OVERVIEW
The elementary school that I observed at, Orchard View Elementary, was located in Delray Beach, FL. The location was very accessible and right off of the highway. The teacher I got assigned to was Ms. Diann Johnson. She teaches a class for students in 3rd-5th grade. The class was held in a portable located outside the school, attached to another portable. The class was strictly self-contained.
The set-up had its strengths and weaknesses. A strength of the self-contained setting was the ability to focus on each of the students individually. The small number of students allowed the teacher and paraprofessional to have a more personal relationship with the student and understand their needs better. A weakness of the self-contained setting is the differing levels of exceptionalities. There were about five students that I feel could have been in an inclusive classroom. The other five still had differing disabilities that made it difficult to meet each of their needs. I think it had to do with the clumping of grades together. I feel like having 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders together proved difficult to cover all the content
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There were 7 Black children, 2 Hispanic children, and 1 Asian. I was shocked to find that there were no White children. This just goes to show the overrepresentation of some races in the ESE field. I saw many different posters around that included children of different backgrounds as well as culturally diverse books. It made me happy to see all different cultures being represented, especially with the diversity of the class. One accommodation that I saw was in her lesson about the seasons. She mentioned that seasons occur at different times all over the world. She pointed out that when it is winter in Florida, it is summer in Brazil where one student is from. I thought it was very nice of her to include that student in her instruction and I could tell that that student appreciated