EDUC 5353 Week #1 Blog-Introduction & My Community

Introduction

    Hello and welcome to my first blog post for this class! My name is Jill Ciccarelli and I live and work in Connecticut. I have been employed as a teacher by the same school district since 1999 and have taught in grades 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. I have been in my current position as a 6th grade Language Arts teacher for the past five years. After 19 years in an elementary setting, this change brought me to middle school. I LOVE teaching 6th graders, and I especially enjoy focusing on one content area rather than five. This is my 8th class at Southeastern Oklahoma State University as I pursue a second master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction-Educational Technology. 

    When I am not working or doing coursework, I am very busy with my family. I have been married for 19 years and we have three children aged 17, 15, and 12. We also have a German Shepherd and a Doberman Pinscher, who are both three-years old and VERY active.


My Community

     The city where I work is in the Northwestern corner of Connecticut. The city has a population of around 35,000 people. There are six schools in my district including four elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. There are close to 4,000 students enrolled here. The minority population constitutes about 50% of our enrollment. 47.3% of the students in my district are considered economically disadvantaged as indicated by the number of students eligible to participate in the federal free and reduced lunch program. 12.3% of the students enrolled are English Language Learners. We are also a Title 1 district.

     As I reviewed the syllabus for this course, I thought about the ways the "digital divide" impacts my students. I am certain I will be able to apply the information I learn in this class to the students in my class, school, and district. I think I will be able to draw an awareness to the digital divide that still exists despite the conclusion of distance learning.

     The city where I work is about 2 hours north of New York City. It is the largest city in our county and is home to a theater, municipal sports teams, museums, parks, shopping, dining and more. Our city embraces diversity and the arts, and there are many opportunities to become involved not only in the schools, but also our community. Since the cost of living is one of the lowest in the state, many families are attracted to moving here. According to U.S. Census data, the average household income ($82,649) is less than the average household income for Northwest Hills Planning Region ($125,814) and the nearby town of Winchester ($86,242). My call of action to bridge the digital divide has the possibility to impact the community as a whole.

    The issue I am looking to investigate is how the families in my community are impacted by lack of internet service. While many people would assume that since people have phones that they have internet service, this is not always the case. According to KewalRamani, Zhang, Wang, Rothburn, Corcoran, Dilberti and Zhang (2018), there may be multiple reasons why students do not have internet access at home. It may be too expensive, families do not think they need it, or internet service is not available. While the students in my district are 1:1 with devices, this does not mean they are able to access the internet at home. One role I have in my district outside of my teaching position is as a trained home visitor through our state's Learner Engagement and Attendance Program or L.E.A.P.  I routinely visit students and their families in their homes. During these visits we have discovered that there are students who do not have access to the internet. This directly impacts students who have homework assigned to complete on the computer. Many teachers may assume these students are just not completing their work when in fact, they do not have reliable internet access.This was addressed much more during the pandemic, however it is a problem that still exists.


Bureau, U. C. (2023, December 27). Census.gov. https://www.census.gov/

KewalRamani, A., Zhang, J., Wang, X., Rathbun, A., Corcoran, L., Diliberti, M., & Zhang, J. (2018). Student Access to Digital Learning Resources outside of the Classroom. NCES 2017-098. National Center for Education Statistics.

Torrington CT |. Torrington CT. (1970, January 1). https://www.torringtonct.org/

Torrington Public Schools. (n.d.). https://www.torrington.org/


  1. ownload Student Access to Digital Learning Resources outside of the Classroom.pd

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