Demographic Profile
Dowling Middle School of Fine Arts is located in Houston Texas. The grades levels at Dowling are sixth through eighth. The physical address is 14000 Stancliff. It is an inner city Title I school located on the south side of Houston. Dowling Middle School is apart of the Houston Independent School. The administrative district for Dowling is the South District. The regional office is Region IV Educational Resource Center.
The enrollment of Dowling Middle School is eighteen hundred and eighty students. The student population is composed of the following classifications. The Regular Ed students total is 64%. Magnet, AP or PreAP, Gifted and Talented students total is 13%. Bilingual and ESL students total is 1%. The Career and Technology students total is 2% of the population. The Special Ed students total is 11%. The ethnicity distributions are African American, 47%; Asian, 1%; Hispanic, 51%; White American, 2%.
The faculty of Dowling Middle School is composed of approximately one hundred and ten teachers. Most have terminal bachelors' degrees, 27% have masters degrees, and 1% hold doctoral degrees.
At Dowling Middle School, I am a Magnet or Gifted and Talent Piano and Strings instructor. My student enrollment for 2005 to 2006 was one hundred and eight students. My class schedule consisted to two beginning piano classes (no previous background/limited experience), one intermediate piano (second year), advanced piano (third year), beginning strings and guitar (no previous background/limited experience), and general music (music appreciation). Each class meets on alternating days. To explain myself more plainly, all classes are setup using the ninety minutes block. The classes are classified as "A-Day" (indicating class periods one through four) and "B-Day" (indicating class periods five through eight). My students are placed in my program either by an interview (for students without previous experience) or by an audition (limited experience) during their fifth grade year the fifth grade. My students remain in my program for three years. In other words, at the time of the audition or the interview, a contract is signed by both the students and the parents acknowledging that they will remain in the piano or strings program for three years as well as meet the performance criterions.
In my piano lab, there are a total of twenty student model digital pianos and two instructor's model. I have seventeen Yamaha digital pianos (one year old) and three Roland digital pianos. The instructor's models are Yamaha and Kurt Weill. These pianos are maintained by assigning each student a specific piano as well as a student responsibility form. In addition, each of the students' piano are checked before each class period end to make sure that they are not damaged. Furthermore, in the Fall of 2006, I will add more technology equipment such as computers and recording equipment so that my students will be exposed to a mini recording/production studio. The expense of this equipment is funded by grants.
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