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Contextual Factors Analysis

Skowhegan High School

Brittany Courtot
University of Maine at Farmington

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The Community:
Skowhegan Area High School is located in Skowhegan, Maine, which has a town
population of approximately 8,458 in Somerset Country. (United States Census Bureau
2010) With the Kennebec River running through Skowhegan, Skowhegan is a central
location that is rich in natural resources, which in the past made it a perfect location for
Native Americans to utilize for subsistence. (Skowhegan.org) Today, Skowhegans
primarily white rural community (96.9%) (United States Census Bureau, 2010)
capitalizes its historical background as well as its natural settings to prompt visits and
local development. (Skowhegan.org)

Local Politics have come into the foreground of life in Skowhegan because of

Skowhegans historic Native American background more recently. Skowhegans school


mascot is that of an Indian, however many local tribe members find this deeply
insulting. There is a tension between those who feel this mascot defines the schools
community in a positive light and those that believe the mascot is offensive to Native
American culture. This has culminated recently to a rally last October on Columbus Day
in support of the schools mascot. (Gagnon, 2015) The issue has been brought up to vote
several times, but in May of 2015 the school board voted 11-9 against changing the
mascot. (Harlow, 2015). Within my Social Studies content I need to aware of this
tension as it effects the mindsets and learning environment of my students in strong
ways.

Aside from this political tension, the employment data looks fair with the

unemployment rate only being a bit high at 8.5%, which compared to Maines
unemployment rate of 5.7% (United States Department of Labor, 2014-2015) and the
United States unemployment rate of 5% (United States Department of Labor, 2014-

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2015) means Skowhegan is doing relatively well in employment. By viewing Figure 1


below, Skowhegan can be seen lagging, but only slightly. The only real problem is the
higher level of unemployment that Skowhegan is experiencing right now.

This somewhat high unemployment rate could steam from the slightly narrow

job fields, the two highest job fields being, Manufacturing at 21.8% and Heath Care and
Social Assistance at 22.3% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). This limits the possible
opportunities and skill sets needed with the Skowhegan area, which could potentially
affect how much motivation my students will have studying Social Studies. Students
might view Social

Employment Statistics
100

Studies as a

Maine

80

misuse of time

Skowhegan

60

given that the

40

subject is not

20
0
Employment

Figure 1

Unemployment

immediately
applicable to

either major field within Skowhegan. Yet, the major historical focus of the towns
economic plan seems to indicate there might be some potential gains for students
within the Social Studies field.
The narrow job market also extends to the amount of education a person
receives, as only 16.9% of individuals from Skowhegan pursue a Bachelors degree or
higher compared to the 28.4% who pursue Bachelors degree throughout Maine. (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2010-2014). This lack of pursuing higher Education might also relate to
another financial issue in Skowhegan: the median household income. Despite
Skowhegan having a decent enough unemployment rate, it suffers from another

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financial problem. If you look at Figure 2 you can see that the Median Household Income
for Skowhegan is significantly lower than both the State and Countrys median incomes.
Now on top of this, Skowhegan has a high percentage of people in poverty,
22.1% compared to the 14.1% of the State (United States Census Bureau, 2010).
Considering both of these factor, it is entirely possible many students will be unable to
provide materials or resources outside the classroom. Moreover, some students might
arrive at school hungry and that will hinder their ability to focus or be motivated.

Median Household Income


$60,000
$50,000
$40,000
$30,000
$20,000
$10,000
$0

$48,804

$53,482
$33,371

Thankfully,
Skowhegans
distract RSU 54 in
2014 became one of
the first Maine

Median Household Income


Maine

Figure 2

United States

Skowhegan

school distracts to
offer free lunches

and breakfasts to all students. As Eric Jensen in his article How Poverty Affects
Classroom Engagement writes, health-related factors can affect attention, reasoning,
learning and memory. (Jensen, 2013). In this, my students focusing issues might be
related to poor nutrition in some instances, despite the free breakfast and lunch.
Jensen further contends, One reason many students seem unmotivated is because of
lack of hope and optimism. (Jensen, 2013). Ive seen the past few weeks that many of
my students who struggle with financially or have poor family situations have a hard
time seeing the point in doing an assignment. So, my job is to facilitate students
discover the connection and the value of their learning experience.

