Community profile
From a Tarrant County Juvenile Probation Officer to the Assistant Principal of Cassata, Bruce Smith has been making a positive impact on kids his whole career. Through twenty-five years of being a probation officer, Mr. Smith had worked with Cassata countless times. Through his encounters with this amazing school he saw something different than he had with other second chance schools. He saw a school that works together, as the staff and community, to help change the kids’ lives. So when the opportunity opened up to join the Cassata staff, Mr. Smith pounced on it. He uses his experiences in the probation office to help kids settle differences without any violence and works as a mediator between them. Doing what he can to help the students in any way, Mr. Smith tries to help create an environment that kids can grow and see their success. As he once said, “Success comes every day,” you can see it in the kids. He lives this principle everyday at Cassata, he works hard to keep all the kids going to class and to graduate every student that comes in through those doors. Mr. Smith also has the privilege of being the connecting strained between the students and the parents, which includes his favorite part of his job, which is letting parents know when their child has gotten a credit for a class and passed a standardized test. To him, nothing is better than changing a kids future. His goal is to give these kids a second chance, to help them stay in school and to help them get into college. He uses his knowledge and experience he has gained though his many years of service to the community to help save the lives of these students, who come from a variety of unfortunate situations, and helps thrust them towards a successful future, through prevent the students from being trapped by there mistakes or there situations. With his background in aiding underprivileged kids, Bruce Smith has used these developed skills to help kids at Cassata create a future where there might not have been one otherwise.
Reflection
Cassata has become a staple in the Fort Worth community attracting kids from dozens of zip codes and has shown tremendous success rates among teens trying to graduate high school. In fact, Cassata has reported a 90 percent graduation rate while the rest of Fort Worth has a 79 percent graduation rate. The Dallas Fort Worth area has the 7th highest dropout rate among cities across the United States. Cassata offers a work a your own pace curriculum for only three hours a day either in the morning or afternoon. This benefits kids who have a job , need to take care of their family, or are traveling from far distances. Even though Cassata requires each student to pay tuition but this tuition is determined by the families income of the child and 90 percent of the children at Cassata receive some sort of financial assistance. In Texas alone over one million kids in Texas have no supervised place to go after the bell rings. Cassata offers many after school programs which is important because 26% of kids in the United States are left home alone after school and 1 in five violent crimes happened between four to seven o’clock in the afternoon.
I was very shocked to see that this many children in the DFW area are dropping out of high school. I believe Cassata needs to expand to more locations because this type of school would benefit millions of kids across America. The problem with most of the kids that dropout of high school is the duration of the school day and the curriculum of most schools in the United States. Cassata’a shorter school day and work at your pace curriculum helps kids stay in school and actually enjoy it .
When reflecting on the research and writing I learned many things. I learned the differences between writing for and writing about a community. I gained a new perspective on the education system in America. I also was noticed many differences between Cassata and my high school.
When writing for the profile and reflection, I learned the difference between writing for a community and writing about a community. When writing for a community you must use more “inside research,” meaning research gathered from visiting the actual community. When writing for a community I feel like Googling statistics aren’t enough, you have to get in touch with the community to truly express their values. You also have to be more sensitive to how you portray the particular group. When writing about a community, you have to be unbiased. You have to say things as is. Bringing in “outside research” and such is essential to providing the most accurate view. Writing about a community allowed me to say what I wanted to say as opposed to what I felt the community would want me to say. It gave me more freedom.
From this research I gained a new perspective on the education system in America. When learning the statistics I was surprised at how poor our education system actually is. When compared to other countries, the United States spends the most on education however we still come out as 9th overall. Clearly we aren’t being as efficient and effect as we could.
Regarding my own personal high school experience compared to Cassata, I saw much differentiation. At my school, the classes were mostly lectures as opposed to how Cassata’s students work independently in class at their own pace to learn the material. I was impressed with the success they had from this more individually-centered approach. Another big difference I noticed was concerning the social interactions of students. It seemed like at my high school there was always some verbal or physical fight going on. From what I saw at Cassata, the students got along fine and actually supported each other. At my school, the majority of the teachers weren’t very ecstatic about their jobs. At Cassata the teachers seemed to genuinely want their kids to succeed and to go on to bigger and better things.
Before going to Cassata I had some pre-established notions as to what the school might be like. Knowing that this was a institution of learning for more underprivileged kids, I figured there might be some rougher characters here. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It turns out the students were very friendly and approachable. I also thought the neighborhood would be a little edgy, but it was actually fine.
Author’s Note: We still need some citations. I also think we should mess with the ordering of the paragraphs for the latter half of the reflection. The profile is looking good, now I think we should focus primarily on the reflection and its direction.
