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I mentioned in my original padlet that I wanted to help students get away from mindless scrolling, which was honestly a big problem in my classroom all throughout last school year. I have heard some recent advice from first year teachers, one of which was to allow the use of technology, but during specific times of the period. For example, the teacher would have a stoplight or some way of showing when phone use was appropriate: green means yes, phones can be out, but I trust that you're using it for educational purposes. Yellow means you have to finish a particular assignment, and then you can have your phone out. Red means no phones out under any circumstances. This helps students feel some relief knowing that they will eventually get time with their phones, and hopefully will prevent the phone battle from happening as often.

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Digital Literacy: Importance versus Execution?

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Digital Literacy: Importance versus Execution?

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As with my original padlet, I still agree that digital literacy is important to develop in the classroom, especially to protect kids from building up a negative reputation online, believing information that is false, or getting into trouble because technology and social media is so rampant in our society. However, in the last 6-9 months, I have been working on how to actually promote digital literacy. Although this provides a difficult series of questions to answer (How do you promote digital literacy when you aren't involved in your students' social media lives? Should you use examples to show your students how to do better with their digital footprint (or does that lead to copy cats)? What are concrete strategies on what to say to students so that they feel like better digital citizens?) Some of these questions are answered by the above article, but I would also argue that having frank conversations (when appropriate) about the context of technology getting in the way of learning and everyday life can help improve students' critical thinking and digital literacy.

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Teachers are often said to be one of the most powerful influences on a student's achievement. Knowing that, how might we be able to influence our students' knowledge and implementation of digital citizenship in order to empower and prepare them for their future in a digital world? Below, you will find five ways to help you get started.

5 Ways to Increase Digital Citizenship in Your Classroom

Today's students are responsible for learning how to navigate in both their physical and digital worlds. These two worlds are starting to merge together more and more. It is vital that we provide students with a safe place to experience and practice engaging in positive digital citizenship practices. The five strategies above are a good place to start.

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5 Ways to Increase Digital Citizenship in Your Classroom- AVID Open Access

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Teachers are often said to be one of the most powerful influences on a student's achievement. Knowing that, how might we be able to influence our students' knowledge and implementation of digital citizenship in order to empower and prepare them for their future in a digital world?

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I still agree with my previous argument that technology should be somewhere in between: not all digital, but not all paper assignments either. In fact, one thing that has changed in my philosophy is that many assignments should (and can be) both! Even if you have a paper assignment in class, most of the time it is really easy to upload it onto google classroom for absent students to do, or for students that prefer to do assignments digitally. Once again, unless there is a purpose to doing something completely online or completely physically, there shouldn't be a con to doing both (especially to increase accessibility).

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Purpose & Effectiveness in the Forefront

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Purpose & Effectiveness in the Forefront

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In my original views on technology in education, I was so focused on making sure that technology was integrated, that I didn't think about the long-term effects of whether or not my purpose in using the technology was clear. For example, at one point in the year I used a Jamboard during class that I thought would help them address content related questions, but one of my classes used it as a time to goof around and not take the assignment seriously. This would have been a good time to use a different technological tool that had more monitoring capabilities, or to change my purpose of the assignment to building community instead of completing pre-determined questions. Therefore emphasizing that having a clear purpose, and making sure the technology is effective at fulfilling that purpose, should always be at the forefront of technology integration.

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Part 1: My Updated Views on Technology in Education (Original Below) 

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Part 1: My Updated Views on Technology in Education (Original Below) 

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One thing that is essential to acknowledge in teaching nowadays is that technology is inherently a part of all students lives. That brings up the question: what strategies can teachers use to promote proper, helpful, and innovative technology use? I think an answer to this is promoting both the dangers and successes that have come with technology. Yes, we have the ability to communicate with a large quantity of people at any time, but that also means that people can communicate with us, sometimes with bad intentions (scammers and cyberbullies as two examples). One way I want to promote technology use in my classroom is by building off of the way students already use technology (a big way being texting/calling/facetiming as a way to build connections with others). This can be done through cooperative exercises, like peer feedback on a google document, a group project done on google slides, emailing your teacher to ask a question, submitting assignments on google classroom instead of wasting paper, and many other ways. I don't want to shy away from technology; rather, I want to embrace its best features, while also teaching about its disadvantages. This explicit instruction on the dangers of technology can be related to avoiding inaccurate or extremely biased information, not communicating with people you don't know, and trying to avoid the pitfalls of using technology because of boredom (which leads to mindless scrolling).