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Also, to remedy some of that financial embarrassment, I will plan out my lessons
so that students are not singled out or miss any experience due to lack of funds.
Beyond the financial aspect of the community of Skowhegan, there is the make-
up of the household, which can denote many things within a students life including,
again, their motivation as well as how much support there are getting at home.
Skowhegans breakdown of households can be seen in Figure 3 below, which shows that
half of the households with children under 18 have both a mother and father. However,
35% of those households in Skowhegan have only a mother, not a father and 13% have
a father, but not a
mother. (United States

Household Breakdown with Children


Under 18

Census Bureau, 2010).

Husband and Wife

35%
52%
Figure 3

13%

The non-
traditional households

Male Householder -
No Wife Present
Female Householder -
No Husband Present

could be explained by
families with gay or
lesbian parents, but

also single parents as well. The marital status of families can impact a students support
system as home in a few different ways. Tension within the family can cause a lack of
motivation, no parental support in academics and the like.
Moreover, single parent households with many children can indicate that older children
take on part-time jobs or baby-sit other siblings. Any of these situations can lead to a
lack of motivation due to fatigue as well as lack of time to do assigned homework. Thus,
when I am planning for my lessons I will try to be aware of where such cases might
arise, but moreover to limit the amount of homework given if possible as well being

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somewhat flexible with due dates. Moreover, I would try to offer emotional support
options such as school counseling for those students struggling with family tensions so
as to give some relief from that stress.

The District
Skowhegan Area High School is in District RSU 54/ MSAD 54 that has seven
schools within that distracts serving grades from pre-K to 12th. Since October of 2014-
15, the enrollment in the distract is 2,633 students. The approximate expenditure per
student is $11,874 which only slightly trails behind the States average expenditure
per student, which is $12,056. (Maine Department of Education, 2013-14). However,
the question is how is that money being spent on services for that student? You can see
the breakdown of that spending in Figure 4 below, which illustrates the breakdown of
student expenditure within the distract.

RSU 54 Student Expenditure Breakdown


Facilities &
Operations
23%
Administration
6%
Instructional
64%

Student and
Staff Support
7%
Figure 4

As you can see, Distract RSU 54 spends nearly 70% of its per student
expenditure on instruction, which includes teacher training, Special Education
Instruction, Career and Technical Education, and curriculum development. (Maine
Department of Education, 2013-2014). It is obvious from this that RSU 54 puts immense

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importance on having highly qualified teachers and many forms of educational supports
or choices. Because of this, my time in the classrooms there will be well supported and
my instructional segments will have support in terms of materials and highly trained
colleagues.

Moreover, the residents of the towns within RSU 54, in May of 2015, approved a

$34 million budget, a 1 percent increase from last year. Much of this budget will be
redirected towards special education teachers and pay increases for teachers. (Harlow,
2015) The monetary support for the Special Education program within Distract RSU 54
illustrates just how much the students are put first and supported within this distract
so this support network is something to keep in mind when I am in the classrooms of
Skowhegan if I am working with a student who requires additional support in any way.
This breakdown is something to keep in mind when I enter Skowhegan, as it shows how
much the community supports the schools therein, which is reflected in the pride many
have in Skowhegan High School as seen by the discussions during the mascot debates.

The School

Skowhegan Area High School sits back from the road, its Middle School

counterpart sits just down the road. The large space of the main foyer can be slightly
intimidating at first, but the Main Office is full of friendly and helpful individuals, which
helps set the tone of the school.

Skowhegan Area High School has a student population of 813, which compared

to other rural school is a relatively large student population. Although upon entering
the classroom The schools mission statement dictates that students will become
lifelong learners who excel in areas such as problem solving, research skills, and
becoming effective collaborator. (MSAD54, 2015) A very important academic

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expectation therein is the skill of listening, which is something that indicates that
Skowhegan values developing positive environment and teamwork. This is something
to be mindful of when working with students, structuring my lessons to build off
developing these skills further.

Another aspect of development that is important prior to entering the classroom

and developing lessons is how proficiency the average student is in a given subject.
Skowhegan High School has 34.1% of their tested students meeting of reaching higher
than the required level in Reading (Maine Department of Education, 2013-2014). In
Figure 5 below, you can see how much further Skowhegan falls behind the States
Reading scores. Considering, how much reading is required in Social Studies, it will be
good to plan my lessons around the fact that many of my students will be reading below
grade level, including having a variety of resource materials and varied level of reading
sources.

