Demographics
Conrad Schools of Science (CSS) is a school in the final stages of changing into a science/biotechnology magnet school serving students in grades 6 – 12. This past year it finally housed all of these grades making the school population close to 1000. It is considered an urban school, situated on the outskirts of the most populated city in the state of Delaware. This school houses one of the two middle level transitional bilingual programs (Spanish/English) in our district. At CSS, this special program is indeed a "school within a school" serving approximately 85 students in the sixth through eighth grades. They are the only students in the building who do not need to opt into the school by completing an application and interview process since this school is considered their feeder pattern which was established before the transition to a magnet school began. Although it is mandatory for our students to attend this school, it is a very positive learning environment for them. Throughout the transition, there has been an increase in student achievement by all those in the building and improved student behavior. All are recent immigrants from Latin American countries (mostly Mexico) or migrants from Puerto Rico. These students have all of their content area classes – English Language Arts (ELA), social studies, mathematics, and science) with the program's teachers. I am one of these teachers. These native Spanish speaking ELLs face many challenges as they enter middle school: reading pressures escalate due to more demanding texts and they must learn the English language in addition to the content area information.
This particular unit is designed for sixth grade students just entering our school for the first time. They will be transitioning from elementary to middle school. Most likely there will be about 25 students in the class. Over the past years we have noticed that there seems to be two times as many boys than girls in the class. Additionally, as in the past, I imagine that their English language and cognitive differences will vary greatly.
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