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How do I View the Importance of Digital Literacy and Technological Competence?

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How do I View the Importance of Digital Literacy and Technological Competence?

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Students may or may not use (or even have access to) technology outside of school hours, so how teachers approach technology use and view the role of technology can have a bigger impact on students than what is initially assumed. Technology can provide access for students to expand their knowledge, mainly because the internet seems to have "all the answers," even to questions you didn't ask. However, one component of technology use that I want to promote in my classroom is digital literacy, where students learn where to find credible information, how to distinguish between biased and unbiased sources, and how to engage in technology use that helps, instead of hurts, them. Another component of this is "technological competence," which I think of as being able to use technology in a way that will be expected of students once they graduate high school, go to college, or start a job. Students knowing how to find accurate information, how to format a google document, how to create an excel spreadsheet, these are all things that don't need to be a focus of a lesson plan, but can be taught so that students have the potential for success when technological challenges occur in the future.

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How Involved Should Technology Be in Education?

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How Involved Should Technology Be in Education?

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My two host teachers seem to have very different views of how technology should be involved with learning in their classroom. In my high school placement, students rarely use their assigned chromebooks, often keeping them at home. At my middle school placement, students use their chromebooks almost every day, often to complete assignments on google classroom. The assigned work in these two classes reflect the bias towards or against technology: one has mainly paper assignments, one has digital assignments. I believe there is a role for both.
It seems like educators may be slow to change to involving technology more in their classroom, but I believe that the K-12 environment can be a perfect place for students to evolve in their technology knowledge, including digital literacy and technological competence (both of which are essential for college and career readiness).

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Technology is everywhere in education: Public schools in the United States now provide at least one computer for every five students. They spend more than $3 billion per year on digital content. Led by the federal government, the country is in the midst of a massive effort to make affordable high-speed Internet and free online teaching resources available to even the most rural and remote schools. And in 2015-16, for the first time, more state standardized tests for the elementary and middle grades will be administered via technology than by paper and pencil.

To keep up with what's changing (and what isn't), observers must know where to look.

There's the booming ed-tech industry, with corporate titans and small startups alike vying for a slice of an $8 billion-plus yearly market for hardware and software. Much attention is also paid to the "early adopters"-those districts, schools, and teachers who are making the most ingenious and effective uses of the new tools at their disposal.

But a significant body of research has also made clear that most teachers have been slow to transform the ways they teach, despite the influx of new technology into their classrooms. There remains limited evidence to show that technology and online learning are improving learning outcomes for most students. And academics and parents alike have expressed concerns about digital distractions, ways in which unequal access to and use of technology might widen achievement gaps, and more.

State and federal lawmakers, meanwhile, have wrestled in recent years with the reality that new technologies also present new challenges. The rise of "big data," for example, has led to new concerns about how schools can keep sensitive student information private and secure.

What follows is an overview of the big trends, opportunities, and concerns associated with classroom technology. Links to additional resources are included in each section for those who would like to dig deeper.

What Is Personalized Learning?

Many in the ed-tech field see new technologies as powerful tools to help schools meet the needs of ever-more-diverse student populations. The idea is that digital devices, software, and learning platforms offer a once-unimaginable array of options for tailoring education to each individual student's academic strengths and weaknesses, interests and motivations, personal preferences, and optimal pace of learning.

