Work Cited

• School District of Philadelphia, Demographic Information, South Philly High School http://webgui.phila.k12.pa.us/schools/s/southphila/information-about-us/demographic-information

When I first came across this source, I first believed it to be not useful. I thought the dates that were presented were too outdated for me to be able to use them. I am able to use the demographics of this school from the past and I can compare them to more recent ones. There is also shows how the demographics have increased and decreased throughout the years in this one particular school. With that being said, this source is in fact useful for my capstone, I am now, with this source, able to use the historical demographics of this school and see if anything has changed.

• “Main Menu:” The School District of Philadelphia, www.philasd.org/.

I selected this source because this source is the entirety of my capstone. My capstone revolves around the School District of Philadelphia therefore, I need to use the School District of Philadelphia´s website. This source gives me access to all of the School District Schools. It provides the necessary information I need about location, demographics, school population, etc. Though this source provides me with most of the information I need for my capstone it does not provide everything. This source does not provide some information that should be easily accessible and on the website and it is not so I am able to use that as a key part of my capstone.

• “Your next great diversity job awaits you.” What is Diversity ?, www.diversity.com/page/What-is-Diversity.

I chose this source because it provides a universal definition of what diversity is. This source gave the definition of diversity but not in the way we mostly see it; they provided a definition that did not only have to do with race but with all sorts of differences. They gave the definition of diversity that I am going to use in my capstone. In my capstone I am not only going to speak about diversity in the sense of race but I am going to speak about religion, sex, socioeconomic status, etc. I am going to speak about the diversity in the School District of Philadelphia as a whole.

• “Pennsylvania School District Demographic Profiles.” Click for info, proximityone.com/pa_sdc.htm.

I chose this source because this source provides information about the demographics about multiple schools in Philadelphia. This source is very useful to my capstone because it provides demographics in a universal sense. They not only provide race demographics but they provide demographics relating to socioeconomic status which is a crucial part of my capstone. Diversity in schools relates to school neighborhoods and school neighborhoods have to do with socioeconomic status. My capstone shows how diversity shifts throughout schools and neighborhoods and this source shows all of that. -

• “How to Host a Profitable Educational Workshop.” Www.ideafit.com, www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/how-to-host-a-profitable-educational-workshop.

When I first found and read this source, I did not think that i related to my topic at all. This source talks about how to host engaging physical fitness and health workshops. Even though this source speaks about hosting physical fitness and health workshops it still provided the necessary information to host engaging workshops. For my capstone, I am hosting a Day of Action which is just a day filled with workshops. Because my entire event consist of workshops I need to know how to properly host workshops that are educational and engaging.

• “Data Dive: How Do Demographics Affect Performance at Philadelphia Public High Schools? WHYY, whyy.org/articles/data-dive-how-do-demographics-affect-performance-at-philadelphia-public-high-schoolms/.

When I first found this source I found it immediately interesting. I thought that  something that I need to add to my capstone,. This article speaks about how the demographics of Philadelphia high schools affect student performance. This article just strengthens my capstone idea about how important diversity is and how we need to appreciate it more. The basis of my capstone is celebrating diversity and bring about diversity awareness. I want to show the importance of diversity and this article is a direct source to that; this source directly shows how diversity affects students and their performance in school.

• “2018 Most Diverse High Schools in the Philadelphia Area.” Niche, www.niche.com/k12/search/most-diverse-public-high-schools/m/philadelphia-metro-area/.

I chose this source because it is a list of the most diverse high schools in Philadelphia. I want to show the correlation between diversity and schools. This source provided  the most diverse high school in Philadelphia, the thing about all of most of these high schools is that they are magnet schools. The rest of the schools are public neighborhood schools. At my capstone I am going to have a panel of speakers that brings up the topic “should we keep magnet schools?” This is important to my capstone because it seems as though the only diverse schools are magnet schools but if we get rid of magnet schools then maybe neighborhood schools would become more diverse.

