Barcliff Elementary School

Barcliff was also a neighborhood school serving nearly 300 students from grades K-5. Similar to Meadows, students were also first and second generation immigrants primarily from Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. Approximately 85% of students received free and reduced priced lunch, a proportion that increased since data were collected in 2004-5 from 80% (SD = 1.49 compared to the state of Michigan) (See table 5.2).

When data were initially collected at Barcliff in 2004-5, 86% (SD = 0.2535) passed the reading MEAP and 100% (SD = 1.85) passed the mathematics MEAP in fourth grade. More or less, students were above average in reading and nearly two standard deviations above their peers in mathematics. When the survey was re-administered in the 2009-2010 school year,fourth grade student performance was relatively stable. Eighty-four percent (.11 SD compared to 2004-5) of fourth graders passed the reading MEAP compared to 98% (1.7 SD on compared to 2004-5) of students in mathematics. Moreover, Barcliff fourth graders were slightly above average in reading but nearly two standard deviations above their peers in mathematics (using 2004-5 as a referent point).

Thirteen teachers36 completed the survey administered in December 2009. The average Barcliff teacher had taught for slightly more than 15 years (M = 15.3, SD = 6.8), more than half of their tenure was spent at Barcliff (M = 8.2 years teaching at this school, SD = 4.3), and most had taught their current grade for about six years (M = 6.1, SD = 3.9). Overall, Barcliff had a highly educated group of teachers. One teacher had a BA, 62% had master‘s degrees and 31% had an Education Specialist degree. All but one teacher had an English as a Second Language endorsement.37 Teachers‘ ages ranged from 29 to 59 years old but the average teacher was 45 (M = 44.8, SD = 9.8). Most teachers were female

35

I provide various statistics and also standardized scores for Meadows School. The standardized scores are referencing the 2004-5 data that were collected. The reader should recall that the mean of standardized scores is 0 with a standard deviation of 1.

36

At the staff meeting where the survey was administered, 13 individuals filled out the survey. However up to 23 teachers could have responded – because they were part of the regular staff meeting attendance: 12 classroom teachers, 3 coaches/interventionists, 4 specialty teachers (art, music, PE, media center), 3 RTI (social work, psychologist, speech pathologist)

(92.3%) and Caucasian (58%), though five teachers reported a Middle Eastern background (42%).38 While only five teachers explicitly identified as Middle Eastern on the survey, I know from further ethnographic work that all but four staff members shared similar ethnic and/or religious backgrounds as their students.

In 2004-5, Barcliff had a collective efficacy score of 3.9 – which was .24 SD above the mean. This collective efficacy mean increased to 4.22 when the survey was re-administered in 2009, which was roughly equivalent to 1.2 standard deviations above the mean in 2004-2005. This suggests that the collective

efficacy at Barcliff increased since the original survey administration while collective efficacy at Meadows remained unchanged.

I also had a chance to speak with the Barcliff leader, Principal Fakouri.39 Similar to Principal Novara, I found her very interested in and supportive of my work. Like Principal Novara, she was very committed to the children of Barcliff. She worked incredibly hard, routinely arriving before her teachers, staying late, and taking work home with her during the week and over the weekends. Principal Fakouri read the student population as full of potential and recognized the

strengths they brought with them to school. For example, she attributed much of the success Barcliff had to the teaching of Arabic. She explained,

We teach Arabic too, and we‘ve always taught Arabic, since I started. Because I believe in it, and I really I think that‘s part of why we are successful with kids. We recognize their native language we try to strengthen it and build it, and build on what they have. We don‘t subtract

38 _{The survey was open ended for Race/Ethnicity (See Appendix B). Therefore, teachers decided}

how they wanted to fill in Race Ethnicity rather than selecting from predetermined choices.

we add, that‘s my philosophy. The staff support that, and works with that and the parents love it.

[Ms. Fakouri, Barcliff principal] The principal‘s comments were reminiscent of Valenzuela‘s work on subtractive schooling (1999). Valenzuela argued that immigrant students (in this case Mexican) were subjected to subtle, negative messages that undermined the worth of their culture. In traditional settings, school curriculum fails to build on

students‘ skills, knowledge, and cultural backgrounds. Barcliff instead took an additive perspective, through offering Arabic and strengthening this skill.

