Week 1 at Shea High School

My first impression of Shea was that it is definitely an urban school. Based on my observations and on my discussions with Amy the guidance counselor my first impression proved to be correct. The school seems to lack resources. I noticed that when we first pulled in many of the students were walking down the block in sports uniforms. I was later informed that because of the schools location all of the sports fields are located one block away. Before meeting the students we met with Amy and she gave us a tour of the school and told us some statistics about the school and the area. She said that 85% of the students receive free or reduced lunch and most of the students are a African American or Hispanic. The school is not horribly run down and it does have some resources such as computer labs. Amy said there are around 900 students in the school, 240 freshman and we had 7 students show up the first day for EXPLORE. I must say I was very impressed with the students and their motivation and willingness to be there. Two if the girls are sophomores returning for a second year with the EXPLORE program. We played ice breaker games with the students the first day and got to know each other better. At first a few of the students seemed nervous to be around college students but after awhile they warmed up to us. Mostly the students sounded like they were there because they didn't really know what the college process was and they want to learn more about what it's like. I am looking forward to working with these students the rest of the semester and hopefully watching them progress in their college search. I hope that I can help them and motivate them to work hard to get into the school they want. I don't really know any of their backgrounds or culture yet since we only met once. I'm assuming they come from families that have a low SES. Before we left for the day the students made a chart of what they hoped to get out of this program- most of them mentioned learning more about college but a few of them seemed like they had no idea what they want to do in four years. That's okay with me and I hope that I can help them make the right decision for themselves and get to know them better so they feel encouraged to do well in school and be successful in different aspects of their lives.