Exploration of the elements of Human Capital, Social Capital and Instructional Tools and Routines used in a school that served English language learners in rural southwest New Mexico

As a nation, we should be committed to providing quality education to all of our students. However, only five percent of over 450 schools in New Mexico with a large ELL population met the AMAOs during the 2007-2008, and 2008-2009 school years (Title III AMAO Results, 2007-2008, and 2008-2009). The AMAOs are: 1) Making Progress in English, 2) Attaining English Proficiency, and 3) Meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Until this case study was completed, no review had been done within a New Mexico elementary school to examine how the elements of Social Capital, Human Capital and Instructional Tools and Routines contributed to the academic success of ELL students. To understand these elements data were collected via interviews and document reviews. Data were analyzed by unitizing and categorizing interview transcripts and documents. The results of the case study demonstrated that the principal and teachers at this school were successful in developing Human Capital through the quality of their professional community interactions. It seems that the quality of the professional community at this school created norms of trust and collaboration that influenced the teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. The principal and teachers were successful in building Social Capital through the ways in which they shared what they knew. The principal and the teachers at this school created an environment of open collaboration, and through this collaboration they shared information about their teaching creating strong networks. The principal and the teachers created a professional community that they referred to as informal professional learning community. There was an overwhelming amount of data that illustrated how they created a very caring learning community. The data from this study did not reveal that the professional development opportunities being offered to the principal and teachers had been systematic. What was clear was that the utilization of the information generated from students' formative and summative assessment was utilized to develop strategies to individualize the students' instruction. The interconnection of Human Capital, Social Capital and Instructional Tools and Routines at this school appeared to have been instrumental in enabling the meeting of the needs of ELL students at this school.