Principal Fakouri also found the student population motivated to learn. In the event that students were not inspired, she explained that it was the school‘s responsibility to figure out how to motivate students.

I would say most kids are motivated to learn. Now even the ones who aren‘t motivated, it‘s not like they don‘t have any motivation feeling, it‘s there but the right opportunity did not present its self to them. You know what I mean. Maybe they are interested in something that we have not offered yet. Sometimes you‘ll see a child get hooked on something really simple and silly and you‘ll say, ―Oh wow. That‘s what really motivates them.‖ Just finding that little thing that gets them going… I think all kids want to learn, really all kids want to learn and succeed but there are obstacles in the way sometimes.

[Ms. Fakouri, Barcliff principal] The principal clearly illustrated how Barcliff took responsibility for student

motivation. Like most Barcliff teachers, the principal believed that students innately were motivated but in some cases schools did not capitalize well on student interest. This reflects her belief that teachers have the ability to motivate students, as it is not an immutable child characteristic.

The principal also was concerned with building relationships with families. Principal Fakouri described her responsibility in relation to serving families in the Barcliff community,

Bringing parents on board is another one of my responsibilities. I invite them to the classroom, invite them for meetings, we schedule topics where I think my parents can benefit from, so it has to fit their needs as well. Trying to provide them with a lot of support and help from the office. It‘s very difficult sometimes, but trying to hire people who can speak the language. You are faced with a challenge when you try to do that too, one way you are considered prejudice because you are trying to get your people in, but if you look at it from – if you look at how things are

logically, you can‘t force the parents to speak English. You can encourage them, you can offer them help and support but when they call the school your main objective is to communicate with them regardless of what language they communicate in. Your job is not to reprimand them and tell them to learn English. So you have to have somebody who speaks the language. So I make sure the staff fits for this community, if it was Spanish I would do the same thing, if it was French I would do the same thing. The main goal is to communicate with parents. It‘s very important otherwise we will not reach our goal with students.

[Ms. Fakouri, Barcliff principal] Apparent in her comments is the tension in communicating with parents in their native language which leads to exclusionary hiring practices. The central take- away is her belief in the importance of communicating with parents in their native language to order to facilitate learning for students. Barcliff‘s goal was to support families and therefore the staff had to be equipped to communicate well with the families. This choice of hiring and approach to communicating with parents illustrates a commitment to students above anything else. Principal Fakouri recognized the importance of making families feel comfortable and allowing school to be a place where families were welcomed. This action exemplified her dedication to the population and their best interest.

Despite such efforts, Fakouri found it difficult to get parents to volunteer, similar to teachers‘ accounts at Meadows. She explained,

It‘s hard to get the parents to volunteer. Parents sometimes they don‘t drive or sometimes they have little ones at home. Or sometimes because they don‘t speak the language they limit themselves, even though we encourage them a lot. We don‘t get the same motivation… So when it comes to volunteering its hard, so we have to rely on the resources that we have. Like I said the parents are very nice and supportive when it comes to talking to their children but setting aside time to volunteer for school is hard for them… I think the school, in our culture [Principal shares cultural background of community], the school is responsible to do whatever they need to do, this is not my area, this is the teachers‘ area or the principal‘s area. I prefer to do my job and you do your job. If you have a problem call me, other than that I won‘t bother you. And we are trying to move them away from that mentality.

[Ms. Fakouri, Barcliff principal]

While the Meadows principal talked about parental interaction with school as respectful, there was a more critical tone in Fakouri‘s response. She recognized the cultural difference in how families thought about their role in their child‘s education in the Middle East as compared to the United States. Fakouri expressed some level of disappointment that parents did not volunteer more often and was committed to changing such parental dispositions. In spite of the lack of parental volunteers, Fakouri acknowledged that Barcliff had to rely on the resources it had because family formal involvement was inconsistent.