John Hamilton

CFA

Sanford High School is located in Sanford, Maine. The high school has just over one

thousand students and a student to teacher ratio of 14:1. According to Schooldigger.com the

school has some diversity but not much. Sanford is predominantly white with a percentage of

89.5, the rest is spread out between Asian at 2.8%, Hispanic at 2.4%, two or more races at 2.4%,

African American at 2.2%, and American Indian at 0.6%.

Within the last few years Sanford High School moved into a brand new, updated

building. A fellow classmate from the University of Maine Farmington, Lindsey Herzig who is a

resident of Sanford Maine and attended Sanford High School was able to give her perspective.

She explained that before the new school the students were in trailers that would act as

classrooms outside of the main building. They had outgrown the building and were in desperate

need of a new school. The classrooms were portable incase they needed to move them around.

Unfortunately for her she graduated from High School before they made the switch to the brand

new school. Another thing that Herzig said was, students from other schools would come to

Sanford High School during the day because it was also a trade school. Herzig also explained

that businesses do not typically stay long when they open up. They either go out of business or

they move before they do go out of business due to the lack of interest or unwillingness of

community members to spend their money.

Sanford High School opened its doors in the Fall of 2018 (Sanfordgrowth.com). Coming

in at $100 million, this was the biggest state-funded school related project in Maine's history. On

top of all of that, the community approved and funded another $10 million to complete a
Performing Arts Center and to improve upon the athletic fields. From the birds eye view the high

school looks like an ‘X’. The main office and front entrance is in the center of the building,

therefore everyone coming in and out passes through the office.

One of the biggest factors that will impact student learning this year is COVID-19. With

all of the rule changes and everything that is going on in the world today has an effect on how

students learn. They cannot do things the way that they used to in the past. The biggest change is

wearing a mask while in school. This will create a distraction for some students as they may not

be able to focus to the best of their ability. All summer they have not worn a mask for more than

twenty minutes at a time, and now they have to wear it for six and a half hours. The masks may

irritate some students and prevent them from focussing in the classroom. Another factor that will

impact student learning is the amount of times they come to school and are online. Students do

not come to school everyday and only come based on their last name. On Wednesdays everyone

is online and the students do not come to school that day. The question then has to be asked, ‘Is

the online learning effective enough? And, are they receiving the same type of instruction that

they would be if they were in the classroom?’ By going online students are losing critical in

person instruction from their teachers that cannot be done through a computer. Other students
could be very distracted when they are home and have to do online school. There is no way that a

teacher can prevent some of those distractions like they could in the classroom. Some students

when they come to school may be defiant on wearing a mask and others may have anxiety about

the virus. If a student refuses to wear their mask then that takes away from their learning but also

the other students in the room as well. Some students may be coming to school when they do not

feel comfortable being around that many people. Possible reasons for that are their parents are

making them come to school, they receive a free or reduced lunch so by coming to school they

are guaranteed a meal. Another possibility is they do not learn online that well and need to be in

school, or they need special services. Nothing is the same anymore and it will take some time for

students and teachers to get used to the changes. There are many factors that come into play with

COVID-19 this year and unfortunately it will greatly impact how a student learns.

This year with Covid-19 as a factor in the schools, things are going to be much different.

Students will not be able to walk the halls as freely as they did in the past. In the hallways there

are arrows on the ground that indicate the direction that the students must walk in during

“passing time”. There are also marks on the ground outside classrooms that show students where

they must sand as they wait to enter the room. It will be an adjustment for everyone in the

building who is used to taking the quickest and easiest way to each class. While in the classroom

all students and teachers must wear a mask at all times. This is a non-negotiable rule

implemented by the high school. Those students who do not follow it will be sent to the

principles, sent home or told to go fully online. All students were given the option to be online

and they do not have to be in the building so if they cannot and refuse to follow the rules they
will be asked to go online. In the picture below a sign that is posted outside of every classroom

door.

The rules in the school are strongly enforced. One of the rules that has been in place

pre-COVID is the cell phone policy. There are no cell phones allowed during class time. Before

COVID, depending on the teacher, cell phones would be placed in a bucket or bin as the students

came into the room. Now they must remain in their bags and on silent mode. When the students

are in the classroom they must wear a mask at all times. If they need to get a drink they cannot

take their mask off in the room and have to step outside the door. The water fountain is turned

off and can only refill water bottles, students will not be able to use it to get a drink. There is also

no eating allowed in the room at all. It is not like the water bottles where they can step out to

grab a drink, no eating. During their lunch block is the only time that students can eat. If a

student needs to go to the bathroom they will be escorted to the bathroom to ensure that no one is

in there first and then escorted back to the room. This will prevent students from wandering

around the school and being in the hallway. As the teachers get to know their students there will
be some that can be trusted to go to the bathroom and come right back without an escort and then

there will be some that will still need the escort. While in the classroom there is only one student

per table or desk. If there is more than one student at a table because the class size is bigger,

there needs to be a plexiglass divider in the middle. Some classrooms have dividers on each table

just to give space to everyone in the room. At the end of each class the teachers have to wipe

down the desks and chairs for the start of the incoming class. In the beginning of the year when

the weather is nice, the principal has given the teachers the opportunity to allow mask breaks.

