I teach in a Catholic school in a rural-ish town where more than 50% of public school families qualify as low-income. Additionally, over 25% of the public school students are classified as Limited English Proficient. Many, many more speak English as a second language but aren't necessarily labeled as LEP.
Both of those percentages mean that our enrollment is pretty low. Catholic school tuition is not really affordable for a family who qualifies for free lunch, although we do have some financial support available. Lots of families are not always willing to take the support, though, which is understandable. Also, none of our teachers are bilingual and I am the only one who is close to an ESL endorsement, so if a family has a child who doesn't speak English, we aren't really the best fit for that student. I am hoping to turn that around though!
So anyway, we only have 70ish students at school. There are 5 classrooms - Kindergarten, first/second (that's me!!), third/fourth, fifth/sixth, and seventh/eighth. We also have preschool and specials teachers, so technically we have more than 5 teachers... but only 5 full time people!
I have 18 students - 11 first graders and 7 second graders. The smallest class is Kindergarten at 9 and my class is the biggest along with the seventh/eighth grade class.
What this means to me is that I am ESPECIALLY grateful for the blogging community, as I have no grade level team at school. So when I'm not sure how to tackle a specific thing, like fluency in first grade, you all are the first people I turn to because you understand! So thank you, friends!!
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