In recent years, a group of organizations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and EDUCAUSE have crafted a definition of "personalized learning" that rests on four pillars:

Each student should have a "learner profile" that documents his or her strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and goals;

Each student should pursue an individualized learning path that encourages him or her to set and manage personal academic goals;

Students should follow a "competency-based progression" that focuses on their ability to demonstrate mastery of a topic, rather than seat time; and,

Students' learning environments should be flexible and structured in ways that support their individual goals.

How does technology support that vision?

In many schools, students are given district-owned computing devices or allowed to bring their own devices from home. The idea is that this allows for "24-7" learning at the time and location of the student's choosing.

Learning management systems, student information systems, and other software are also used to distribute assignments, manage schedules and communications, and track student progress.

And educational software and applications have grown more "adaptive," relying on technology and algorithms to determine not only what a student knows, but what his or her learning process is, and even his or her emotional state.

For all the technological progress, though, implementation remains a major challenge. Schools and educators across the country continue to wrestle with the changing role of teachers, how to balance flexible and "personalized" models with the state and federal accountability requirements they still must meet, and the deeper cultural challenge of changing educators' long-standing habits and routines.

Despite the massive investments that many school systems are making, the evidence that digital personalized learning can improve student outcomes or narrow achievement gaps at scale remains scattered, at best.

What Is 1-to-1 Computing?

Increasingly, schools are moving to provide students with their own laptop computer, netbook, or digital tablet. Schools purchased more than 23 million devices for classroom use in 2013 and 2014 alone. In recent years, iPads and then Chromebooks (inexpensive Web-based laptops) have emerged as the devices of choice for many schools.

The two biggest factors spurring the rise in 1-to-1 student computing have been new mandates that state standardized tests be delivered online and the widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards.

Generally, the hope is that putting devices in the hands of students will help with some or all of the following goals:

Allowing teachers and software to deliver more personalized content and lessons to students, while allowing students to learn at their own pace and ability level;

Helping students to become technologically skilled and literate and thus better prepared for modern workplaces;

Empowering students to do more complex and creative work by allowing them to use digital and online applications and tools;

Improving the administration and management of schools and classrooms by making it easier to gather information on what students know and have done;

Improving communications among students, teachers, and parents.

Despite the potential benefits, however, many districts have run into trouble when attempting to implement 1-to-1 computing initiatives. Paying for the devices can be a challenge, especially as the strategy of issuing long-term bonds for short-term technology purchases has come into question. Many districts have also run into problems with infrastructure (not enough bandwidth to support all students accessing the Internet at the same time) and deployment (poor planning in distributing and managing thousands of devices.)

The most significant problem for schools trying to go 1-to-1, though, has been a lack of educational vision. Without a clear picture of how teaching and learning is expected to change, experts say, going 1-to-1 often amounts to a "spray and pray" approach of distributing many devices and hoping for the best.

Some critics of educational technology also point to a recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which found that countries where 15-year old students use computers most in the classroom scored the worst on international reading and math tests.

What Is Blended Learning?

In its simplest terms, blended learning combines traditional, teacher-to-student lessons with technology-based instruction.

Many schools and districts use a "rotation" model, which is often viewed as an effective means of providing students with more personalized instruction and smaller group experiences. In some cases, saving money (through larger overall class sizes, for example) is also a goal. The basic premise involves students rotating between online and in-person stations for different parts of the day. There are many versions of this approach, however: Do students stay in the classroom or go to a computer lab?

Does online instruction cover core content, or is it primarily for remediation? Are all students doing the same thing online, or do different students have different software and learning experiences?

One big trend for schools involves trying to make sure that what happens online is connected with what happens during face-to-face interactions with teachers. That could involve giving teachers a say in selecting the software that students use, for example, or making a concerted effort to ensure online programs provide teachers with data that is useful in making timely instructional decisions.

Another trend involves boosting students' access to the Internet outside of school. Robust blended learning programs involve "anytime, anywhere" access to learning content for students-a major challenge in many communities.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle confronting educators interested in blended learning, though, is the lack of a solid research base. As of now, there is still no definitive evidence that blended learning works (or doesn't.) While some studies have found encouraging results with specific programs or under certain circumstances, the question of whether blended learning positively impacts student learning still has a mostly unsatisfactory answer: "It depends."

