Additional Community Feedback
Education
“ I like to look at the holistic child . There are some greater needs than some of the achievement issues . The things we need to target , let ’ s say reading , writing , and math — all of those are college readiness skills that students should have . But I think sometimes the life of the student gets in the way of some of that gap . I remember testing a young lady years ago in Arlington at one of the elementary schools , and people thought that maybe she was a student with an emotional disturbance because she had a lot of acting out behaviors and she was from one of the Central Arlington elementary schools . I realized very quickly that she was not achieving academically at all . She was acting out extremely , but it turns out her family was homeless and they were living in a shelter . She wasn ’ t able to bathe , she had food insecurity , housing insecurity , separation from her parents .”
“ In Arlington , special education referrals seem to be higher in the minority community . We see students that are Latino or African American who might be referred for special education because of lack of progress academically , when we ’ re not necessarily looking at the whole child , per se . The same thing goes with discipline . When we look at the discipline data , a higher likelihood of students of color are disciplined and receive suspensions .”
“ This is the type of community that is all in on their kids . It ’ s all in on the well-being of their students . They get behind what we as a school are trying to accomplish and that ’ s what it ’ s all about . You want to be at a place where you know you ’ re appreciated and supported . If you don ’ t , you don ’ t get the opportunity to have an impact , not just within the walls of our school , but outside of it as well .”
It would be good for the school district to have a focus group like this one that ’ s focused on youth , then make curriculum changes on race relations and train the teachers to help the students .
– an Arlington resident
Unity Council Report 55