Ashe County Middle SchoolInquiry Project by: Karli Dempski, Madison Lewis, Samantha Taylor, Brad Bentley, Jacob Fleming, Emma Willard, and Andru Lockridge

Economy Home ownership rate: 80.2%

Median Household income: $36,498

Private Establishments: 560

Private Employment: 5,389

Median House value: $154,100

Politics Number of Voters: 12,847 — 67.54% of register voters)

Presidential Election: Barack Obama/Joe Biden (DEM): Ashe (32.65%) State (48.30%) Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan (REP): Ashe (65.35%) State (50.44%) Gary Johnson/James P. Gray (LIB): Ashe (1.43%) State (0.99%)

Straight Party: Democratic (DEM): Ashe ( 36.86% ) State ( 55.52% ) Republican (REP): Ashe ( 61.66% ) State ( 43.50% ) Libertarian (LIB): Ashe ( 1.47% ) State ( 0.98% )

Recreation Top 5 Parks:

1. Elk Knob State Natural Area 2. Optimist park 3. Watauga County Parks &

Rec 4. Children’s Playhouse 5. Whitehead Community

Center

Adult Leagues: Softball Basketball Volleyball Disc Golf

Youth Leagues: Spring Soccer Volleyball Basketball Football Little League Baseball Futsal

Demographics Population: 27,097 (-.7% from 2010)

19% under 18. 50.8% female 93.1% white, .9% black, .3% American

Indian/Alaska Native, .4% Asian, 1% two or more races, 4.8% Hispanic/Latino (all approximately)

4.9% speak language other than English at home.

Percent of persons age 25+ with high school degree: 78.6%

Bachelors degree: 17.7% Persons below poverty level: 17.9%

Religion Southern Baptist Convention

46 congregations: 1.24% of state's Southern Baptist Convention's 3,717 congregations.

8,305 adherents: 0.55% of state's Southern Baptist Convention's 1,512,058 adherents.

United Methodist Church 20 congregations: 1.02% of state's United Methodist Church's 1,964

congregations. 2,148 adherents: 0.34% of state's United Methodist Church's 638,785

adherents.

Presbyterian Church (USA) 6 congregations: 0.81% of state's Presbyterian Church (USA)'s 738

congregations. 376 adherents: 0.18% of state's Presbyterian Church (USA)'s 203,647

adherents.

Education In 2005, Ashe County Schools became one of the few districts

to have internet access in all classrooms when they upgraded their system's Wide Area Network to a Fiber-optic network.

Five schools total- 3 elementary, 1 middle, and 1 high school

Ashe County middle school was named 1 of 79 “middle schools to watch” by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform. It was 4 out of the 5 schools to receive the “School of Distinction” by the NCDPI both 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years.

Ashe County Elementary Schools

West Wood Elementary School One Principal and One Vice Principal 619 students

Mountainview Elementary School One Principal and One Vice Principal 588 students

Blue Ridge Elementary School One Principal and One Vice Principal 550 Students

Ashe County Middle And High School

Ashe County Middle School One Principal and One Vice Principal 550 Students

Ashe County High School One Principal and Two Vice Principals 920 Students

Survey Results: Religion Didn’t answer: 12.45% Christian: 83.7% Agnostic: 1.1% Atheist: 2.2% Buddhist: .4%

Attend house of Worship: 31 students- Never 153 students- Regularly 38 students- 1-2 times

a month 16 students- Important

holidays 27 students- Didn’t

answer

Parents Identify as the same religion: 216 said yes 15 said no

Survey Results: Language Only 21 of the students said they curse

at a rank 10 on a scale 1-10

Most kids said under 5 rank

Bilingual- 84.2% said no, 15.8% said yes

Most who said yes spoke Spanish, or French

FAILRATCHET

SWAG

CRAY

YOLO

PWNEDSNAP

LIKE A BOSS

DAWG

Survey Results: Shoes Out of 265

99 50

7

35

7

45

123

Survey Results: Hobbies

Play outside!

Video GamesReading

Listen to MusicEat

Watch TV

Horses48.3% are not on a sports team, and 51.7% are on a sports team

Survey Results: Technology 16.8% of students said they don’t have

a cell phone

83.2% of students said they had a cell phone

5.4% don’t have a computer at home

94.6% of students do have a computer at home

14 say the have desktop computers, laptop, and tablets

58 say just desktop

129 students have a laptop

16 students have tablets

Access to Internet: 93.3%

6.7% don’t have Internet

Survey Results: Clothes

Top 5: Abercrombie Hollister American Eagle Wal-Mart Aeropostale

“Ugly Christmas Sweater”

“All Black Spikey Chained Clothes”

“A very tight leotard with knee high orange socks and a bandana and Justin Bieber earrings”

NEVER CAUGHT DEAD WEARING:

“A shirt covers in cow dung”

“A Gay Rights Shirt”

“Being Butt-

Naked”

Survey Results: Music Jason Aldean One

Direction Casting

Crowns Eric Church Macklemore Lil Wayne

51 students like Pop 63 students like Rap 76 students like

Country 21 students like

Christian 11 students like

Metal/Screamo 18 students like Rock

Survey Results: Health On a Scale from 1-10, how

healthy would you consider yourself? Rank 5- 34 students Rank 6- 24 students Rank 7- 38 students Rank 8- 74 students Rank 9- 36 students Rank 10- 16 students

Grocery Stores they shop at: Food Lion- 108 students Wal-Mart- 200 students Ingles- 135 students Lowes Foods- 87 students

Survey Results: Relationships Do you have a

girlfriend/boyfriend? 33.3% have a gf/bf 66.6% don’t have a gf/bf

On a scale from 1-10, how healthy would you consider your relationship with your parents? Rank 5- 13 students Rank 6- 11 students Rank 7- 13 students Rank 8- 27 students Rank 9- 55 students Rank 10- 95 students

Survey Results: Social Sites Facebook- 199 students Instagram- 44 students Myspace- 36 students Blogs- 22 students Tumblr- 31 students Pinterest- 6 students Skype- 3 students Twitter- 74 students No Site- 28 students

So What?From this, we learn all about how adolescents function inside Ashe County Middle School. We can pull things such as what they do to fit in, their home life situation, how healthy they are, and other social aspects of their lives from this research and we can apply it to things that we teach, how we relate to them, and how we can advocate from them the best. Because the adolescent time is one of the most significant developmental parts of their lives, we need to get to know these kids so that we can support them in everything that is going on.