Chalkbeat

Philly has more English learners than ever, but they often struggle to graduate. Here’s what could help.

2026-07-17T14:51:49+00:00

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English learners make up a growing share of Philadelphia’s district enrollment, with around 25,000 enrolled last year.

But they’re significantly less likely to make it to graduation than their peers — and that gap has only widened over the past decade.

English learners include a diverse range of students, from various different language and cultural backgrounds. Some students arrive in Philly from wholly different education systems, and some have received little previous education in English at all. Last year, they represented around 22% of the district’s enrollment, more than double the share from a decade prior.

Families and advocates say the district doesn’t provide families enough support or students enough flexibility, especially in high school. Even with English as a second language classes and newcomer programs, students often need more help, several English as a second language teachers told Chalkbeat.

Last year, only 70% of students identified as English learners at any point in high school graduated within four years, compared with 88% of students who were not identified as English learners, according to district data.

That data doesn’t include students who were identified as English learners in elementary or middle school and reached English proficiency before ninth grade. But advocates say the lower graduation rate among high school English learners underscores that older students need additional support to get their diplomas.

“The School District of Philadelphia is pretty far behind and out of touch with what it means to support high school age newcomers,” said one district English as a second language teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the district did not authorize her to speak publicly.

She and other teachers and advocates said the biggest issue is poor attendance. Many English learners have to balance school with work to support themselves or their families. Though the district has some flexible options, such as accelerated or virtual programs, they are rarely accessible to students just beginning to learn English or who have just started formal schooling.

As a result, students often cut class to go to their jobs, the teacher said. Those absences can lead to suspensions and truancy. “It winds up pushing them out of school,” she said.

In a statement, district spokesperson Monique Braxton said the district “remains deeply committed to ensuring each and every EL student has a clear, supported pathway to graduation.”

Braxton said the district ensures students can access high-quality curriculum and get support to meet graduation requirements. The district also provides training to teachers across subjects in how to work with English learners.

Advocates: High school English learners need more flexibility

Across the country, English learners are less likely to graduate than their peers, though some studies have found that those who attain English proficiency before high school outperform their peers who are native English speakers. Since 2022, English learners’ average scores on standardized math and reading tests have declined more sharply than those of other students, according to national assessment data.

Some of that gap is expected because the category, by definition, includes students who are not yet proficient in English, said Michael J. Kieffer, a professor of literacy education at New York University.

“It’s a long-term narrative that English learners are struggling, and often they’re referred to as if they’re perpetually struggling,” Kieffer said. He said it’s important to remember that some English learners’ success isn’t captured in data focused solely on high school.

Philadelphia has expanded its newcomer academies to three schools in recent years, providing additional support and resources for students who are new to the country and learning English. It also offers English as a second language classes and support programs for English learners in several other neighborhood high schools.

Still, advocates say families and students constantly struggle to get information in a language they understand and to get help accessing the curriculum.

“We often get calls from families who realize that their children are not making progress in their neighborhood schools, not learning enough English, or getting enough support,” said Kristina Moon, a senior attorney in the Philadelphia office of the Education Law Center.

Moon’s group and others have advocated for the district to put more resources toward newcomer programs in high schools to help students reach English proficiency faster. Doing so would help students pass classes and connect with the greater school community through extracurricular activities and sports, Moon said.

Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that affect students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.

New Jersey invests record money in preschool, but serving multilingual learners is another story

2026-06-23T11:00:00+00:00

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Peter Rosario has spent years watching his teachers help Spanish-speaking preschoolers sound out English words at La Casa de Don Pedro, a Newark-based nonprofit organization that offers support for immigrant families and contracts with Newark Public Schools to provide state-funded preschool.

But Rosario says the state’s investment in programs like his hasn’t turned into clear and consistent support for the city’s youngest English learners.

“We have to beef up the infrastructure to support them,” Rosario said.

