Connections

Valley View Elementary School's demographics are representative of the town of Nuevo. The school accountability report card showed 70% of the student population are identified as being socioeconomically disadvantaged. This differed from the census data showing that approximately 11% of the population is at the poverty level. These differences may be attributed to how the definitions are associated with each agency. Any differences in data can also be attributed to this being a very small community or a lack of reporting. The community is dependent on the school to provide education, as well as the additional resources that may be needed. The community and parents are overall loving and very supportive of the school staff. This is a small town community that needs the school due to a lack of other community based resources. The school based resources and staff are available to the students and their families. The school does have additional resources through its district, but these are shared between all three campuses. Most community based resources are in neighboring towns and were not easy to find.

Evaluation

Nuevo California is a rural town that is dominated by the farming and agriculture that surrounds it. The scarcity of community based resources in this town is problematic to the community. Although the school provides adequate resources, some community based resources may be unavailable due to the cost of seeking them out. Families may have issues with the cost associated with commuting to the outside towns to receive the resources. Also, if there is a cost associated with services, certain families may be unable to seek out those specific services. School resources may be the only avenue for getting the support their family needs and some were not easily found on the school or district website. This school has the burden of being the only avenue for most of the community and I fear they me be stretched thin.

Questions

I was curious on the accuracy of the provided data. Due to the size of the population and its distance from larger cities, I feel some of the population may be underrepresented in the statistics. I also worry about the availability of resources. The outside resources are generally geared to the meet the needs of that town. Although there is an availability of community resources I wonder how many individuals in the community use them and if it is practical?