AyeeSuaceGod __________________
I’be been at José Martí since 6th Grade (that’s about 4 years), and from my perspective being a student of color plays many roles in this schools events. When I moved over into middle school (6th grade) I was nervous about the experience being that I have to wake up at around 5 AM. That time has now been increased to 4:40 AM, slowly I am becoming more and more stressed with my lack of sleep as the classes also provide an ABUNDANCE of busy work, (with a handful of meaningful lessons and work less than most of the time).
Aside from that returning to my main point I came to this school and I experienced a long-term culture shock. There were very few “African-American” students at this school, while the population is still obsolete, there is slowly more of an integration. However, that still does not change the fact that internally I was and still am very hesitant to represent every faculty and student at this school and showing pride. Seeing that many students feel that it is ok to say the “n” word, whether it be friendly or not. This school has also come with its time of racial jokes especially with Hispanics that go to the school saying the “n” word with hard r’s.
Another thing is that Wikipedia states that “The school operates with 8 periods, with 4 even-period classes on one day, and 4 odd-period classes on the other, to allow students to take extra electives.” However, I only have one elective, my “extra elective” went to a class like Experimental Science( which is acclaimed to be mandatory when most schools only have one science class).
Which in turn leads to me make notice of how this school has also reduced other subjects besides STEM, into mostly being an afterschool club. For example, the arts; I just recently found out that the school USED to have a Music room and TWO art classes. Now there is only one class, and one art teacher which shows that slowly anything other than STEM is not the schools strong suit.
Overall, there is a great deal of change to make this school more desirable to ALL races and cultural backgrounds.There are teachers who care, teachers that don’t and teachers that have other professions, which leads me to say that although academically this school is “A1” culturally is you’re not Hispanic with lighter skin, you are bound to run into racial and ethnic problems, stress from homework, and a great decrease (maybe or maybe not) in the development of your creativity.
P.S. If you’re a parent deciding on sending your child here, give it a chance but take the schools academic achievements with a grain of salt. Not everybody fits in the way they want to at this school, and keep up with how your child feels about this school. This school is well orchestrated and does do a great job in providing “notice” to most students looking for above-standard colleges and universities to attend.