Background Information
I teach 8th grade Algebra in a suburban middle school in Charlotte, North Carolina. In this particular class, I have relatively few behavior problems. Talking at inappropriate times is my students' biggest fault. Carmel Middle School is on a block schedule and my Algebra class meets every day for approximately 85 minutes. I have a pacing guide, created by the county I teach in, that I follow. There is not an abundance of time allocated for systems of equations, so I tend to move rather quickly. I typically have about 30 students in an Algebra class and I have approximately 20 to 25 students in my lower level classes.
The population at my school is as follows: 61.4 % Caucasian, 21.5% African American, 11 % Hispanic and 4 % Asian. Twenty six percent of our students are enrolled in the Gifted and Talented program, while 12.6% of our students have some degree of disability. We have 30% of our population on free or reduced lunch and the other 70% pay or bring bag lunches.
The percent of students at or above grade level in math is 80%, and the students at or above grade level in reading is even higher- 91.5%. These percentages put us above the Charlotte Mecklenburg District average in both categories. For the last few years, Carmel Middle School has consistently had 100% of Algebra and Geometry students performing at or above grade level.
The District itself is growing larger and larger every year; it currently enrolls 122,000 students and employs 10,050 teachers. Over the last couple of years, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System has increased the number of students by approximately 6,000 students per year. The district population is 43% African American, 37% Caucasian, 12% Hispanic, and 4% Asian.
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