For young students learning English, the early years matter more than any other. Research shows that young multilingual learners who start preschool without having learned English can lose months of learning before they catch up unless classes are designed to teach in multiple languages at once. But while state laws mandate that New Jersey districts provide language support services to students, those services are implemented differently from district to district, with no real way to track their impact on preschool-aged multilingual learners.

Experts say that’s a problem requiring a more targeted approach to boost the quality of instruction, fund programs, and determine what students actually need to learn English.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill proposed a record $1.4 billion for preschool education this budget cycle, which would add more than 1,440 additional seats to the state’s preschool program. But it wasn’t until 2023 that New Jersey formally updated its codes to include preschoolers as multilingual learners. Before that, identification and language support policies primarily focused on K-12 students.

State leaders say they’re working to boost preschool offerings for young multilingual learners. Michael Yaple, spokesperson for the education department, said the state is revising the Preschool Teaching and Learning Standards to better align with the revised New Jersey Student Learning Standards for English Language Arts. Yaple did not provide specifics about what those changes would do but said in an email that the proposed revisions will “provide stronger, more intentional support for preschool multilingual learners by integrating evidence-based literacy practices with language development.”

But as the number of multilingual learners grows nationally, so does the demand for more services. In New Jersey, 282,000, or 47%, of young children ages 0 to 5, are multilingual learners, according to the Migration Policy Institute. In the 2025-26 school year, more than 11,300 students enrolled in preschool were identified as multilingual learners, according to state enrollment data. Across the state, multilingual learners made up more than 152,000 pre-K through 12th grade students enrolled in New Jersey’s public schools in the same year.

New Jersey is among the states with the strongest preschool policies for multilingual learners, earning eight out of 10 benchmarks measuring things like bilingual instruction, teacher qualifications, and family engagement, according to a 2026 policy brief from the National Institute for Early Education Research, or NIEER.

But the state isn’t tracking support for its youngest English learners, according to NIEER experts. While the 2023 state preschool update required districts to identify preschool-aged multilingual learners, the state has no way to verify whether that support is reaching students.

That’s a concern Alexandra Figueras-Daniel, a bilingual early childhood education senior policy specialist at the NIEER, raised during a June 10 conversation about the state of bilingual education in New Jersey, hosted by the Rutgers University Newark Joseph C. Cornwall Center.

According to Figueras-Daniel and other researchers, knowing how many multilingual children are enrolled in preschool and what type of support they are actually receiving is critical to closing language gaps before they become reading gaps and ensuring students are getting what they need before moving to kindergarten.

The state needs better data on programs that provide bilingual preschool programs to immigrant families through contracts with the local school district, such as Rosario’s, to understand where support for multilingual learners is reaching classrooms and where it isn’t, Figueras-Daniel said.

“I think we need ways to identify where implementation is strong, where gaps exist, and then where we can really put targeted supports in places,” Figueras-Daniel said.

The gap between policy and data shows up in classrooms too, said Vanessa Colon, a bilingual intervention teacher and community support advocate for multilingual learners who also spoke on the panel.

“Sometimes there’s a lot of disagreement between what we say and what we do in a district,” said Colon during the panel discussion. “We’ll say we support bilingualism, we support biliteracy, but then in the classroom, we make other choices.”

Those choices aren’t for a lack of standards, Figueras-Daniel said, but for a lack of consistency in how districts apply them.

“It could be that every district is calling their program or implementing it slightly differently,” she added.

Programs labeled “bilingual” are what researchers call transitional bilingual, which uses a student’s native language as a bridge into English, Figueras-Daniel said. She described one district where multilingual learners receive 30 or 40 minutes of English as a second language instruction a day, but students are having trouble exiting the multilingual status. That model is different from full-immersion programs that teach subjects like social studies and math in both languages throughout the school day.

A true language immersion program is built around a roughly even split between native English speakers and native speakers of other languages, but in heavily immigrant communities like Passaic, Figueras-Daniel said, there often aren’t enough native English-speaking students to make that balance possible.