Reading Achievement Scores


80.00%
60.00%
40.00%

% Meets or Higher Scores

20.00%
0.00%
Skowhegan

Maine Target

Figure 5
Although the given student:teacher ratio for Skowhegan is 14:1, which is higher
than the ME average of 12:1, (Public School Review, 2014) the school recently went
through cut-backs. This resulted in larger class sizes, now ranging from 24 to 26
students per classroom teacher. This classroom size presents difficulties in terms of

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maintaining student focus and being able to facilitate all the students needs. Therefore, I
will try to make it easier for individual students to contact me with questions and I have
begun to construct a Google Site for students to use as a forum to do so. With this, I
hope I will be able to focus on student needs and craft a community of learners who can
achieve their academic goals.

Classroom Factors
My high school students all have access to Mac laptops through the school
purchasing them. However, Skowhegan is not a 1:1 school, so students only can use
them within class or in the library without taking them home. To obtain laptops for a
classroom I must book them ahead of time so that a cart will be brought to the room.
Moreover, as previously stated, Skowhegans community is financially struggling and as
such many students do not have computers or internet at home. This situation presents
some concerns about students being able to complete their homework on time, so I
must be aware that students will perhaps need more time on assignments or homework
that does not require technology to complete. However, all the students at Skowhegan
get an email to use when they are Freshmen so I am able to communicate with
students who have study halls or can at home. This enables me to help students catch
up when theyve been absent or give them additional support when needed.

Room P2 is located in the orange section of the Skowhegan High School all

the Social Studies classroom clustered together within that section. This is the same for
all content areas, each wing of the building dedicated to a specific content area. The
tables set two students with four rows of four tables. The students typically push their
tables together, which help facilitate group work or discussions. The students all face
the white board, although the projector screen typically covers the whiteboard most of

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the time. I have begun to write down the Agenda for the class period on the board,
including noting what homework is due for the rest of the week. This is scaffolding my
website for those students who do not have access to internet or a computer. My desk
sits to the left of the whiteboard and Mrs. Schaffers desk sits to the right at the front of
the room. Overall, the room is pretty empty minus a shelf for textbooks, as the school
cannot afford to buy textbooks for all students, and a back wall showing student work.
The former, the lack of textbooks, is only a slight issue because it means that most
reading must be done in class so I must include that into my planning of my lessons.

Skowhegans schedule is set up to have a Day 1 and a Day 2 set-up, which

means that classes alternate every other day. The two Day schedules can be seen in
Figure 6 below,

Day One

Day Two

Advisory: 8:15 8:25

Advisory: 8:15 8:25

Prep Period: 8:30 9:46

United States History II: 8:30 9:46

College Govt: 9:51 11:07

Options Govt: 9:51 11:07

Options Govt: 11:12 12:59

Study Hall: 11:12 12:59

Lunch: 11:28 11:50

Lunch: 11:28 11:50

College Govt: 12:59 2:15

United States History II: 12:59 2:15

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0

Figure 6

I have two periods of United States History II and all my students are very unique and come
from a variety of backgrounds. I gave them a Student Interest Survey on the first day that I
was in the classroom to gauge them as individuals and their learning style. In Figure 7 and
Figure 8, I recorded the results in a shorthand style. Both periods results tell me that I should
be using small groups activities, which seems to help them engage the content and maintain
focus on task. So it would be beneficial to do a variety of cooperative learning activities with
their students, however

Figure 7

it would have to match


and challenge the
knowledge and skill
level of the students.
Many of the students
also wrote down the
manner in which they
learn best such as in

Figure 8

Figure 7, JW wrote they


learned best with
hands-on activities.
Knowing that, I will try
to combine their
interests and the
manner in which they

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learn best to help them engage the content in a deep, meaningful way. For example, I am in
contact with U.S. Park Rangers in Gettysburg, PA to attempt a distance learning project for my
WWII unit come March. This matches with both students love of the outdoors and
specifically JS who wants to became a Park Ranger. I believe that this group will need hands-
on, real-life connections to engage in the content, yet moreover I want to make sure they can
move occasionally because many of them are active in sports.
After, teaching for a few days I found that my students seemed resistance to some of the
things that I felt would work based on their interests. Part of that is that my mentor and I
have different methods of teaching, but I decided to give the students a Mindset
Assessment to see their thoughts on learning itself. In Figure 9 below, are the results of the
assessment and in Figure 10 is a key to the various Mindset numbers.

Mindset Assessment Profile

G2 F3
5% 14%
G1
33%

F2
14%

F1
34%

F3

F2

F1

G1

G2

Figure 9

F1


You are unsure about whether you can change your intelligence. You care about
your performance and you also to learn, but you dont really want to have to work
too hard for it.

