Let the internship begin...

The school, that I was fortunate enough to receive permission to internship at is Houston Elementary, one of 26 elementary schools within the Gilbert Public School (GPS) system. GPS has a total district enrollment of over 39,000 students (Gilbert Public Schools). The Town of Gilbert is a suburb of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area, the 14th largest metro area in the United States. Gilbert itself has a population of 208,453 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). With an average family income of $98,213 over 92% of the citizens of Gilbert over the age of 25 have a high school diploma or a GED, 35.5% have a Bachelor’s degree and 10.46% have a Master’s degree (“Gilbert, Arizona”). Houston Elementary is located at 500 E. Houston Ave in Gilbert, Arizona. It currently serves 556 students in grades K-6. Houston offers full day kindergarten, Amanacer Preschool and kindergarten prep. At present there are 44 full time teachers and 40 classrooms with a student teacher ratio of 13.05:1. This exceptional ratio is 16.4% lower than average for all public Arizona schools. The faculty at Houston Elementary has an average of nine years of experience and receive an average salary of $43,102. In 2011 Houston students were performing better than 75.4% of other public schools and 30.8% qualified for free/reduced lunch(Gilbert Public Schools). The class I am interning in is that of Amy Farmer-Behrens. Mrs. Behrens has been teaching special education at Houston Elementary since receiving her Bachelors in Secondary Education/Social Studies from Northern Arizona University in 2006. Because of her position she began taking graduate courses in special education and completed her Masters in December of 2010. Mrs. Behrens has one full time teacher assistant, Norma, who has worked with her in the classroom since 2007. This year their classroom consists of both fourth and sixth graders. She has a total of 19 students with between 4 and 9 in each class period. There are two Hispanic, two Native American, one ‘other’ and 14 Caucasian students. Gender distribution is 3.2:1.