Betiana Caprioli, a Morristown High School teacher who also participated on the Rutgers panel, said El Primer Paso, a similar organization with a bilingual preschool program in Dover, helped her own children learn English. That model is the “gold standard” that allows multilingual learners not to lose instructional time while they’re still figuring out English, Figueras-Daniel said.

“Access to high-quality preschool is one of the strongest predictors of positive outcomes for children learning multiple languages,” she said. That’s why it’s “critical that we continually recognize early childhood programs as part of this system.”

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Education Department dissolving federal office serving English learners

2026-04-15T17:12:25+00:00

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The Education Department plans to dissolve the office that supports the country’s 5 million English learners.

The move comes as the Trump administration has called to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and to stop funding English language acquisition programs in the federal budget. The country’s English learner student population includes U.S. citizen children of immigrant parents as well as authorized and undocumented immigrant children, communities that are reeling from the effects of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

The Office of English Language Acquisition already was decimated in early rounds of layoffs. Last August, the Department quietly rescinded guidance that many states and school districts rely on to protect the rights of immigrant students.

Education Department officials said dissolving the office and assigning its work to offices doing related work would be better for English learners.

In an emailed statement, Assistant Education Secretary Kirsten Baesler said the changes would align work across teams within the department, reduce administrative burden, and “empower states to design integrated supports.”

“English Learners should never be treated as a siloed program, set aside as an afterthought,” Baesler said. “When English language acquisition is embedded across core priorities like literacy, academic content, educator preparation, and accountability, it receives the seriousness and sustained focus it deserves.”

The Education Department informed Congress of the changes in a February letter. Education Week first reported on the moves and the letter Tuesday.

According to the letter, distribution of federal Title III money that helps states educate English learners will be handled by the same office that distributes other large federal programs such as Title I.

Trump’s proposed budget calls for eliminating Title III funding as a separate program, even as he also signed an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States. Congress last year disregarded a similar budget proposal and maintained Title III funding.

Training programs for teachers who work with English learners will move to the Office of Effective Educator Development Programs, the letter said. Language programs for Native American and Alaska Native children will move to the Office of Indian Education.

Trump pressured states to limit undocumented high school students’ access to career education programs

The changes do not affect the rights of English learner students under federal law. However, many advocates and educators said the office played a critical role in ensuring federal funds were spent appropriately and in sharing best practices and new research.

More of that responsibility now falls to states and school districts. While the Education Department says that shift is appropriate, many school districts historically have failed to meet the needs of English learners, leading to lawsuits.

The Education Department is in the process of moving the entire Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to the Department of Labor, while programs related to educating Native American students are moving to the Department of the Interior.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Dylan’s return: NYC’s first public school student detained by ICE returns to school after 10 months

2026-03-31T20:03:00+00:00

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Dylan Lopez Contreras sat waiting for a copy of his class schedule in a sunny fourth-floor room of his Bronx high school as his counselor walked in wearing a “Free Dylan” button attached to the strap of his messenger bag.

Dylan stood, and Hedin Bernard lifted Dylan’s more-than-6-foot frame off the floor in a tight bear hug.

It had been more than 10 months since Dylan set foot in ELLIS Preparatory Academy, a high school geared toward older, newly arrived immigrant students. The last time the two had seen each other, Dylan’s hair was dyed purple and just covered his ears. Now, it fell below the 21-year-old’s shoulders and the purple dye had faded to yellow.

Dylan Lopez Contreras, center, listens as school counselor Janeen Padilla, left, goes over his new schedule in her office on his first day of school after spending close to 10 months in immigration custody.

Last May, federal immigration officials arrested Dylan in a Manhattan courthouse after his asylum hearing, making him the first known New York City public school student detained during President Donald Trump’s second term. The Venezuelan native became the public face of an aggressive new phase of the government’s mass deportation campaign, remaining in custody until his release last week.

