A Whole New World.

My task at work this past week was to get settled and prepare for school to start on Monday. As I was walking down the halls I was caught off guard because people immediately greeted me by saying, "Hi, Ms. Wu" without me ever introducing myself. I quickly realized why. I am the only Asian person on campus...staff and students included. There are only three other Caucasians...my two colleague tutors and the school nurse.We had an open house on Thursday and none of the parents/students knew how to interact with me. lol I'm pretty sure that I'm the only Asian person they've seen in the area for a loooong time.

My school, B Elementary, is in the Third Ward, aka the ghetto. Basically all the students live below the poverty line and many of them are exposed to things at home that I cannot even imagine. I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into but I know that this year is going to be a year of challenges. The demographics at the school are 80% Black and 20% Hispanic. Less than 40% of the students are passing any subject on the standardized tests and many of them have been retained. Being in this kind of an environment I am reminded of how blessed I've been growing up.

Just so you guys have an idea of what I'm doing here, I am part of an organization called the Apollo 20. It started out four years ago when the Superintendent of HISD (Houston Independent School District) received a letter from the state saying four of his high schools were on the border of being shut down because of extremely poor test results. A couple months later he received another letter saying that five of his middle schools were about to be closed down. As he brainstormed on what he could do, the Apollo program began to take shape. Eventually they added 11 elementary schools so there are now 20 school involved. This program is part of a research project through Harvard Ed and they've received a grant for three years. This is now the third year and because the results weren't extraordinary last year with the implementation of a new standardized test, there is a lot of pressure for dramatic improvement in test scores. I went to a Apollo 20 rally on Wednesday and they didn't sugarcoat it for us...we have to a tough year ahead of us.

I leave you with a few pictures of my classroom...it was hard to get it all.