 Cultural gaps test teachers Many new educators learn on-the-job how to meet the challenges of inner-city schools
By Holly Yettick News Staff Writer
Nine parents attended Erin O'Grady's first back-to-school night at Ebert Elementary School. But only one had tears in her eyes. "I can't believe how old she is," O'Grady's mother Barbara said, choking up. "I remember her second-and third-grade back-to-school nights." The back-to-school nights Barbara O'Grady attended drew a different crowd than her 23-year-old daughter's first back-to-school night as a teacher last fall. At the Littleton elementary school O'Grady attended, 3 percent of students today are poor enough to qualify for free and reduced-price meals, and 81 percent are white. At Ebert Elementary on the edge of LoDo, the poverty rate is 93.5 percent, and 8 percent of the students are white. Back-to-school night ended with teachers visiting one of three homeless shelters that feed the school. "There's a cultural difference for me," O'Grady said. "I'm just trying to keep an open mind. I'm just trying to figure out who they are." O'Grady is not alone. Colorado keeps no statistics on the socioeconomic backgrounds of its teachers. But state Department of Education figures show there is a growing gap between the racial makeup of the state's students and the racial makeup of its teaching pool. To make matters worse, the bulk of job openings in many regions are not in neighborhoods familiar to most new teachers, said University of Wisconsin professor Gloria Ladson-Billings. They are in the inner city. Many teacher education programs -- including the University of Denver, where O'Grady went to school -- do not require students to work at an inner-city school. Believing she'd find a job at a school that resembled the elementary she attended, O'Grady chose to student teach and observe classrooms at southeast Denver's Cory Elementary School, where 82 percent of the students are white, and 10 percent are poor. But when she graduated last spring, Ebert was the school that offered her a job. O'Grady had an opportunity this spring to interview at Cory. She decided to teach at Ebert next year instead. "I wanted to get my feet wet in a less difficult setting," she said. "It just didn't happen. Why would I go back? I love it here. I love the kids. Love them. I can't imagine serving a different population." It is a population that has not always been easy to serve. One day just before school ended this spring, O'Grady spent half her attention on leading a reading group. The other half she devoted to testing two girls who had enrolled that day in her class. The mobility of the community she serves has been one of her biggest challenges. Only half the children present on the first day of school were still there on the last day of school. At DU, O'Grady said, "We talked about mobility as an issue. We didn't talk about -- practically -- what do you do?" O'Grady said other Ebert teachers taught her what to do. She quickly created a ritual that includes pairing newcomers with buddies in the class. O'Grady also said DU classes on diversity and American education helped her better understand Ebert families. She still draws upon lessons learned from one DU instructor, Carolyn Jones, who shared her experiences as a black educator and Denver Public Schools charter school principal. At Ebert, Principal Joan Wamsley had her staff read a book that has become the Bible for many low-income schools -- A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby Payne. O'Grady said the book taught her about "the hidden rules of the lower classes," such as a tendency to spend what can seem like a lot of money on entertainment. During her student teaching experiences at Cory, O'Grady's lessons about reaching out to parents included organizing a first-grade poetry night that was attended by every parent in the class. "At Cory, the challenge is in knowing how to most effectively use and coordinate parent support and involvement," O'Grady said. At Ebert, there were only about four parents O'Grady grew to count on and know well. Diana Herrara is one. She is also one of O'Grady's biggest fans. "She'll sit there and listen and see how she can help out," Herrara said. But by the end of the school year, there were still parents O'Grady had never spoken to or met. No parents attended a schoolwide meeting on preparing for Colorado Student Assessment Program tests. And a literacy night last month drew the parents of only a quarter of O'Grady's 20-plus students. The faces of those who did make it spelled out some of the reasons why. Star Hollie burst in halfway through, wearing an orange vest and carrying an oversized stop sign used to signal motorists passing construction sites. Sweaty and exhausted, she slumped into the nearest seat after a quick tour of the school from her daughter Paris. Hollie said she often works 12-hour shifts. That makes it difficult to make it to the school. But she said she tries. She disapproves of much of what she's seen. She finds the parent involvement activities "boring." She believes the academic expectations are lower at Ebert than at a more middle-class school her daughter attended before the landlord raised her rent by $250 a month and she was forced to move to a new neighborhood. At back-to-school night last fall, Hollie handed O'Grady a list of expectations for her daughter's third-grade year. They included helping Paris improve her writing skills and preventing her from using slang. After school ended this spring, she said the expectations had yet to be fulfilled. "Some of that's from the teachers prior to, and them having lower expectations," she said. "I think they (the teachers) think they're (the students) supposed to be dummies." Hollie said she sometimes got that feeling from O'Grady. But O'Grady said she believes all children can learn. Test results bear her out. At the beginning of the school year, only one student was reading at grade level. By the fourth quarter, one was at grade level, and 10 were above. Arriving late at the literacy night was Joveda Scott, who hurried to the school after she got off work at 5:30 p.m. at a nearby bank. "I think they do a pretty fair job of reaching out to parents," Scott said. "The only problem is for people who are working -- it's hard to get here. I think the weekends are best for working parents. Most working parents, especially if they're single, they're really burned out during the week." Scott said her daughter likes O'Grady but never developed a strong rapport with the teacher. "Our differences in culture are probably a block there," she said. "We probably come from such different backgrounds. I'm from a black culture." Absent from the literacy night was Charlotte Rene Williams. Williams said she's never felt that barriers were raised because O'Grady's race and background differed from her own. But she did offer one criticism of O'Grady's parent involvement skills. "She doesn't assert herself at getting to know the parents," Williams said. She said she invited O'Grady to drop by her apartment in East Village, a low-income complex across the street from the school. O'Grady doesn't recall the invitation. She said she would have visited if asked. At the beginning of the school year, O'Grady said she hesitated to visit her students' homes. "I think I'm afraid of people hating me because I don't understand," she said. By the end of the year, O'Grady still hadn't visited her students' homes. But the reasons had changed. "It hasn't really been needed," she said. If it had been? "I would feel comfortable going to certain houses with parents I feel comfortable with," she said. "It's something I might try to focus on in the future. There are only so many things you can do." For this reason, O'Grady also avoided involvement in the broader community of the school, including a local governance panel she was involved in while student teaching. "I've tried to stay out of the politics of the building," O'Grady said. "The advice I did get is, your No. 1 priority is what's happening within these four classroom walls. "Just close your door and do your thing, and that's what I did."
Contact Holly Yettick at (303) 892-5082 or yettickh@RockyMountainNews.com.
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Age: 23
