Marianne Thayer, 3/9

Competencies Reflection

**Write a description of the cultural and socio-economic community served by the school, and

describe the implications of your findings for your teaching

WTES Community Description

Ranking #8 in Baltimore County Public Elementary Schools and #32 in Maryland

Elementary Schools, West Towson Elementary is a predominantly white and affluent

school located in the suburbs of Towson, MD. Though there are pockets of economically

disadvantaged areas in which the school pulls from, only 7% of the 435 students make

up this statistic. Additionally, the minority enrollment at WTES is about 34%.

During my past few weeks here, I’ve learned a lot about the effects of money and

familial support on a child’s education. For example, it’s not uncommon for students to

be absent for weeks at a time due to an extended vacation overseas. However, there

are a handful of students who have never even been outside of the state, and this

definitely creates a unique dynamic between the students. This is also applicable to

students and their homelife, which brings me to another unique aspect regarding West

Towson. The school is located down the street from the board of education, and many

children have parents that work there. The PTA is also incredibly involved, and this

really supports the students who don’t have a great environment to go to after school. I

have witnessed and deescalated several incidents so far involving student break downs
in the middle of a lesson over situations with this topic. I also recall speaking with a third

grade teacher about some of her children having no concept of divorced parents and

making comments about this to peers, so this also shows the diversity of homelife

support. Though I doubt I will ever be teaching in a school like this in my career, it’s

been very eye-opening to see the effects of income.