Week 5: The Heart of Action Research

I am beginning a new graduate class called Diverse Learners. Our two texts are: Poverty Is Not A Learning Disability: Equalizing Opportunties for Low SES Students and Leading for Diversity: How School Leaders Promote Postivie Interthnic Relations. Since my action research project is to find a correlation between economically disadvantaged students active in our Campus' student led service organization, A4A (America for Africa), and academic achievement, I feel like this new class will be natural flow of progression from my Research class. However, I have found that as I perform the duties of a Special Education Case Manager and teacher preparing for the start-up of school, I can not lose focus of the heart of research which is "Wondermont." So today I am wondering, how my co-sponsor of A4A and I will manage to draw in our economically sup population as we begin our 3rd year on campus. What can we do to attract the students who would normally slip through the cracks because they feel embarrassed and stressed because they don't have parents that drive expensive cars and wear designer clothes. To put this in perspective, out of over 800 students in our Middle School...our economically disadvantaged sup population is less than 40 students! How do we find them? How do we make our A4A club a place where they feel safe, accepted, and provide the connectedness all adolescent students crave?