I came into the New Rochelle school system on the 6th from another country. My experience trying to enroll into IEYMS was frustrating and discouraging. I was asked to provide a list of credentials from transcripts, to identification, to medical records, but was given no direction/resources as to where to acquire all of these, especially the lengthy list of immunity shots I had to get. Because of this inefficiency, my enrollment was delayed 2 months, and I had to repeat the 6th grade, which I had successfully completed in my native country. I was placed in a regular science class, though I was far from being English proficient, and thus I struggled to understand the material. In one instance, for a project, my teacher asked the class to complete a detailed map of any cell of our liking alongside a list of corresponding facts. I didn’t know what “facts” meant, and googled its translation, over and over again. I finally gave up and with my head down, I told the teacher I didn’t understand the assignment because I didn’t understand what the word meant. He did not explain the meaning, or the assignment, or anything in general, and just smiled and said he would give me a B since my image was “pretty”. After successfully completing ESL (English as a Second Language) and becoming comfortable with my English in 8th grade, I had to plead with my counselor in order to allow me to take the “advanced” living environment class. She refuted multiple times under the “your English isn’t strong enough” excuse, even though I had been excelling academically in my science classes. 

 

    As a freshman in NRHS, I was placed in advanced courses, and was one of the 3 IEYMS students, and one of the 4 minorities in my mostly white class. I often felt isolated and lesser than my peers because of the resources they had available that I didn’t, like tutoring. Because I never formed bonds with my peers from ALMS, it was rare that they would be willing to collaborate with me on homeworks, projects, and labs. In one instance, I had a classmate message me asking me where he could find marijuana, which he assumed I knew since I went to IEYMS. My classmates from ALMS would continuously joke about IEYMS being the lesser school, to put it lightly. In my 10th grade alg2/trig H class, we were told we needed graphing calculators, and when I told my teacher that my parents could not afford it, she offered to allow me to borrow a calculator during school hours. This meant I had a 1 hour window, 2 if I didn’t eat lunch at the cafeteria, to finish my math assignments. I had to buy that $85 graphing calculator with whatever money my parents could come up with. 

 

    The trend of being one of the few POC students in my AP and honors classes followed until I graduated, as did the trend of not seeing many IEYMS peers in my classes. During my senior year, I went to my guidance counselor to discuss options about furthering my education. I explained to her that I was excited about pursuing higher education, and had dreams of being the first to graduate from college in my family. She told me I was too poor to afford a four year education, and that I should instead just attend community college. She was less than helpful, gave me no real resources (besides a WCC brochure), and again, made me feel lesser.  

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Samantha Sanchez

NRHS Class of 2016