What Is the Status of Tech Infrastructure and the E-Rate?

The promise of technology in the classroom is almost entirely dependent on reliable infrastructure. But in many parts of the country, schools still struggle to get affordable access to high-speed Internet and/or robust wireless connectivity.

A typical school district network involves multiple components. In 2014, the Federal Communications Commission established connectivity targets for some of the pieces:

A connection to the broader Internet provided by an outside service provider to the district office (or another central district hub).
Target: 100 megabits per second per 1,000 students in the short-term, and 1 Gigabit per second per 1,000 students in the long-term.

A "Wide Area Network" that provides network connections between the district's central hub and all of its campuses, office buildings, and other facilities.
Target: Connections capable of delivering 10 Gigabits per second per 1,000 students.

"Local Area Networks" that provide connections within a school, including the equipment necessary to provide Wi-Fi service inside classrooms.
Target: The FCC recommended a survey to determine a suitable measure. Many school-technology advocates call for internal connections that support 1-to-1 computing.

To support schools (and libraries) in building and paying for these networks, the FCC in 1996 established a program known as the E-rate. Fees on consumers' phone bills fund the program, which has paid out more than $30 billion since its inception.

In 2014, the commission overhauled the E-rate, raising the program's annual spending cap from $2.4 billion to $3.9 billion and prioritizing support for broadband service and wireless networks. The changes were already being felt as of Fall 2015; after steadily declining for years, the number of schools and libraries applying for E-rate funds for wireless network equipment skyrocketed, with nearly all of the applicants expected to receive a portion of the $1.6 billion in overall wireless-related requests.

As part of the E-rate overhaul, the FCC also approved a series of regulatory changes aimed at leveling the playing field for rural and remote schools, which often face two big struggles: accessing the fiber-optic cables that experts say are essential to meeting the FCC's long-term goals, and finding affordable rates.

Infrastructure in some contexts can also be taken to include learning devices, digital content, and the policies and guidelines that govern how they are expected to be used in schools (such as "responsible use policies" and "digital citizenship" programs aimed to ensure that students and staff are using technology appropriately and in support of learning goals.)

Another big-and often overlooked-aspect of infrastructure is what's known as interoperability. Essentially, the term refers to common standards and protocols for formatting and handling data so that information can be shared between software programs. A number of frameworks outline data interoperability standards for different purposes. Many hope to see the field settle on common standards in the coming years.
Additional Resources:
How Is Online Testing Evolving?

The biggest development on this front has been states' adoption of online exams aligned with the Common Core State Standards. During the 2014-15 school year, 10 states (plus the District of Columbia) used exams from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), and 18 states used exams from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, all of which were delivered primarily online. Many of the other states also used online assessments.

The 2015-16 school year will be the first in which more state-required summative assessments in U.S. middle and elementary schools will be delivered via technology rather than paper and pencil, according to a recent analysis by EdTech Strategies, an educational technology consulting firm.

Beyond meeting legislative mandates, perceived benefits include cost savings, ease of administration and analysis, and the potential to employ complex performance tasks.

But some states-including Florida, Minnesota, Montana, and Wisconsin-have experienced big problems with online tests, ranging from cyber attacks to log-in problems to technical errors. And there is growing evidence that students who take the paper-and-pencil version of some important tests perform better than peers who take the same exams online, at least in the short term.

Nevertheless, it appears likely that online testing will continue to grow-and not just for state summative assessments. The U.S. Department of Education, for example, is among those pushing for a greater use of technologically enhanced formative assessments that can be used to diagnose students' abilities in close to real time. In the department's 2016 National Education Technology Plan, for example, it calls for states and districts to "design, develop, and implement learning dashboards, response systems, and communication pathways that give students, educators, families, and other stakeholders timely and actionable feedback about student learning to improve achievement and instructional practices."
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How Are Digital Materials Used in Classrooms?