After Dylan’s arrest, his mom Raiza’s first call was to Bernard. Ever since then, Bernard has, along with ELLIS founding Principal Norma Vega, led the school’s efforts to rally behind Dylan, which included helping to put Raiza in touch with lawyers and advocates, organizing a student letter-writing campaign, and supporting a fundraiser for the family. With Dylan’s return to ELLIS, they hope he can focus on “what will happen, not what did happen,” Vega said.

But the jubilation of Dylan’s return has been mixed with frequent reminders of the looming threat of immigration enforcement facing him and other ELLIS students.

Dylan catches up with school counselor, Hedin Bernard, left, in the halls of ELLIS on his first day back at school.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, released Dylan while he awaits a decision on an appeal in his asylum case. An immigration judge rejected his claim last year, and the appeals process could take years, according to his lawyers from the New York Legal Assistance Group. But ICE has the ability to take him back into custody at any time and requires regular check-ins, his lawyers said.

Shortly after Bernard reunited with Dylan Tuesday morning, as Dylan scarfed down a donut and drank coffee poured from Bernard’s thermos, the counselor invited him to join a college trip that week.

ELLIS staffers believe that preparing immigrant students for college is the surest path out of poverty. The trip would visit three colleges in upstate New York.

Dylan glanced down at his leg, where a black ankle monitor had been attached as a condition of his release. With his travel restrictions, Dylan knew he likely couldn’t attend.

But that didn’t slow down the ELLIS staffers for long. Later that morning, Bernard asked a colleague to invite college representatives to ELLIS, so Dylan wouldn’t have to leave school to meet them.

Left, a pin dedicated to Dylan Lopez Contreras hangs on a bag belonging to counselor Hedin Bernard at his office. And right, Dylan Lopez Contreras now wears an ankle monitor after his release from ICE detention.

Dylan’s detention still lingers

The swiftness of the changes over the past two weeks has been hard for Dylan to comprehend.

Dylan, center, sits for a portrait in the cafeteria at ELLIS.

After months in Moshannon Valley Processing Center, a Western Pennsylvania detention facility, Dylan had stood at a crowded press conference, flanked by Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, thanking his supporters in Spanish from under the blue brim of a New York Knicks hat.

He had been sleeping on a thin cot in a cell with more than 70 men. Now he was in his own bed, cuddled with his younger siblings, ages 8 and 10, who had asked to sleep next to him. And after losing about 30 pounds in detention because he often couldn’t stomach the food, Dylan had a phalanx of adults at ELLIS showering him with food, free school supplies, and affection.

“It’s a big contrast, to go through so much mistreatment, and then come back to people who love and support you,” he said in Spanish.

Still, his thoughts drift back to a friend in detention nicknamed “El Mayor,” or the elder, who has already called Dylan to let him know how happy he was to hear about his release and to ask if he could use his public profile to advocate for the release of others. (Dylan did exactly that at his press conference.) As long as those men remain in detention, Moshannon Valley is “not going to feel very far away,” he said.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson denied that there were any problems with the conditions at Moshannon. “All detainees are provided with proper meals, water, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” the spokesperson said. “In fact, ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”

ELLIS staffers said reintegrating Dylan into school will mean helping him catch up on all he missed over the past 10 months while also processing the ongoing trauma of his detention.

While Dylan was incarcerated, his classmates had gone to Washington, D.C., prepared for or taken Regents exams they needed for graduation, and kept up with the guitar lessons Dylan enjoyed before his arrest.

Letters from his classmates helped sustain him as his detention stretched from days to months, and his optimism for a quick release faded. He watched new detainees — including grandparents and young kids — come and go while he remained locked up.

Dylan had no formal education in detention. But he was determined to do what he could to keep up with his English.

Dylan Lopez Contreras, 21, center, walks with Norma Vega, founding principal at ELLIS, left, to his counselor's office to prepare a class schedule on his first day of school after having spent close to 10 months in immigration custody.

He practiced speaking with cellmates from places like China and the United Kingdom and to advocate for better treatment from the guards.

