A CADEMIC I DENTITY

O’Reilly High is a publically run institution that depended on federal funds from the government. It answered to the highest authority of public school education, El Departamento de Educación de Puerto Rico (DEPR). It was exclusively a high school and did not offer primary (K – 6) or intermediate level (7 - 9) education. It offered courses according to the national curriculum, conducted annual examinations so as to measure the academic progress of the institution, and regularly sent out circular letters and forms updating schools on the latest policy changes.73 _{Online it markets itself in the Spanish}

language, as one of the major public institutions in the region of Mayagüez offering high school education, it also emphasizes its central and accessible location as positioned in the city centre. In contrast to Mission High, O’Reilly High also offers vocational education, and has specialized programs besides its General program (which teachers the core courses), to do with Marketing and Commerce. Their wide range of specialties is advertised on the school site and brochures located outside of the principal’s office:

El desarrollo de la Escuela ideal y la conservacion del ambiente. En el aspecto académico, esta escuela, además de ofrecer las clases básicas, ofrece también cursos vocacionales en el área de Administración de Empresas y Mercadeo.

“The development of the ideal School and the conservation of the environment. In the academic aspect, this school, besides offering basic courses, also offers vocational courses in areas of Business Administration and Marketing.”

I chose O’Reilly High as a school of interest given its position as one of the major public school institutions in the Mayaguez region. O’Reilly High school was composed of 858 pupils by the time this study took place. Approximately 451 of the student body in O’Reilly lived under the poverty line, which is roughly over half of the student population, a 53% (DEPR, 2015). Consequently, O’Reilly High had a fairly heterogeneous student body composition, which made it an ideal location for the study of sociolinguistic variation to take place. Additionally, O’Reilly High was located in an urbanized region of the town of Mayagüez, as opposed to the suburban surroundings of

73 _{For instance, during my time at O’Reilly High, one of the first circular letters of the year was to do with}

the uniform policy. The school had adopted a flexible policy by which students were free to dress according to their gender identity.

Mission High, which was also the case for many public schools on the island which are strategically placed in geographical positions where they may be of more use to islanders, as opposed to lesser populated public schools in mountainous, remote regions of the island. In its identity, O’Reilly marketed itself as an “urban school” and urban as a label was part of its original full name (not mentioned here, following ethical guidelines). O’Reilly High was one of the three public institutions offering high school education in the region of Mayagüez.

A second motivation to observing this particular community layed in its course offering, beyond offering the core courses found in regular public serving academic institutions, O’Reilly High served a dual role as a vocational institution. It offered students the opportunity of enrolling in three different programs: Commerce, Marketing, and General. In order to be a part of either of the three participants had to comply with specific requirements, such as maintain a particular grade point average or take specific courses. In this sense, O’Reilly provided me with the best of both worlds, it offered a look into how a typical public school institution would run (based on core courses), but it simultaneously offered a look at how a vocational-serving school was run.

In contrast to Mission High, O’Reilly High made no promises of schooling students in a ‘safe’ or spiritual environment. And provided a more flexible class schedule to students, one that mimicked university settings and involved a ‘free hour’ for students, in addition to lunch hour. Consequently, when walking through school halls it was not surprising to see a number of students outside of their classrooms and strolling around campus grounds. Students had more freedom in terms of what they chose to do with their free hours, and they could also be seen walking outside of school grounds in surrounding areas, such as neighboring food locales. Figure 38 demonstrates the academic calendar, positioned outside of the school principal’s office. Given the size of the school and course offerings, this class schedule is less specific than the one offered by Mission High, as it would be impractical to print out numerous class schedules when students had the liberty of taking courses in Data Entry, Accounting, Information Technology, Home Economics, Parenting, Music, Geography, among others.

Figure 38. A copy of the class schedule for every student at O’Reilly High.

5.3.2.D

O’Reilly High was composed of 858 pupils, 53% of these classified as living below the poverty level on the island (DEPR, 2015). In comparison to other schools within the region of Mayagüez, O’Reilly High exhibited the highest percentage of students living below the level of poverty, which was of no surprise as it was also the largest institution serving the highest number of students. Unlike Mission High, O’Reilly High school did little to dictate socialization practices between grades. This meant that within some of the communities of practice I will discuss in this section, there were also members of 10th

(15– 16 year olds) and 11th _{(16 - 17 year olds) grade}74_{. However, as in Mission, my}

account will specifically focus on describing students from Grade 12 (17 – 18 year olds) and the communities of practice in which they engaged in and their shared behaviors and repertoires.

12th _{grade students made up 34% of the population at O’Reilly High at the time}

of the study, with a total of 291 pupils. 96% of these students were of Puerto Rican

74 _{This also means that communities are not comparable against each other because of the differences in}

descent75_{. The 12}th _{grade class had a slightly larger number of female students, with 55.7%}

of students’ female and 44.3% males. In terms of socioeconomic make-up 75% (219) of the class fell below the level of poverty, whereas 32% (71) classified above the level of poverty (DEPR, 2015), a particularly high percentage of students lived below the level of poverty in 12th _{grade alone, considering the overall statistic for the entire student body}

(all grades) was 53%.

Figure 39. Visual Representation of the Socioeconomic Make-Up of the 12th Grade Student Body.

It is worth noting that O’Reilly High produced information of their student population that Mission High Private School did not. In their parent-caretaker surveys, they gathered information on ethnicity, percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged families (measured by ‘poverty line’ index), sex, and number of students per class. Meanwhile, Mission supplied figures on the students’ religious inclinations, the number of students per class, and gender orientation (traditionally defined in binary ‘male’ and ‘female’), but concealed information related to socioeconomic and ethnic make-up.

As a public school institution, O’Reilly High was to measure students’ performance through standardized tests previously known as Las Pruebas Puertorriqueñas ‘the Puerto Rican Tests’, now called META-PR which stands for

Medición Educativa para la Transformación Académica de Puerto Rico or ‘Educational Metric of the Academic Transformation of Puerto Rico’ (Lenín López, 2015). These tests measure the academic performance of students in Math, Science, English, and Spanish.

75 _{According to data from the regional office of the Department of Education in Puerto Rico in Mayagüez,}

approximately 99% of students from Grade 12 at O’Reilly High were of Puerto Rican descent: 282 out of 298 students (DEPR, 2015).

70% 30%

0%

Percentage of Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Children at O'Reilly High's Grade 12

The results for these tests also form part of the student’s overall Grade. Results for the English language test in year 2014 can be found in Figure 40. As is demonstrated by the graph, English competence in O’Reilly High is mixed, with approximately half of the 12th

grade students performing at ‘Pre-Basic’ and ‘Basic’ levels and the other half at ‘Proficient’ and ‘Advanced’ levels.

Figure 40. English Language Results in Las Pruebas Puertorriqueñas for O’Reilly High School (Academic Year 2014 – 2015). 19% 28% 26% 27% 22% 27% 27% 24% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

Pre-Basic Basic Proficient Advanced English language results in Las Pruebas Puertorriqueñas

(2014 - 2015)