fries Avenue Elementary in 2018 after being hired by Principal Tracy Joesph. I was hired to teach kindergarten. However, low enrollment by norm day closed the kindergarten classroom and I was moved to teach 5th grade. I spent my first four years moving from grade to grade due to low enrollment and changes in the school matrix and teacher classroom selections. Every year I have been at Fries Avenue we have lost at least one classroom and teacher to low enrollment. By my fourth year, I put in my letter of interest and became the Intervention Support Coordinator and have helped provide reading intervention support and facilitate the Student Support and Progress Team (SSPT) meetings for the last three years. My experience as an Intervention Support Coordinator has helped me view Fries Avenue with a new perspective and better understand the challenges and support provided for our students. I take my role as intervention Support Coordinator as a means to bring about equity and social-justice practices for the benefit of all students.

Fries Avenue Elementary presides in the city of Wilmington, often referred to as the 'Heart of the Harbor'.

Wilmington

Fries Avenue is located in Wilmington, California. Wilmington has a population of roughly 53,000 residents and 90% of that population identified as Hispanic. This is also reflected in the school population demographic. Data from two separate sources shows Wilmington population completed 'no high school', 'some high school', or 'diploma equivalent' at a percentage 65%-69%. The 'less than high school diploma' rate is nearly four times greater than the national average. Similarly, only 6% of residents of Wilmington earned a bachelor's degree compared to a 21% national average. Additionally, 2% of Wilmington residents earned a master's degree or higher while the national average is 13%.

Phineas Banning, Founder of Wilmington

Wilmington History

Wilmington has experienced significant changes over the history of the city that has effected the conditions our students live and go to school in. Phineas Banning acquired the land from Manuel Dominguez in 1858 to build a harbor for the city of Los Angeles. In 1909 Los Angeles annexed Wilmington in order to have one of the world's largest import and export centers. In 1932 the Wilmington Oil fields were discovered and is the third largest oil field in the continental United States with eight major refineries. The refineries are still functioning today and the pollution can still be seen and smelled today.

During Wilmingtons early development the demographic were mostly of white descent at the center of the city. As time went by Wilmington began to draw an Asian population. The next major demographics shift happened when people of Hispanics descent began to populate Wilmington in the 1950's and has now become the majority demographic.

Fries Avenue: Vision, Mission, & Goals

The vision states that the students at Fries Avenue STEAM Academy will be active proficient learners and responsible citizens, and that the community will believe that all students can and will learn.

The mission states that the school will provide a “stimulating learning environment that enables students to become self-motivated, critical thinkers, life long learners and productive, successful members of society by providing: Highly qualified and dedicated staff members; high standards and appropriate assessments to drive instruction; a safe, clean, nurturing, culturally aware learning environment; and opportunities for quality parental involvement.”

One goal of Fries Avenue is to have 45% of all students in grades K-5 to score Benchmark as measured by the end of the year DIBELS assessment. A supporting goal is to have 100% of teachers participate in professional development focused on phonemic awareness to meet the needs of all students struggling to read, which are aligned with appropriate assessments to drive instruction and highly qualified and dedicated staff (Fries Ave. 22-23 SPSA).

Fries Avenue recently made the name change to Fries Avenue STEAM Academy. However, we do not have any significantly different or STEAM focused curriculum other than the district material provided. We do have weekly theater, music, and garden lessons for our students, but are only provided for a semester for each class. We did recently get a STEAM room through 2BitCircus. However, the STEAM room has no clear schedule, plan, or consistent use by the school. Only within the last three years have our upper grade classrooms begun participating at the yearly STEAM Gala for LAUSD District South. This has been the main use of the STEAM room the last three years as teachers needed space and material for the class projects to be presented at the STEAM Gala.

Student Population

The current trend at Fries Avenue has seen a steady decrease in student enrollment over the past years. In fact Fries Avenue used to be a year round school with multiple tracks and student enrollment as high as 1,000 students in the mid 90's. Data from 2017 shows there was 551 students enrolled at Fries Avenue and today we have gone down nearly 200 students to 358.

Student Demographics

Teacher Demographics

Fries Avenue has hired a larger percentage of teachers who have identified as Hispanic.