From a Tarrant County Juvenile Probation Officer to the Assistant Principal of Cassata, Bruce Smith has been making a positive impact on kids his whole career. Through twenty-five years of being a probation officer, Mr. Smith had worked with Cassata countless times. Through his encounters with this amazing school he saw something different than he had with other second chance schools. He saw a school that works together, as the staff and community, to help change the kids’ lives. So when the opportunity opened up to join the Cassata staff, Mr. Smith pounced on it. He uses his experiences in the probation office to help kids settle differences without any violence and works as a mediator between them. Doing what he can to help the students in any way, Mr. Smith tries to help create an environment that kids can grow and see their success. As he once said, “Success comes every day,” you can see it in the kids. He lives this principle everyday at Cassata, he works hard to keep all the kids going to class and to graduate every student that comes in through those doors. Mr. Smith also has the privilege of being the connecting strained between the students and the parents, which includes his favorite part of his job, which is letting parents know when their child has gotten a credit for a class and passed a standardized test. To him, nothing is better than changing a kids future. His goal is to give these kids a second chance, to help them stay in school and to help them get into college. He uses his knowledge and experience he has gained though his many years of service to the community to help save the lives of these students, who come from a variety of unfortunate situations, and helps thrust them towards a successful future, through prevent the students from being trapped by there mistakes or there situations. With his background in aiding underprivileged kids, Bruce Smith has used these developed skills to help kids at Cassata create a future where there might not have been one otherwise.
Reflection
Cassata has become a staple in the Fort Worth community attracting kids from dozens of zip codes and has shown tremendous success rates among teens trying to graduate high school. In fact, Cassata has reported a 90 percent graduation rate while the rest of Fort Worth has a 79 percent graduation rate. The Dallas Fort Worth area has the 7th highest dropout rate among cities across the United States. Cassata offers a work a your own pace curriculum for only three hours a day either in the morning or afternoon. This benefits kids who have a job , need to take care of their family, or are traveling from far distances. Even though Cassata requires each student to pay tuition but this tuition is determined by the families income of the child and 90 percent of the children at Cassata receive some sort of financial assistance. In Texas alone over one million kids in Texas have no supervised place to go after the bell rings. Cassata offers many after school programs which is important because 26% of kids in the United States are left home alone after school and 1 in five violent crimes happened between four to seven o’clock in the afternoon.
I was very shocked to see that this many children in the DFW area are dropping out of high school. I believe Cassata needs to expand to more locations because this type of school would benefit millions of kids across America. The problem with most of the kids that dropout of high school is the duration of the school day and the curriculum of most schools in the United States. Cassata’a shorter school day and work at your pace curriculum helps kids stay in school and actually enjoy it .
When reflecting on the research and writing I learned many things. I learned the differences between writing for and writing about a community. I gained a new perspective on the education system in America. I also was noticed many differences between Cassata and my high school.
When writing for the profile and reflection, I learned the difference between writing for a community and writing about a community. When writing for a community you must use more “inside research,” meaning research gathered from visiting the actual community. When writing for a community I feel like Googling statistics aren’t enough, you have to get in touch with the community to truly express their values. You also have to be more sensitive to how you portray the particular group. When writing about a community, you have to be unbiased. You have to say things as is. Bringing in “outside research” and such is essential to providing the most accurate view. Writing about a community allowed me to say what I wanted to say as opposed to what I felt the community would want me to say. It gave me more freedom.
From this research I gained a new perspective on the education system in America. When learning the statistics I was surprised at how poor our education system actually is. When compared to other countries, the United States spends the most on education however we still come out as 9th overall. Clearly we aren’t being as efficient and effect as we could.
Regarding my own personal high school experience compared to Cassata, I saw much differentiation. At my school, the classes were mostly lectures as opposed to how Cassata’s students work independently in class at their own pace to learn the material. I was impressed with the success they had from this more individually-centered approach. Another big difference I noticed was concerning the social interactions of students. It seemed like at my high school there was always some verbal or physical fight going on. From what I saw at Cassata, the students got along fine and actually supported each other. At my school, the majority of the teachers weren’t very ecstatic about their jobs. At Cassata the teachers seemed to genuinely want their kids to succeed and to go on to bigger and better things.
Before going to Cassata I had some pre-established notions as to what the school might be like. Knowing that this was a institution of learning for more underprivileged kids, I figured there might be some rougher characters here. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It turns out the students were very friendly and approachable. I also thought the neighborhood would be a little edgy, but it was actually fine.
Author’s Note: We still need some citations. I also think we should mess with the ordering of the paragraphs for the latter half of the reflection. The profile is looking good, now I think we should focus primarily on the reflection and its direction.