I had a couple interesting experiences this week regarding LIST. First, since I live a few blocks away from LIST, I was walking home one evening while a parent was picking her child up from the school’s daycare program. She stopped her car in front of me, and was calling me by the wrong name. I must have looked confused because she finally said, “Are you the teacher that runs the after school tutoring program.” It turns out that she has wanted to enroll her son at LIST for a while now, but gets off work too late. She has arranged for an adult to take him, but she has not been able to come and enroll him during our hours of operation. I made arrangements with her to have her son come to the classroom I would be subbing in to pick up the waiting list form; he can also deliver the completed form the same way. I have been carrying flyers for LIST in my bag, but now I have also started carrying waiting list forms as well because of this “run in” with the parent.
(On a personal note, it is comforting and disquieting at the same time to realize the people of our neighborhood know who I am! This is not the first time that someone has approached me in a similar way; the first time happened outside our house, long before we started LIST. I had done some tutoring at our house after school and one evening, I heard a person yelling someone’s last name, not my own outside our house. I thought it was strange but did not pay much attention. Then the woman started yelling “maestra, maestra” (teacher, teacher). At that point, I went outside to find the woman wanting to talk to me!)
Anyway, during my substitute teaching jobs this week, I had the opportunity to sub in a second grade classroom. The teacher asked me to complete a fluency test with all the students. A fluency test is a one minute, individual test to see how many correct words per minute a student can read. I was astounded to find that two-thirds of this class was reading below 20 words per minute. The benchmark for this time of year is more around 50-60 words per minute. This means that two-thirds of her class is working below the benchmark. This was proof to me that the work LIST is doing is essential. It also reminded me of the desire I have to one day quit subbing and volunteer my time, pulling students out of the classroom for intensive tutoring, all in the name of LIST. Hopefully, with more experience, and a growing impact on the community, we will find grants and other funding sources that will allow me to do this.
