Student Demographics

My student teaching took place in the Worcester Public School System in Massachusetts. Although numbers do give some information on school culture, you really need to be in person to explore how the students interact. I was happy to see that Hispanic students accounted for 36.7% of the student body. I grew up in a white dominated high school that had about 98% of students and this was not an ideal place to learn about diversity and inclusion. Having this diversity in school brings extra excitement as cultures get to mingle and students learn first hand about some struggles other demographics face. Worcester Tech has a fantastic trade school aspect that prepares students for work directly out of high school. Some of the trades include Automotive, Plumbing, Computer Aided Design, and many more, they even have a veterinary clinic run by students! Students were always excited to speak about their trade and I think its fantastic that even if a student doesn't want to attend college, they will still have a high paying job out of school without the unnecessary college debt. Overall, the energy and culture of Worcester Tech seems to build up students and work on real world skills they will need out of high school, it is yet another school that excites me about my future in teaching.

The school performance numbers really put objectively what I had observed in the school. Worcester Tech performs over every school in the Worcester Public School System by a fair amount. More importantly, I saw interactions through parent teacher virtual conferences and this really showed me that the parents of Worcester Tech are just as involved as the teachers. I sat in on a conference with a parent who did not speak fluent english and had some trouble understanding the things that were said. Despite this, the parent put in the effort to understand what her child needed to accomplish to improve her grade in school. The meeting ended with the Parent communicating a solid plan to get her child back on course.