Dear SLA community,

… I need you to hear a few things

My first day of highschool was suppose to be one of my greatest memories, but it was the day that I realized my word would change. On my way to school I caught the el, a train that I was terrified to get on. It was the way to my new life. The el was this huge clunk  of metal with blue seats inside. We sat down and I sat next to the window. As I look out the window I can feel the anxiety bubbling inside of me. She hugs me and says it will be okay. She was someone I was comfortable with. I’ve known her for years, it was already like she was a part of the family. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, it’s honestly a great school.” She was a junior at SLA, the best coincidence. On our way to school she was explaining to me the “unique” dynamics of my new school. I remember her telling me all about SLA and how I am going to love it. “It’s pretty diverse in a way but you will be that token spanish friend.” Those words stuck with me, I never thought that they would be so accurate. I was wrong.

As I walked into the building I watched her as she scanned in. The cafeteria was made of windows which I loved, I thought it was so cool. There was a hole in the ceiling which was strange but it didn’t seem to matter to me. The cafeteria was filled with people I did not know what to do.  I was so nervous, it was if I was a mouse in a world filled with giants. Everyone looked the same. Someone yelled out her name “Melissa, come here!”, she ran to her and hugged her. I scanned the building as I waited by Melissa as she hugged all of her friends. I am glad to see the same walls I saw from Summer Institute. I couldn’t help but look up at what, at the time, was missing part of the ceiling. I saw people poking their heads down and waving to people, that seemed so strange to me. Melissa finished saying hi to all of her friends and walked me to my advisor’s room. She gave me a hug and said “Have a good day, text me if anything.” As I walked in I sat next to Emily, a girl I remembered from Summer Institute from the previous week. I looked around the room and all I saw was white. There was some color in the room, but barely. I put on a brave face hoping no one sees my discomfort. We transitioned to our first class, and once again I saw a lot of white. I have never been so uncomfortable in a place that I am supposed to love. I see a girl I went to I knew. As I sat down and looked around I saw of white people sitting together and I knew we didn’t know each other yet, but I wondered as to why they all sat together. Fast forward three years and I am sitting in my history class and it has even come to a point where our history teacher said something. “It seems like all the white people sat together and all the black people sat together.” That’s crazy I thought, even our teacher notices it. Everyone laughs...

My life at SLA has been pretty great, better than most but I sometimes feel ostracized by just looking the way I look. I cannot deny the fact, even if I tried, that I am Latina. I look just like a typical Latina girl. I have caramel skin, brown eyes, brown hair, and I am short. I am filled in a school with giants. These giants vary in color, but all the same they are giants. I never see any caramel skin giants. I really miss seeing similar faces. I miss people being able to properly pronounce my name. My name is meant to flow off the tongue Elani Belen Gonzalez-Ortiz. It took me a long time to come to love my name and SLA has made me hate it. Whenever I tell someone my entire name they tell me that it is too long and they are going to call me something different. Then when I tell them, “No, you will call me by my name,” they look at me as if they are offended. I have come to accept the fact that people are just going to butcher my name. Also by coming to SLA, I have realized that I am that one token spanish friend. Melissa was right. Everyone came to me with questions asking if I could read over their spanish essays or if I can do their homework. Then once again, they get offended when I tell them no. Like I do not have my own things to worry about. SLA has honestly made me just want to forget the fact that I am a Latina. I have heard people butcher my language and not even wanting to fix it. They also like to point out the fact that they are giants like I already cannot tell, that I do not realize that I am not one of them.

I tried to be friends with the giants, and I was for a while until I met people with color. They weren’t caramel, but all still the same it was color. Don’t get me wrong, I am still friends with the giants, but the creatures with color understand me more. They sympathize with what I am going through, they try and try to say my name but it still isn’t the same. Everyday I wanted to come home just so I can be reminded how beautiful being Latino really is. That our caramel skin is beautiful and that my brown hair is not dirty but vibrant. That the curls and frizz in my hair is not nasty but lively. No one understands it though, the giants, the creatures, and not even home.

