ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS

Environmental Analysis

Manhattan College
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This semester I am completing my observation hours at Saint Margaret's of Cortona

School a Catholic school located in Riverdale, NY in a math and grammar class for 6th, 7th and

8th graders. In order to better understand the school I intend to investigate the neighborhood.

According to Wikipedia, the neighborhood of Riverdale was founded in 1853 and was named for

its “The numerous brooks, streams and meadows in the hilly region.” ([Link]). There is a

fairly widespread demographic among the area. The population contains ​47,850 people in total.

In Riverdale the overall racial demographics consist of 78.74% of the population, about 37,677

people identify as white, 5.36% of the population, about 2,565 people identify as asian, 0.05% of

the population, about 24 people, identify as Pacific Islander, 7.66% of the population, about 3665

people are black, 13.38% of the population were Hispanic of any race​, totalling to 6402, ​0.16%

of the population, about 77 people are Native American, 3.18% of the population, about 1522

people, identify as from two or more races, and 4.85% of the population, about 2,321 people are

from other races not mentioned above.

Riverdale is also considered a rich area. The average income is $30,741 which is about

50% less than the average income in NYC of $60,850. The average residence value is about

$2,800 and is described as “one of the most expensive neighborhoods in New York City and is

considered one of the most sought-after residential neighborhoods. Riverdale is known for

having some of the lowest crime rates in New York City” ​([Link]). In regards to culture

the area is described as mainly Jewish, Irish, and has some Russian Speaking populations

How does Saint Margaret's of Cortona School compare to the area they are located in

demographic wise. According to [Link], a website dedicated to evaluating schools, there is

a total of 281 students with a 16:1 student to faculty ratio. The ratio of male to female is 46%
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men and 54% female. The overall racial demographics of the school consist of 54% of the school

population identify as white, 1% of the school population identify as asian, 9% of the school

population identify as black, 12% of the school population identify as Hispanic of any race​, ​and

about 2% of the school population identify as mixed race. ([Link]) The racial demographics

of the school suprised me due to how different it is from the neighborhoods demographics. This

might be because St. ​Saint Margaret's of Cortona School is Catholic. Because of the

neighborhood consisting of predominantly of Jewish residents, a catholic school in this area is

not very reflective of the areas overall religion. Therefore, it makes sense that the demographics

are so different. It gives the school a more diverse feel offering more people from different

cultural back grounds

As I mentioned previously ​St. ​Saint Margaret's of Cortona School is Catholic School.

Due to the school being Catholic not only is education an important part of the school’s mission .

There is an area of their website called the principal's corner ([Link]). In this section

he states,

“Welcome to Saint Margaret of Cortona School where we combine spirituality, academics and

service to prepare our students to live a faith filled life.​ ​At St. Margaret, your student will be

educated in the Catholic faith and recognize the importance of living a spiritual life. Students

receive religious education on a daily basis and attend monthly Mass to prepare them to be

lifelong Catholics as well as contributing members to their parish communities.”

From my experience and after speaking to students and teachers, the school has a focus on

education, and faith. Due to faith being apart of the school there is a emphasis on structure,

community and discipline. The prayers and announcements in the morning are a daily part of the

kids routine that provides them with guidance as said by my cooperating teacher and the middle
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school English and history teacher. In the classroom you can see a prayer section set up as well

as posters referencing religion in the classroom.

planning. I feel there could be reading of biblical scripture in the ELA lessons and history, This

way students will get to know religion more as well and increase the reading skills. The bible

offers many versions that adapt to different reading levels. This an easy way to challenge gifted

students by giving them a more difficult version while adapting to struggling learners. This will

also build up their historical knowledge since religion and history are very intertwined. I think

this will gage student interest as well since a lot of the students are catholic they most likely

explore their religion outside just the classroom through church or prayer. This creates a good

connection to home life will providing an interesting learning idea. I would offer extra credit for

going to mass and explaining about the scripture they heard that mass to connect reading to the

outside world to help with assessing if what we do in class is connecting to what they are

learning religiously.

In regards to the community aspect due to the school having an enrollment of ​281

students there is only one teacher per grade with the exception of Pre K. This allows for a close

community among the students, a camaraderie I wish I had growing up. Since the enrollment is

smaller there is a lot of communication between the parents and the teachers. My cooperating

teacher was constantly getting emails from parents and meeting with them over the TACHS test,

helping the child decide where to go to school, giving individual reports of student progress. I

feel this could help with struggling students to have more guidance and feel cared for by the

faculty. In addition to this my first day the principal greeted every one of the students that came

through the door by name, asked to meet with every single observer or student teacher to meet

with him for information and a tour, and he gave out is his​ number to r​each out making sure we
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felt informed. He said it is important to know your students and know who is taking care of your

students to be sure the school is running efficiently. I loved how welcoming this environment

was and I could see how a parent who felt their child could get lost in the shuffle would opt for

this school.

Lastly the school gets very involved in making sure the children are disciplined. When

speaking to the 5th grade teacher during a lunch break she told me that she preferred this school

over her last school because she felt supported in her decisions to discipline a child. In her

previous school she said that she felt the parents were always right and teachers got in trouble

just for raising their voice. In this school the faculty and principal especially make an effort that

students be on their best behavior. For example, one student in the 8th grade is constantly acting

up, not doing his homework, talking back, not doing well on test etc so the teacher and principal

agreed to hold his senior sweater. The parents then emailed the principal saying the student did

well on his TACHS exam so could he get his sweater and the principal responded his faculty

would be the judge of his improvement. In addition to this incident the principal has the students

were lanyards everyday with their school uniform​. According to the principal, this way students

can report each other since they know they rnames a lot easier to bring disciplinary problems to

the teachers attention so it doesn't go unnoticed.