Marginalization Concerns

Fries Avenue has many concerns and short fallings when it comes to academic performance. I want to focus on three groups experiencing marginalization that I have noticed at my time at Fries Avenue Elementary.

The largest student group is socio-economically disadvantaged which is at 94.4%. I will also include homeless and foster youth and address these three groups as 'students with adverse childhood experiences'.

The next group to focus on is English Learners. Since my first year at Fries Avenue I had questioned where the support was for English Learners. We would receive basic district training once or twice a year, and mostly centered around testing and completing the affidavit for assessing.

The third group is students with chronic absenteeism. Without looking at specific and individual student data for those with chronic absenteeism it can be hard to understand the specific kind of marginalization that can be occurring, but providing uniform supports for these students should be something that must be done first.

Students with Adverse Childhood Experiences

I recall attending a meeting about my school’s community in 2018 and was taken aback at the amount of trauma, poverty, and foster care, as well as one of the highest homicide rates in Los Angeles that existed there. Fries Avenue students are coming to us with so much on their plate already that learning was always going to take a back seat to survival. This information was presented at the school site council meeting in 2018 and helped convince fellow committee members that Fries Avenue should bring a psychological social worker to our school, even if the budget only allowed for one day. This resource proved to be valuable and our teachers and principal have supported using more of our budget to add more days of support to our school every year since. However, we are losing funding next year and will only have the PSW for two days when we had worked so hard to get up to three days. From the aftermath of COVID-19 we have noticed our students need even more support from the PSW and the case load this past year was so high that she was advised to do whole class lessons rather then pull individual students for small group support sessions. Not only is she helping out students work through adverse childhood experiences, but often times as the Intervention Coordinator, I see many of the same students referred to me by the teacher due to their behavior. Then the teacher is already asking if we should recommend for an evaluation to be considered for special education at the opening step of the SSPT process. Not only have these students had a valuable resource taken away from them due to budget cuts, but are often being blamed and pushed towards a special education evaluation because they do not fit the expectations of a behaviorist minded teacher.

English Learners

During my early years at Fries Avenue, I recall only ever sending my English Learners out of the room for testing support. There was never a schedule for them to receive small group instruction from our TSP/CPA coordinator throughout the year. Only after COVID-19 with the added funding and voting at the School Site Council meeting the previous year did our school receive an EL Coach. Our school voted and budgeted money to bring this EL Coach to our school to help address the English Learner population and progress towards reclassification. Reclassification is a district and school goal written into the School Plan for Student Achievement but it had been there for years and only now has really begun to be addressed.

The EL Coach has helped provide direct instruction to that student group which was otherwise not getting pull out small group service before. As mentioned before our school was not receiving any EL training other then the occasional two district PD's. However, just this year the EL Coach has presented a PD and the last three years has provided small group and whole class lessons. Also, as the Intervention Coordinator we have been able to work in collaboration to monitor EL students through the SSPT process and make data based decisions that let us determine if an EL student may have other specific learning disabilities that can allow them to reclassify through an IEP process further down the road.

Chronically Absent

Another short term positive gain in response to COVID-19 was that our school has also budgeted money to bring a Pupil Services and Attendance (PSA) Counselor to address the chronic absenteeism seen with our student population. Before COVID-19 our school had no such ability to fund a PSA counselor. Since, we have been able to budget the PSA for three days for the last three years. She has helped bring a variety of attendance incentives and new games for students to use during their recess time as a way to bring excitement to coming to school every day.

However, the funding is yet again being taken away just as we began making progress in student attendance and really building a system to address the chronic absenteeism.

Reflection

Overall, Fries Avenue students have suffered mostly due to a shortage of staff and resources. When given the financial support, Fries Avenue has done its best to provide for their students. However, the need is so high in so many areas that every resource is going to be stretched thin. In fact, the EL Coach has been pulled to address the math concerns of upper grades, the reading intervention teacher that is budgeted for lower grades has been pulled to assist in SBA test preparations, as the Intervention Coordinator I have 40 students in my caseload, and the RSP teacher is also over capacity and receiving a district itinerant to help service her students. However, given all of this our students still enjoy coming to school. We still help create meanigful learning experiences throughout the year even when we know our students deserve more and need more. Fries Avenue staff is doing their best and constantly fighting for our students.