Home doesn’t understand what it is like to constantly be asked questions about your culture every single day, just so they can get a good grade not even for them to understand. My mom understands though, she is in the same world I am. These giants and creatures don’t seem to understand why questions suck. It sucks because it is as if I am an animal in the zoo, like if everyone wants to constantly take pictures with me. I wanted to be normal but I couldn’t with everyone always wondering about me.  Why being constantly pointed out because I am Latina is annoying. “Yes, I understand I look different but you can stop pointing it out thanks”, I thought all the time.

I miss my old life. Once you meet another Latino it is as if you are instant friends, you automatically have something to bond over. Latinos are a very tight nit community and I was pulled from that. I remember everyone always being able to say my name correctly and I never felt strange about my name either because all of our names were sort of similar in a sense. No one ever questioned me in my old life. I was just the average latino kid just like everyone else was. I never felt like an outsider in my old school. We all spoke spanish and all came from the same place, it was diverse in the sense that we had all kinds of latinos but nothing else.

Science Leadership Academy the best innovative school for the kids who don’t think like your average teenager. We are diverse! Everyone will love it. SLA is a non-Latino school. We are diverse, but not diverse enough.

Sincerely,

For my You and the World project I did Stereotypes and Discrimination with Work and Education with a Disability.In my blog post #1 I just introduced my project. In my blog post #2 I talked about what I did for my original research.

I wish that I would’ve found a graduate from the special-ed classes from Edison High School. I would’ve been cool to talk to him/her.During this project I learned so much.

I think I would have rather done another project because I finished my project really early and then I had nothing else to do. But with my project I would have spaced out my project a lot better. I don’t really want to know a lot except one thing, I would like to know how people with disabilities live, i want to know how they live life. I wish I would have done another project because my project bored me a little bit. I had fun with it but then I didn’t at the same time.

I did have the impact that I wanted because I wanted my advisory to learn about my project and they did. I think that I should have put poster’s around the school and maybe I would have had  larger impact because then the school would have known about but I had the impact i wanted.

My first blog post was about me introducing my You and the World project which is Stereotyping and Discrimination with Work and Education with a Disability. I felt as though this topic was not cared for as much as it needed to be. For my second blog post  I wrote about the field research I did at Edison High School. I visited one of the special-ed classes and I learned a lot. I learned that they mostly focus on life-skills and have the opportunity to stay in high school till they’re 21.

For my agent of change I decided to do a advisory presentation. In my advisory presentation I added most of the information that I learned and talked about the rest. I wanted to do an advisory presentation because my advisory seemed to know nothing about it. I think that I was pretty successful in presenting to my advisory and I think they learned a lot. I did not necessarily want to do this as my agent of change but I did not know what I even wanted to do as my agent of change.

I think that I changed a lot during this project. It really taught me that  should never judge or discriminate anybody. I know that it is really cliche but it is true because even I was a little biased before this project. I really enjoyed during my project. I taught that it was a lot of fun and it was a great learning experience.I think that I could’ve done better just because I sort of rushed my project. I took no time, I knew what I wanted to do since the beginning and I took no brakes. I did my project really fast. I think the only thing that is left to do is to have everybody do their research and educate themselves about people with disabilities.  

Well first off, net neutrality is that the Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites. So why is this important for teens? Net neutrality is actually very important. Net neutrality is fairly important topic and people around the world are now wanting to learn more about it. Teens are our future’s next generation and technology is becoming  huge part of their lives. Teens today need to know about the internet and how to be safe on it. Teens should know about net neutrality so they can be safe and show other hw to be safe as well.

Net neutrality is here so it can keep all internet equal. This is important for teens to know so they can figure out what side they are on. You can be on Net Neutrality or the FCC. The FCC is the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is trying to get you to pay more for “faster” internet. But it honestly is not faster. The only thing it does is mess up your internet, It makes the stuff you are trying you do take longer to load and buffer. Net neutrality is trying to stop the FCC, even President Obama is on net neutrality side.

This is an important issue for teens because they are the ones mostly being targeted. They are the ones who are almost always on the internet, it’s their second nature. They need to know what they are doing, how they are doing it, and how is it possible. The FCC  is trying to make you pay more for slower internet while net neutrality wants to make it all fair. This is an important topic and all teens should know about it.