Digital instructional content is the largest slice of the (non-hardware) K-12 educational technology market, with annual sales of more then $3 billion. That includes digital lessons in math, English/language arts, and science, as well as "specialty" subjects such as business and fine arts. The market is still dominated by giant publishers such as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Pearson, who have been scrambling to transition from their print-centric legacy products to more digital offerings.

But newcomers with one-off products or specific areas of expertise have made inroads, and some apps and online services have also gained huge traction inside of schools.

As a result, many schools use a mix of digital resources, touting potential benefits such as greater ability to personalize, higher engagement among students, enhanced ability to keep content updated and current, and greater interactivity and adaptivity (or responsiveness to individual learners).

Still, though, the transition to digital instructional materials is happening slowly, for reasons that range from the financial (for districts that haven't been able to purchase devices for all students, for example) to the technical (districts that lack the infrastructure to support every student being online together.) Print still accounts for about 70 percent of pre-K-12 instructional materials sales in the United States.

What Are Open Educational Resources?

Rather than buying digital instructional content, some states and districts prefer using "open" digital education resources that are licensed in such a way that they can be freely used, revised, and shared. The trend appears likely to accelerate: The U.S. Department of Education, for example, is now formally encouraging districts to move away from textbooks and towards greater adoption of OER.

New York and Utah have led the way in developing open educational resources and encouraging their use by schools. The K-12 OER Collaborative, which includes 12 states and several nonprofit organizations, is working to develop OER materials as well.

Proponents argue that OER offer greater bang for the buck, while also giving students better access to a wider array of digital materials and teachers more flexibility to customize instructional content for individual classrooms and students. Some also believe OER use encourages collaboration among teachers. Concerns from industry and others generally focus on the quality of open materials, as well as the challenges that educators face in sifting through voluminous one-off resources to find the right material for every lesson.

How Are Virtual Education and Distance Learning Doing?

One technology trend that has come under increasing scrutiny involves full-time online schools, particularly cyber charters. About 200,000 students are enrolled in about 200 publicly funded, independently managed online charter schools across 26 states.

But such schools were found to have an "overwhelming negative impact" on student learning in a comprehensive set of studies released in 2015 by a group of research organizations, including Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University.

That research did not cover the more than two dozen full-time online schools that are state-run, however, nor did it cover the dozens more that are run by individual school districts. Thousands upon thousands of students who are enrolled in traditional brick-and-mortar schools also take individual courses online. Five states-Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, and Virginia-now require students to have some online learning to graduate. Other states, such as Utah, have passed laws encouraging such options for students.

For many students, especially those in rural and remote areas, online and distance learning can offer access to courses, subjects, and teachers they might otherwise never be able to find. Such opportunities can also benefit advanced and highly motivated students and those with unusual schedules and travel requirements, and be a useful tool to keep schools running during snow days.

But so far, achieving positive academic outcomes at scale via online learning has proven difficult, and many observers have expressed concerns about the lack of accountability in the sector, especially as relates to for-profit managers of online options.

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From blended learning to computerized testing, digital and online technologies are reshaping the classroom experience for students.

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The Great Gatsby Background Context -- Sample PPT created for my first lesson plan

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Technology as a Central Component of Lesson Planning

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Technology as a Central Component of Lesson Planning

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I have always viewed technology as essential to student learning, so, in turn, it is essential for lesson planning. For my first lesson plan I created, I wanted to use technology as a vital component, so I planned to have students add onto the google slides above as a way to informally assess their knowledge level. Without much additional thought, I assumed that technology would be a part of the classroom (at least any classroom that I taught in), but I've been learning that not all teachers think of it in the same way.

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Part 2: My Original Views on Technology in Education

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Part 2: My Original Views on Technology in Education

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Communicating my Philosophy with Students

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Communicating my Philosophy with Students

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With my major value being empathy in a classroom, I want students to feel like they can approach me either for academic or personal struggles they may be having. I hope to list on my syllabus, as well as articulate in the first week of class, that I am always available for my students for any of their concerns (while also making sure to let them know I am a mandated reporter). My current RT emphasized to everyone that she is a resource alongside every other adult on campus, and I hope to tell my students that as well; even if they don't feel comfortable talking to me, they can go to any adult and seek personal and/or academic assistance.