You are unsure about whether you can change your intelligence. You care about

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2

G1

F3

F2

G2

your performance and you also to learn, but you dont really want to have to work
too hard for it.

You lean toward thinking about your intelligence doesnt change much. You prefer
not to make mistakes if you can help it and you also dont really like to put in a lot
of work. You may think that learning should be easy.

You lean toward thinking about your intelligence doesnt change much. You prefer
not to make mistakes if you can help it and you also dont really like to put in a lot
of work. You may think that learning should be easy.

You believe that your intelligence is something that you can increase. You care
about learning and youre willing to work hard. You do want to do well, but you
think its more important to learn than to always perform well.

Figure 10
I found that many of the students, nearly 70% (combined F1 and G1) of the
students, are unsure about if they change their intelligence. But moreover, many of them
want to do well without being challenged. This would be considered a closed mindset in
many ways and this poses a challenge. Ive found that without clear expectations, minimal
transitions and something for them to do many student struggle with maintaining focus.
My mentor teacher and I have discussed that I need to cut back on the amount of activities
within an 80-minute class period. This cuts down on messy transitions, which derail
students focus. I feel that their focus issue comes from three reasons: interest, challenge of
the content, and mindset. In their closed mindset my students are struggling to see the
worth in the challenge of their education, they simply feel they need to pass the class not
learn the content. Again, this poses a challenge for me and thus I am going to be meeting
them in the middle so-to-speak. I am going to have more book work, yet focusing on
primary documents and various other media rather than simply textbooks. I will
occasionally have cooperative work, yet space it out so its mixed style of classroom as
many times students seem to be more comfortable having more notes or information

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before discussion. To help challenge students in a way that they would be comfortable
with, I will try to use project-based learning. In this model I will have students show their
knowledge, in a summative assessment, as a project, which connects the students interest
to the content itself.
In summative, Ive found that Skowhegans community heavily impacts the nature of the
school and its students. Whether its in regards to the mascot issue or the heavy love of
sports, Skowhegan and the community are closely tied together. Ive found that this can be
a great asset in having various support networks, yet sometimes the focus of the
community of Skowhegan seems to drift from deep learning at times. To this end, I hope
that my interest-based approach will be able to mix into the established routine of the two
classrooms so that I am able to help those closed mind set students be able to see that
doing lots of work can be beneficial to their goals and help them succeed in the future. To
do so, I aim to be able to include community supports into my lesson and focus my United
States history to have more relevance to their daily lives, their goals, and towards
bolstering their strengths. All the students in my classes have the tools and the skills to
succeed, if they are able to change their mindsets to be more open then theyll be able to
succeed in all walks of life.

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Works Cited
"Databases, Tables & Calculators by Subject." Bureau of Labor Statistics Data. 2014-
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Gagnon, Dawn. "Skowhegan Rallies Focus on Indian Mascot, Columbus Day
Disputes." Bangor Daily News. 12 Oct. 2015. Web. 2016.

Harlow, Doug. "Skowhegan 'Indians' Mascot Conflict Continues behind the Scenes."
Central Maine. 28 June 2015. Web. 2016.

Jensen, Eric. How Poverty Affects Classroom Engagement. Educational Leadership
(May 2013): 24 30. Print. 2016.

"Maine Street Skowhegan." Maine Street Skowhegan. Web. 2016. Retrieved from:
<http://www.mainstreetskowhegan.org/>.

"Research and Reports." Data Warehouse. Maine Department of Education, 2013-2014.
Web. 2016. Received from:
http://dw.education.maine.gov/DirectoryManager/WEB/ResearchAndReports/Resear
chAndReportsSearch.aspx?domainid=1


Stapleton, Erica. "RSU 54 Offers Free Lunch, Breakfast to All Students | WABI TV5."
WABI TV5. 10 Sept, 2014. 2016.

"Skowhegan Area High School." Public School Review: Profile. Web. 2016. Received
from: http://www.publicschoolreview.com/skowhegan-area-high-school-profile

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"Skowhegan Area High School." Maine School Adminstrative District #54 Skowhegan
Area High School. Web. Received from: <http://www.msad54.org/sahs/>.

"Welcome to an Engaged Community." Skowhegan, ME. Web. 2016.

QuickFacts: Maine. United States Census Bureau, 2010. Web. 2016.



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