East Grand Rapids High School is located next to Reeds Lake and is a short walk away

from East Grand Rapids Middle School. Entirely surrounding the lake, the city of East Grand
Rapids consists of residential neighborhoods and smaller shops that make up the area known as
Gaslight Village. East Grand Rapids High is part of the Grand Rapids Public Schools system,
and the students who attend East Grand Rapids High live in the city of East Grand Rapids, attend
a traditional ninth through twelfth grade high school, and are situated in classes that attempt to
reach their unique needs.
The general public knows East Grand Rapids High School as the more upper-class of
the high schools, and the area itself is known as the wealthiest of the greater Grand Rapids area.
In fact, the city of East Grand Rapids advertises itself as a better place to live (City of East
Grand Rapids, 2015). Parents must prove residency in East Grand Rapids to enroll their
children in any East Grand Rapids public school (East Grand Rapids Public Schools, 2014),
and the schools local community is mainly white94.3 percentand the median household
income from 2009-2013 is $101,875, compared to the Michigan average of $48,411 (East
Grand Rapids City, MI, 2010,; United States Census Bureau, 2015). The city is made up of
residential areas and small businesses, and surrounding the high and middle schools, there are
cozy shops and little cafes where students and teachers go out for lunch. Within the community,
East Grand Rapids High sporting events are popular, Reeds Lake is used for family evenings out
as well as casual sailing excursions, and the Gaslight Village website advertises community
events and reminders, such as city commission meetings that are open to public attendance and
baseball games (Go Gaslight, 2015). The East Grand Rapids High School profile for 20142015 explains that students walk or drive to school [because] the district owns only enough
buses to transport special needs students and athletic teams and that, along with the fact that

students parents must prove residency to enroll their students in the schools, ensures that the
students come from the community surrounding the schools (East Grand Rapids High School:
2014-2015 Profile, 2015). The city of East Grand Rapids is largely a residential area, with 25
percent of its population between five and seventeen years oldthe general range for students to
be in kindergarten through high schooland 46 percent of the population between 35 and 64
(East Grand Rapids City, MI, 2010). Essentially, the majority of the people in the city of East
Grand Rapids are either students in elementary, middle, or high school, or are the parents of
those students. This provides the schools in East Grand Rapids with a large family support
system, and since the families live so close to the schools, they are more present and involved in
their childrens schooling. In addition, the teachers try to keep the parents involved through
emails about their students progress as well as through face-to-face conversations if necessary.
The East Grand Rapids High School building itself is well kept and has facilities for a
swim team, choir, band, and orchestra, along with a few newer classrooms that can be used as
blended classrooms. It is a multi-story building, with the main offices, the choir/orchestra/band
rooms, the library/media center, the lunch area, and the spirit shop comprising the first story, and
classrooms on the second. The basement has locker rooms and pool access, and it is also used for
storage. The classrooms utilize technology regularlyEast Grand Rapids High emphasizes that
it is a one-to-one school and that every student should have a laptop to useso for the few
students who do not have laptops of their own, teachers keep a few in cabinets to lend out to
students who need to borrow them. As a result of this, and in an attempt to save money, students
use online codes to access their textbooks, and it is not uncommon to walk into a classroom and
see the students balancing their laptops and their notebooks on their desks as they do their math
homework. East Grand Rapids High is a traditional ninth through twelfth grade high school, and

their course offerings are quite extensive, with options including fourteen Advanced Placement
(AP) classes, foreign language/art/music electives, classes in the regular science/English/social
studies/mathematics branches, as well as journalism, television production, and physical
education options (East Grand Rapids High School: 2014-2015 Profile, 2015). There are also
student organizations and clubs that the students are involved in; announcements with meeting
times and activities are broadcasted over the schools morning announcements every day during
the period set aside for homeroom. The students math (and some science) classes are tracked
beginning in middle school, and the different tracks end with AP Calculus (AB or BC), dual
enrollment for multivariable calculus, a Personal Finance/Real World Math year for students
who struggled through Advanced Algebra, or a Functions/Statistics/Trigonometry Honors (FST)
and AP Statistics course. The science classes are more based on student interestall freshmen
take physics, sophomores take biology, and juniors take chemistry, but after that, the students
can choose their last coursewith certain courses (AP Physics) running concurrently with
certain math courses (AP Calculus). Students are able to change their track through
parent/teacher-signed waivers, complete with reasons why the student should be allowed to
change the courses, but the students are generally set in their tracks once they start on them in
middle school. The math curriculum is aligned to the Common Core, and they use Holt
McDougal textbooks, which have an online component so the students currently use online codes
rather than owning actual textbooks. East Grand Rapids High is an open campus, so the students
are free to come and go at-will throughout the day There are no guards and no restrictions on
students, provided they act as responsible citizens, which enables them to take advantage of the
community around them during the school day (East Grand Rapids High School: 2014-2015
Profile, 2015).

Each class at East Grand Rapids High is made up of about 250 students, and those
students are grouped into classeseach student must take at least four academic courses per
semesterand there are roughly 25 students per class (East Grand Rapids High School: 20142015 Profile, 2015). As of 2013, the student to teacher ratio is 21:1, and there were 973 students
enrolled for the 2012-2013 school year (National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). Eleven
percent of their students are minorities; three percent are Asian, four percent are AfricanAmerican, two percent are Hispanic, one percent is two or more races, and less than one percent
is American Indian, and the male to female ratio is 50:50 (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2013). One percent of the students are eligible for reduced-price lunch, and five
percent are eligible for free lunch (National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). In Mrs.
Murphys first period Geometry class, there are 28 students, and the demographics of the class
reflect those of the school: there are thirteen males (47 percent) and about 80 percent of the
students in the classroom identify as white. The class includes one English Language Learner
(ELL) student and two students with special needs. As a result of this, Mrs. Murphy meets with
the ESL specialists and reviews the students IEPs to ensure that they are getting the help they
need. All the students in her class are proficient with English, which makes instruction much
easier. Geometry is the class that freshmen are automatically placed in, but there are definitely
some higher achieving students as well as some students who either do not care about the class
or are unable to do the required work. This means that the classroom has a wide range of
abilitieswhen Mrs. Murphy drops the students lowest quiz scores at the end of the semester,
there are students whose lowest scores are in the low 90s range as well as students whose lowest
scores are in the low 30s range. The students seem to maintain a balance between academic and
social livesthey walk into class discussing the sports practice they have after class, or telling

friends to come to their next concert, but also take out homework and discuss problems they
were unsure of. The students are active in sports such as rowing, softball, and wrestling, and
some of the other students are involved in choir, orchestra, and bandallowing them to be well
rounded as students and learners.
My unit takes place in a classroom where the students can move around and use the space
for group work. My current classroom is ideally set up because the desks are on wheels, and the
students know they are allowed to move to work with each other on homework and review
games. The desks will be in rows of six, with space between every set of two desks, so that there
is an aisle for the teacher to walk through. Similarly, these desk groups (three large groups of
eight to twelve desks) will work together on parts of sample problems that are worked out in
class. The routine in the classroom consists of a period of time to answer homework questions,
some instruction time, and some time to work on homework while the teacher circulates and
answers any questions. Homework will be checked for completion, and quizzes or other
assessments will be given periodically to assess understanding before the traditional end-of-unit
test.