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Constantly Improving and Learning From Experienced Teachers

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Constantly Improving and Learning From Experienced Teachers

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A component of classroom management I have learned so far is that there will always be new situations you have never seen before, especially as a beginning teacher. My goal to manage a classroom, especially at the start of my career, is to model myself after the successful habits I see from other teachers, and actively seek out new strategies that have worked, either through reading up on new research, absorbing knowledge from professional development meetings, or looking back over my notes from this program.

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Thinking Metacognitively as a Teacher, Role Model, and Supportive Member of the Community

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Thinking Metacognitively as a Teacher, Role Model, and Supportive Member of the Community

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I am usually pretty hard on myself, and I often accept nothing less than perfection. One thing I want to do moving forward is learn to accept when things go wrong because those moments can be great for self-reflection. Kellough and Kellough even argue, "During your beginning years of teaching, no one, including you, should expect you to be perfect" (125). If I am role modeling success and how to approach failure, I should keep an open mind that "Rome wasn't built in a day," and maintain a positive attitude even in the face of failure.

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An important step of classroom management is constantly providing students with something to do. This can get a bit complicated if a lesson does not go as planned, if there are not quick, seamless transitions between parts of a lessons, or if the lesson plan comes up short and there is time left in the period. Kellough & Kellough articulate that it will take time to develop the skill of transitioning a lesson plan and overall perfecting the timing, but they emphasize the importance of "rehearsing nearly every move you and the students will make," to avoid problems in classroom control (121).

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Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) as Central to all Subjects

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Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) as Central to all Subjects

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SEL can be grounded in any and all subjects, throughout all grade levels. It is important to have a stable role model to provide guidance on obtaining emotional stability, learning how to communicate emotional experiences, leaving anxieties at the door and focusing on learning, expressing empathy to the people around you, and letting go of what we cannot control. These are important skills to develop, and we will all become better humans if we advance our emotional intelligence skills.

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Social-Emotional Learning: What Is SEL and Why SEL Matters

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Supporting the Empirical Evidence & Letting the Empirics Support You

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Supporting the Empirical Evidence & Letting the Empirics Support You

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Using students' names, greeting everyone at the door, and correcting behavior when you notice it with non-intrusive actions can promote a positive classroom environment. The last step of this equation can be the most daunting because it is difficult to know what it "non-intrusive," and when to escalate concerns, but Kellough & Kellough provide a chart in Chapter 4 of their book that provides guidelines for when and how to intervene (118).

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Providing a Safe Place in my Classroom: What I Would've Wanted to See in High School

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Providing a Safe Place in my Classroom: What I Would've Wanted to See in High School

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Routine and safety go hand-in-hand, and I hope to establish both early on via classroom management strategies. I hope for my classroom to be well-decorated, I hope for my students to see our agenda made clear on the board every day, and I hope for them to feel comfort in asking questions, either one-on-one or as a full class. I do not expect my students to know all the answers, but I will expect them to accept help if they do not. Further examples of my classroom being a safe place could include: the ability to take a five minute break if a student is feeling overwhelmed, Mental Health Mondays (which is an activity my current RT uses to check-in with students about how they're feeling for the week with their stress levels), and the ability for students to check in with me during lunch about their grades if they are feeling uneasy about their success in my class.
**as a side note, I love the Lofi beats playlist on Spotify, and I listen to it regularly when I'm trying to focus. I plan on playing it in my classroom if my students are doing a quiet activity.

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Empathy over Sympathy, Compassion over Apathy

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Empathy over Sympathy, Compassion over Apathy

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All students want to be treated with respect, which includes a level of understanding that "life happens." In my classroom, I want to show empathy for my students and their extremely unique and complicated lives, which may interfere with school. I understand that doing homework may not always come first in their lives, but if we can communicate and provide compassion and empathy between me, the teacher, and the students in my classroom, we will have an advantage over apathy, or condescending sympathy.

