A pervasive school culture for the betterment of student outcomes: One school's approach to student mobility

Journal of Negro Education, The, Winter 2003 by Franke, Todd Michael, Isken, Jo Ann, Parra, Michelle T

This article illustrates how one southern California school has developed a culture where all students receive the same benefits and opportunities. While there is no formal "program," all students, particularly those who are highly mobile and volatile, benefit from the way the school conducts its services. A case study is described, followed by the process for new students. Programs that benefit all at-risk students, regardless of mobile status, are described to exemplify the breadth of services available and the all-encompassing culture of care that exists at the school. Such a culture can be used as a model for many urban and suburban schools where high mobility and high-risk students are predominant.

Student mobility poses a significant challenge both to the student who experiences the instability as well as to the school that the mobile student enters and exits. Estimates from the 2000 Census indicate that nearly a quarter of all homeless people are less than 18 years of age (Smith & Smith, 2001). That is to say, the issue of urban mobility and the families who live according to its demands, and live with its effect, does not end at the school door (Holloway, 2002). The extent to which families move in urban settings cannot be ignored as a cause for the difficulties of school-age children. School transience has been found to be detrimental to academic achievement and may also have effects on self-esteem and classroom behavior, as well as on the perceptions held by educators regarding academic ability and motivation (Hendershott, 1989; Vail, 1996). Though the transient family is not a new phenomenon, only recently has the transient urban school-age child received the attention by researchers, educators, and policymakers that is merited. Still, such attention has been limited, partly due to the obstructions inherent in studying a transient population. In addition, according to Wood and his colleagues (1993, p. 1334), poor and minority families are "50 to 100% more likely to have a pattern of moving frequently than middle-class families." This article focuses on the school culture of one urban elementary school, situated in a southern California neighborhood. The ideology of this school is to facilitate the academic achievement of all students equally, regardless of their familial or residential circumstances, without giving credence to the stereotypes that pervade the public school system with regard to transient students.

LENNOX SCHOOL DISTRICT/MOFFETT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

The Lennox school district is a small district with five elementary schools and one middle school. Lennox is an unincorporated, socioeconomically disenfranchised 1.3 square mile area surrounded by the city of Los Angeles. Lennox is a port-of-entry community where 53% of the residents have resided in the United States less than five years (immigrating from South and Central American countries) and 85% are solely Spanish speaking or Spanish language dominant. Other major socioeconomic problems faced by children in the Lennox community include:

* Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department statistics document 62 tagging crews1 and 14 gangs with 3,405 members in the Lennox area. At least 20 other active gangs surround the general vicinity of the South Bay (Sharfstein, 1997).

* Lennox has the highest number of children living in poverty in the Los Angeles South Bay area (U.S. Census Bureau, 1990).

* Over 96% of Lennox students are eligible for free or reduced lunches (i.e., 200% at or below federal poverty level; California Department of Education, 2001).

* Approximately 95% of Lennox families have no health insurance (Children Now, 2001).

* Lennox' teenage birth rate is the sixth highest per capita in California (Biggs, Brindis, Cagampang, & Marquez, 1997).

Current human service resources in the community, although effective and comprehensive, are not able to adequately influence all youth in the target area:

* The Lennox School District is the area's only political/administrative body and primary fiscal agency of social and educational services in the area. Severe overcrowding has tapped out the district's limited financial resources and caused program space to reach its capacity.

* The majority of prevention programs are offered only during school hours and not at times (i.e., after school, weekends) when children and youth at risk for school problems and failure are most likely to act out.

* Services outside the community are either too expensive, require long travel distances, or have waiting lists.

Moffett Elementary School is located within the Lennox district in an urban neighborhood of Los Angeles, approximately five miles from the international airport, nestled between the intersections of two major freeways. It is a K-5th grade school, in a densely populated neighborhood comprised predominantly of Hispanic American families who live in single-family homes and apartment complexes. Also nearby is a section 8 housing development where some of the elementary school students reside. In any given month throughout the school year, 4-10 new students enter the school as transfer students from other schools, from both within and outside of the school district.