This can only be done outside and everyone must keep their social distance. Depending on the

class, mask breaks will be between five and ten minutes. Shown in the picture below is the

layout of the classroom that I am in for the semester. As seen on each table are the plexiglass

dividers that give separation to the students.

Through conversation with teachers in the building, there have been big changes to the

daily schedule. Classes are now longer and there are more lunch blocks. There used to be five

class blocks that were each an hour long. Now there are only four class blocks for an hour and

twenty minutes except the lunch block which is in total almost two hours long. Since there can
only be so many people in a room at once and everyone has to be spread out, there are now six

lunch periods instead of four. Each lunch is about twenty minutes long and the students are

spread out in the cafeteria and outside the cafeteria. The school had to get rid of “spartan time”

where students could go to teachers or classes that they needed extra help in and complete work.

In between classes because of the arrows on the floor, passing time is now ten minutes compared

to five in previous years.

All of this has changed and as of Monday, September, 21st 2020, Sanford High School

and Tech Center is all online. An announcement was sent out on the Friday before that just the

High School will be going remote. A staff member in the building was diagnosed with

COVID-19 and then over the weekend two more staff members had tested positive. The school is

being shut down for two weeks where teachers and students are not to come into the building.

Everything is going to be deep cleaned and the entire building will be sanitized. After those two

weeks are up everyone will be able to come back to school. However, in conversation with staff

members around the building, they do not think that students will come back to school this

semester. All of the teachers after the two week cleaning period will come back to the building

whether students come back or not. The outlook for students has drastically changed due to

going remote. Planning for lessons has to be revised and how to teach needs to be changed

around. It is a difficult thing to transition to after being geared up to start teaching students in

person and then having to move completely remote at the last minute. This will be a challenging

time for students who need that in person interaction and teaching. For those students, teachers

are going to have to get creative and accommodate to the best of their ability. Another

challenging thing that comes into play is if the high school students have younger siblings that
are fortunate enough to go to school everyday. Teachers may see a disconnect from those

students as they may struggle with the fact that their sibling is able to attend school and they

cannot.

As of Monday October 5th, staff members of Sanford High School are able to return to

the building. They are given the opportunity to online teach from their classroom if they choose

to. If they do not want to return to the building that is fine and they can continue to teach from

the comfort of their home. The following week, October 13th, students will be coming back to

school on a regular basis. With the constant changes and the continuous revolving door, the

question has to be asked ‘how much learning have the students been able to do?’ They were first

pushed back a week and started later, then they came into the building for a week and then were

told that they were to move to distance learning. When students come back it will be another

learning curve for them because they have to get used to the building again. Some students may

not come back to school and elect to go fully remote. All of the changes pose more challenges

for the students and the teachers each and everyday.

It is a necessity for teachers to understand and know their students strengths and needs

when working with them. When a teacher understands how their students learn best and what

their interests are then they can tailor lessons based on that and keep them engaged. To get to

know the students that I will be working with I did a number of things, one of them being, I

looked through their IEPs. Another thing that I did was ask my mentor Rossie questions on some

of the students and what they are like in the classroom. I would also start up conversations with

them through Zoom as they checked in for their respective class blocks. This gave me the
opportunity to ask them questions on their interests and things that they enjoy doing outside of

school.

Based on the conversations that I had with Rossie, most of the students need assistance in

organization. When they get assignments from their general education teachers they do not

always write it down or put the assignment paper in the proper place. This creates issues for them

in the future. They will forget that they had an assignment to do because they did not write it

down. When this happens they fall behind in the class and have to play ‘catch-up’. More times

than not students will just break down and give up when they fall behind. When they get an

assignment handed out to them they will just throw it in their backpack and not in a folder. This

does not work for some students because it will become crumpled up and then lost in the deep

dark hole of the backpack. As resource room teachers we must teach some of those students how

to properly organize themselves so that they can stay on top of their work and keep up to date on

their assignments. What this may look like is having them keep a planner or an agenda for each

class. To make sure that they write things down we will check it every time they come to the

resource room. Or, another thing that can be done is to have their general education teachers

check their planner at the end of the class. To address the backpack situation we will have them

keep folders for each class and make sure each assignment or paper that gets handed out goes in

its respective folder. The student will empty their backpack initially to organize it and then there

will be weekly check ins.