I think these three pillars in the school emphasize build the child's education as well as their

character to develop into faithful, mature, intelligent students.

Despite the goals of faith, community, and discipline being achieved quite easily the

school has had many struggles with class sizes, the structure of the building, and resources for

students. According to my teacher the school has been taken over administratively by this

company they refer to as the “region”. The region is more or less responsible for making sure the

school is working as a business since Catholic schools should be generating money. Due to this

they have made drastic changes to the school atmosphere. In an effort to save money the region

has a rule that if you can not divide a class into 24 students each then the last most stay together

as one because they don't have to pay a teacher if this is the case. This lead to the fifth grade

class containing 35 students in total ​while some classes are significantly smaller. The ratio of

teacher to student is real yet it does not apply to all students just those who are lucky enough to

get a small class size. Many of the students in the class have an IEPs as well. Regardless of how

good the teacher is there is no way she could effectively teach this many students as well as she

could teach a smaller class. This also hurts th​e community aspect of the school as well because in
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a class that big it is very easy to get lost. In addition to this the buildings structure cannot

accommodate this many students in class rooms. My cooperating teacher said she feels restricted

to putting the class into rows with two of the desk next to each other on each side and three

together in the middle row. She wants to be able to either move the desk into rows where they

are not next to each other during class time and in tables during regular instruction to help with

group work. Sadly though this is not possible due to the classrooms being small and narrow since

they used to have smaller class sizes. Lastly due to the region the school has little resources for

its students. They used to have a speech therapist once a week, a para to help with the class with

the biggest number of IEPs etc. Now due to financial reasons this has been cut. My cooperating

teacher even said if you have a child with special needs you are doing them a disservice to send

them to ​Saint Margaret's of Cortona because they do not have the resources a public school can

offer. Across the board Saint Margaret's of Cortona is struggling due to the financial strain put on

them by the region that affects their learning instruction.

Since the class sizes are so large in some cases and small in others I would want ways to

adapt to fit the learning needs of those situations. In larger classrooms I would encourage a lot of

group work. This way students can help eachother out with issues. Students working with peers

is a great tool to use in large classrooms since there is so many voices in one place. I will also

include centers a lot so students can again help eachother but also learn through a variety of

learning styles. In terms of assessment I would rely heavily on exit tickets to assess because

students are less likely to speak up in large groups from a lack of understanding according to the

5th grade teacher. This will give me concerte feedback about my students.
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If the classes are smaller I would focus more on fun assessment. For example

presentations are a great way to hit SEL standards while reaching academic standards. I will be

able to have centers in class to but maybe we can all do one center at a time so I can have an I do

you do we do approach in fun activities.

From this observation I was able to notice a stark difference in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade.

In the 6th grade the students still act like they are in elementary school. They are very chatty,

very friendly, and get very excited to learn. This grade only has one IEP for a student that

transferred in. He does try very hard. Overall the class does very well academically but has an

issue with staying quiet and on task. Seventh grade there is definitely a maturity increase. They

grow up a lot in this year. They are still somewhat chatty but they don't need as much

micromanaging and there is not really an attitude. This class has more IEPs than the last one

however they are very good at asking questions and communicating when there is a lack of

understanding. Then there's 8th grade. This age on a physical level takes a big jump. If I was told

that class was in their sophomore year of highschool I would believe them. At this age they are

very bright but very lazy according to the math teacher. There is less of a focus on making sure

they understand the information and more of a focus on getting them to do the work assigned to

them. Since they are moving on to highschool soon they don't have the same motivation the 6th

and 7th graders do. This will affect how I teach. For the beginning of 7th and all of 6th I will do

more elementary like instruction with read literature to them, having centers and assessing

through notes with quizzes like the teacher I observe does. For the later portion of 7th and all of

8th I will treat it more like a highschool classroom focusing on structure, independence, and

more difficult tasks

The demographics of both the school and neighbors give us insight to the culture and values of

those coming into our classroom. Since the school is majority catholic the school will be smaller

or their will be people of different faiths within the school. The​ goals of faith, community, and

discipline​ give insight to classroom management. The teachers guide the classroom with these

values in mind. Due to the lack of resources there is hard diversifying for student learners. Yet

because of that I was able to help with differentiation a lot. I got to teach a group of advanced 8th

graders both substitution and elimination for systems of equations in word problems to challenge

them why the rest of the class was just doing elimination for system of equations without word

problems. In 7th grade I was able to take a small group of students who did not perform well on

a test while the teacher lead the rest of the students in a math game. Since I have only been to

two other schools before this one I learned alot about how a different environment impacts

instruction.
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Works Cited

Asked by • Just now. (n.d.). St. Margaret of Cortona School. Retrieved March 5, 2019, from

[Link]

Riverdale, Bronx. (2019, February 18). Retrieved March 3, 2019, from

[Link]

St. Margaret of Cortona. (n.d.). Retrieved March 3, 2019, from ​[Link]