Classroom Demographic Narrative

When planning a unit, it is important to consider what population is being taught. By

collecting classroom demographics, I have planned a well rounded unit that meets the needs of

my classroom. In collecting this information I have found that I have the same number of boys

and girls, a variety of ethnicities and exceptionalities as well as students who come from poverty.

I not only researched my particular classroom in planning for this unit, but I have researched the

school and the community where Buena Vista Elementary School is located. Through these

pieces of data, I have a better understanding of my students’ community and how to best reach

my students through instruction.

In my classroom, I took 4 pieces of information into consideration as I was planning my

unit. First, I looked at gender represented in my class. I found that I have the exact same amount

of boys as I do girls. Through my experience in this classroom, I recalled that certain boys took

charge of the math small groups and would often dominate conversation. I have experienced

times where certain students would call out over others and not give everyone a fair shot at

answering in our math small groups. Therefore, I will divide students based on the pre-

assessment and consider the gender while placing students in their groups. Secondly, I looked at

the different ethnicities represented in my classroom. I plan to meet the needs of the various

ethnicities by using a variety of names in the problems that I give and vary the activities for

different learning styles. Thirdly, I looked at the various exceptionalities that students have in my

classroom. I realize that it is often difficult to reach every student during a whole group lesson,

therefore, we will focus mainly on math groups. The students that are gifted will likely be in the

same math group depending on how the pretest. I will offer creative enrichment for this group. I

will allow them to create their own problems after we discuss the problems that are planned for
that day. For the group that needs accommodations (most of these students will score similarly

on the pretest), I will allot extra time during their “teacher rotation” to give individualized

instruction to these students. Finally, I have taken the students who have free or reduced lunch

into consideration while planning. I understand that these students may have limited experiences

compared to the rest of the class. I have an activity planned where the students get to pretend to

be doctors and perform and operation. They will get a latex glove and doctor’s mask to go along

with their activity. I have also planned a variety of hands-on activities with these students in

mind.

In planning my unit, I have also looked at the school demographics at Buena Vista

Elementary School and compared my classroom to the rest of the school. The only statistic that I

was unable to find to compare to the class demographics was exceptionalities. I was able to

compare the rest of my demographics, though. First, there are 53% female and 47% male

population at Buena Vista. This differs from my classroom very little. It seems that there are a

few more females in the school than males, but not by much. Secondly, the ethnicities correlated

very similarly as well. In the school the majority is caucasian at 71% , with the asian and

African American population both at 9%. The Hispanic population is 7% and the other category

has the remaining 4% of students. In my class, caucasian is the highest percentage, then African

American and Asian populations are the same with Hispanic as the lowest. Lastly I measured the

amount of free and reduced lunch compared to my class. 20% of the students at Buena Vista

have free lunch and 2% have reduced lunch. This varies from my classroom as we have 2

students on free lunch and 2 on reduced lunch. Source: https://www.publicschoolreview.com/buena-vista-

elementary-school-profile/29650

The last demographic that I looked at while planning my unit was the community of

Greer, South Carolina. Buena Vista Elementary school is located in the town of Greer, South
Carolina. Aside from Buena Vista there are four other elementary schools: Woodland

Elementary, Skyland Elementary, Chandler Creek Elementary, and Crestview Elementary. There

are three middle schools: Riverside Middle (where Buena Vista feeds into), Blue Ridge Middle,

and Greer Middle. There are three high schools that these middle schools feed into: Riverside

High, Blue Ridge High, and Greer High. There is also a career center that students can go to

located in Greer. According to Area Vibes, Buena Vista is rated the highest elementary school in

this area. The student to teacher ratio for this area is 20:1. The average for test scores is 62%

compared to the State of South Carolina which is 46%. This tells me that the elementary school I

am in has great support from the district, the community and the area. It also leads me to believe

the administrators are doing their jobs very well. Source: www.areavibes.com

In conclusion, I have found it very helpful to look at demographics in helping me plan

my unit. I have compared the classroom demographics to the school demographics. I have also

looked at the community and researched where Buena Vista falls within this community. Not

every student has their parents working with them at home, so those opportunities for small

group instruction are crucial. It causes me to think about they types of parents I will be coming in

contact with too. These are helpful statististics to aid in providing a well-rounded learning

environment.