Through a careful examination of IEPS I was able to gather more information on some of

the students. I will focus on four of the IEPS that I went through and to avoid any identifiable

information the students will be referred to as “Student A,B,C and D”. Each student has their
own accommodations and their own strengths in the classroom. Student A, is a “mobile” student,

meaning that they need to get up and walk and move around after a little while. This student

needs to get their energy out in order to focus on their assignments in class. However, student A

is also someone who acts out and enjoys distracting others around them. It is a privilege to be

given those movement breaks and if student A is someone who distracts others then those breaks

could be taken away. One of the biggest needs for student A that stood out to me is their

struggles with self-regulation, management, motivation and social skills. By knowing this I can

work one on one with this student to build some of that up or to assist this student in how to act

in certain situations. Looking at Student B, they have strengths in reading comprehension, math

fluency, visual spatial, fluid reasoning and working memory. One of the biggest things that

student B needs is organizational skills and social skills. Student B also enjoys going fishing and

being outdoors. Understanding student B’s interests and their needs I can use that to help them

stay organized and incorporate it into working with them. Student C and D both have needs in

organization and in math. Student C has a great attitude and is very good with technology and

their computer. By having conversations with this student, they enjoy film making and creating

movies with their friends and families. This student has trouble with staying focused and on task.

They get distracted quickly and then does not pay attention which in turn causes them to fall

behind. By knowing this I will redirect this student and work with them to teach them good

habits on staying on task and paying attention. If they pay attention then they will not be behind

on their work all of the time. Student D is just like C, this student wants to do well and succeed

in school. Student D has a positive attitude and really wants to do well in school. However,

student D also is easily distracted and does not always pay attention. When this student is on,
they work cooperatively, participates in class and is well behaved. If this student wants to do

well in school as they have explained to myself and my mentor, I would say that they need to pay

attention and limit distractions. I would also work with this student one on one to assist in ways

to prevent those distractions so they can be more focused. Since going through some of the

students' IEPs I have the ability to be prepared to work with the students and know the types of

questions to ask to peak their interests.

IEPs give much needed information to the educator but in order to get the most

information it is imperative to talk with the students. I was fortunate enough to get to know the

students on a different level through Zoom as they checked in. In the beginning it was questions

like “how was your summer? What did you do? And, what are you looking forward to this year

in school?” Some students were standoffish but once those walls were broken down a little bit

they opened up. Recently, questions could sound like “Any plans for the weekend?, what did you

do?, What are some of your interests when you are not in class or school?” Based on the

responses I would get I would have some follow up questions. One student really likes scary

movies and horror films, and when asked about them this student's face lights up and glows.

Other students enjoy video games and talking with their friends through their consoles. Some of

the other students enjoy being outside and active.

The Sanford community is relatively poor. According to Niche.com the median

household income of the town is $45,390. This is far below the national average of $55,332.

Based on this information the average family is earning about $10,000 less than the nation.
In the image above, it can be seen the discrepancy between Sanford Maine, and the rest of the

United States and the rest of Maine. Looking at the image there are some takeaways from it,

because of the gap in income, there are less resources for the students because their parents

cannot afford to buy them the necessary materials. With less resources the students do not have

the ability to learn at their full potential. They do not have the same opportunities to succeed as

some of the other students in the school. As a whole the average graduation rate is 82%

(Niche.com). If there were more resources and more funding, that number would be much higher

than 82%. The test scores of the students rise as well. With just over one thousand students, only

50% of them are proficient in reading and 32% are proficient in math (Niche.com). At the

school 51% of the students receive a free or reduced lunch, therefore over five hundred students

have such services (Niche.com). This is more than half of the school that is impoverished. The

median home value in Sanford is $170,900 compared to the national average of $184,700. Again

around $14,000 less than the rest of the nation.

 Sources

Sanford, ME. (n.d.). Retrieved October 04, 2020, from

https://datausa.io/profile/geo/sanford-me

Resident, N., & Resident, C. (2020, May 15). Living in Sanford. Retrieved October 07,

2020, from https://www.niche.com/places-to-live/sanford-york-me/

Sanford Schools. (n.d.). Retrieved October 07, 2020, from

https://sanfordgrowth.com/sanford-schools/

Sanford High School [Telephone interview]. (2020, September).

Sanford High School. (n.d.). Retrieved October 03, 2020, from

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/ME/schools/1050000316/school.aspx