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Accessibility for Students with Disabilities

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Accessibility for Students with Disabilities

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Making curriculum accessible for all means navigating a world where many students have diagnosed, as well as undiagnosed, disabilities. As a teacher, I want to provide as much support as possible for all students, whether they have the resources to pursue legal support. Appropriate accessibility standards can relate to: noticing a child is in need of additional help, providing resources to support them, and taking notice of legal accommodations listed in a student's 504 or IEP (if applicable).

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Senior Chloe Marinerstein sat in class, staring at the scantron in front of her. The words swam on the page as her dyslexia, triggered by the stress of an exam, worsened. All she could hear was, . Distracted by pencils scratching on paper and the ticking clock on the wall - sounds that her attention deficit disorder (ADD) focused her attention on instead of the words before her - time had begun to slip by unnoticed. She looked up at the clock on the wall, realizing that she had barely 5 minutes remaining. Panicking and struggling to comprehend the questions, Marinerstein hoped for a few right answers in a battle against her brain to complete the test.

Despite Marinerstein's dyslexia and ADD worsening her performance in the classroom, she has been unable to acquire the necessary legal accommodations to combat her disabilities, such as taking tests in a separate room and writing on a computer instead of on paper during class.

In order to gain equal access to education, students with disabilities can apply for 504 plans: specialized plans that minimize learning barriers by allowing classroom accommodations. A 504 plan can improve a student's academic performance, but these accommodations are not always guaranteed to students who need them. Obtaining a 504 plan can be difficult, leaving students confused and frustrated by the system. Once received, a 504 can be very beneficial to students. However, in some cases, students that do have such a plan are not properly given the classroom accommodations that they are entitled to. And, Lowell teachers have sometimes struggled with implementing the accommodations provided by 504 plans.

Despite Marinerstein's dyslexia and ADD worsening her performance in the classroom, she has been unable to acquire the necessary legal accommodations to combat her disabilities"

On Sep. 26, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 into law, including Section 504, which guarantees certain rights to people with disabilities. Individualized for each student, 504 plans offer a range of accommodations, from extra time on tests to deadline extensions for assignments. According to Lowell's school psychologist Rachel Holowicki, 504 plans are given to "students that have true disabilities or true health conditions that really impair them from doing their best at school."

The process of applying for a 504 plan is not necessarily an easy one. "504's definitely can be confusing, especially for students and families that have not gone through the process before," Holowicki said. The first step in obtaining a 504 plan is for a student's parent/guardian or teacher to reach out to that student's school counselor.

According to Holowicki, each student in this process receives a case manager, who is their academic counselor. The case manager then arranges a meeting of a Student Support Team (SST) - a group consisting of the student's academic counselor, teachers, and a Wellness counselor - to inform the student of alternative methods of support. At this point, the family may choose to apply for a 504 plan. This process requires that the student be given a formal assessment by a health professional, usually psychologist, to determine the disability. This can be performed at school or privately. The student must also be interviewed by the school's 504 coordinator, as well as their academic counselor. Numerous forms must be filled out.

During distance learning, the process of acquiring a 504 plan became even more difficult, with all the interactions occurring online. Junior Charlotte Woo, who deals with "chronic mental health issues," struggled to obtain a 504 plan over Zoom. Without face-to-face connection, she struggled to clearly communicate her needs with her teachers and counselor . "It was hard to schedule time to talk and I couldn't just go up to them in school,'' she said. "It was a painful, long process because I'm talking to these people that I don't really know over Zoom about all of these things that I need to fix about myself."

Once received, 504 plans can be a source of relief for students. Senior Archie Carew got a 504 plan to mitigate his academic struggles stemming from his anxiety and Tourette Syndrome, both of which diminish his attentiveness and impede the pace of his work. He first acquired a 504 plan during his junior year when Lowell's "rough and overbearing study culture," combined with his anxiety, became "crippling," he said. He began to fall behind in his Precalculus Honors class, and his GPA dropped significantly. Carew's 504 accommodations have greatly improved his performance in school. Carew feels that because he's been given more leniency with deadlines and extra time on tests, he's had more time to self-reflect and figure out how he learns best, instead of being overwhelmed by the pressure to achieve perfect grades. "Getting a

504 plan definitely lessened things, and now, I'm the happiest I've been in a long while," Carew said.

Similarly, junior Wallace Tang views his 504 plan as a useful educational tool that he is able to rely on whenever he is struggling academically. In seventh grade, Tang was diagnosed with ADD, which hinders his ability to focus and causes him to sometimes be disruptive in class. Shortly after his diagnosis, Tang acquired a 504 plan, which allows him to sit in the front of the classroom to minimize any distractions. He felt the process was "daunting" for him and his family, but once accommodations were obtained, they made a real positive difference. "I would say that I have seen a significant difference from when I got the 504 plan from when I didn't," Tang said. "I started focusing a lot more and I started finding interest in school, something that's really important for someone with ADD."

However, not everyone who needs a 504 plan is able to get one. Marinerstein, who struggles with dyslexia and ADD , has been unable to acquire a 504 plan, despite repeated attempts. Marinerstein , who uses she/they pronouns, attributes their inability to acquire a 504 plan to their above-average grades and mild to moderate dyslexia. After being unable to obtain a 504 evaluation through Lowell's psychologist because of their strong GPA, they submitted a third-party diagnosis to the school in Nov. 2021 in hopes of acquiring accommodations. Months later, they still have not heard back. As a consequence of their disorder having been overlooked by the school district, they say they have to "work a lot harder than the average person to get a grade that somebody who probably doesn't have dyslexia could get."

The counseling shortage at Lowell has also proved a problem for the 504 process. There has been a huge turnover of academic counselors at Lowell. And despite having a student body of approximately 2,700 students, Lowell has only one full-time school psychologist. Woo is one of the students who have suffered the consequences of this. A fter multiple meetings with her counselor, teachers, and parents, Woo believed she had obtained a 504 plan. However, she later discovered that this was not the case. Woo's new counselor informed her that there must have been a miscommunication online and that Woo's previous counselor must have never actually filed it.

Even after students obtain a 504 plan, teachers do not always honor their accommodations. Last school year, Carew reached out to his teacher about his 504 plan in hopes of gaining support in catching up in class. When he asked for an extension on a particular assignment, his teacher said that there would be a late penalty, which went against Carew's accommodations. Carew felt frustrated by this disregard for his 504 plan. "He just kind of glossed over the fact that I [had a 504 plan] and just saw it as a student asking for an extension," he said. Additionally, some of Carew's teachers were not informed that he had a 504 plan, leaving him with the responsibility of explaining it every time.

The process of acquiring a needed 504 plan can be hard to navigate for students, leading them to give up."

On the other hand, teachers themselves aren't always given clear instructions on how to implement the accommodations provided by 504 plans. Each time a student with a 504 plan enrolls in a class, the teacher is supposed to receive an email notification from the student's case manager. However, according to social studies teacher Susan Lin, there have been times when she needed to ask the student's counselor for the 504 plan details herself because she had not been automatically informed when the student enrolled. On several occasions, Lin has also had to consult the Resource Center or the student's counselor to get more information about how she can best support them because administrative guidance was not clear or detailed enough.

The process of acquiring a needed 504 plan can be hard to navigate for students, leading them to give up. Carew believes that 504 plans need to be made easier for students to obtain and that teachers need to be better informed. "I just wish that students who need them were better informed on how to get them," Carew said. Woo agrees that the process needs to be made simpler, stating that "at a certain point, it was getting so difficult that it didn't seem worth it anymore."

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The struggles of navigating the 504 process

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Senior Chloe Marinerstein sat in class, staring at the scantron in front of her. The words swam on the page as her dyslexia, triggered by the stress of an exam, worsened. All she could hear was, tap, tap, tap. Distracted by pencils scratching on paper and the ticking clock on the wall - sounds that...