He devoured manga and Marvel comics donated by the advocacy group ROCC NYC, which played a critical role in supporting his family and keeping public attention on his case. He scoured an English dictionary from the facility’s library to learn new vocabulary but had no one to check his pronunciation. And he tried to read some classics, such as Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez.

When he returned to ELLIS last week, Vega stopped him in the hallway to hand him a gift from a staffer in her district office: a copy of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” another classic Dylan had asked to read but couldn’t get a copy of.

Dylan, who had fled Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro’s repressive regime, had been kidnapped by a Mexican cartel on his journey to the U.S., and spent 10 months in ICE custody, had said he wanted to understand Dante’s nine circles of hell.

ELLIS gears up to help Dylan adjust

Staffers at ELLIS are accustomed to helping students navigate all kinds of trauma, but they’d never had a student return from long-term incarceration, Bernard said.

Dylan’s counselors at ELLIS plan to refer him to a Spanish-speaking therapist through a mental health clinic located on the first floor of ELLIS’ building, Bernard said. And staffers will watch for any signs that he is struggling.

Dylan, left, goes over notes during a biology class with Hugo Ortega at ELLIS Prep in the Bronx.

They’re also hoping to give Dylan chances to enjoy himself outside academic courses, though his ankle monitor is complicating those plans. His counselor enrolled Dylan in a swim class, but Dylan worried about getting the device wet.

Schools in New York are required to continue enrolling students through age 21, but state law doesn’t stop them from staying longer if the school agrees, Vega said.

ELLIS staffers don’t want to keep Dylan in high school longer than necessary but are encouraging him to stay for two years, so he can master English before applying to college.

In the meantime, he is eager to earn money to help his mom and siblings with rent. He hopes to take a bartending course so he can work at night without interfering with his school schedule.

Dylan worked long hours as a delivery driver before his arrest, and Bernard remains concerned about how long he’ll want to stay in school.

Staffers at ELLIS are working on finding him an internship that allows him to make money while learning new skills and burnishing his college resume.

Dylan said he’s willing to stay at ELLIS “as long as it takes.”

Dylan, center, arrives in the cafeteria at ELLIS to hugs and jubilation on his first day back at school after his release from immigration detention.

Dylan and ELLIS face an uncertain future

Dylan’s arrest, and the aggressive escalation in immigration enforcement it represented, cast a long shadow over ELLIS over the past 10 months, reaching into every aspect of its work.

Students had begun to talk more openly about self-deportation. Pressure to abandon school for work grew as students confronted their diminished prospects for building a future in the U.S. And ELLIS’ enrollment, like that at immigrant-heavy schools across the city, has declined as border crossings slowed to a trickle.

Many of the ELLIS students who greeted Dylan Tuesday with tearful hugs and exclamations like “bienvenidos, loco!” (welcome back, crazy!) had endured their own brushes with immigration enforcement.

Dylan saw a friend whose mother was deported while he was in detention, leaving her without a way to pay rent or look after her toddler during school hours. Dylan’s friend Bridget is considering returning to Ecuador in part because of the fear of ICE. Another student saw Dylan’s ankle monitor and asked a staff member what the device did, adding that her dad had one too, Bernard said.

Dylan eats lunch with friends in the cafeteria at ELLIS.

And when Dylan greeted two fellow Venezuelan students, one asked if he’d had to sleep on the floor — noting that’s where he’d slept after being detained while crossing the border. “I know the floor,” Dylan responded with a wry smile.

During lunch time, Dylan settled into a booth with friends and munched on mozzarella sticks. He had a newfound appreciation for school cafeteria food.

His friendships were what Dylan missed most about ELLIS, and there was lots to catch up on. The conversation soon turned to an ordinary high school concern: Dylan had to figure out what color to dye his hair next.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Dylan Lopez Contreras, first NYC student detained by ICE in Trump’s second term, released after 10 months

2026-03-18T17:18:28+00:00

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Dylan Lopez Contreras, the first New York City public school student detained by federal immigration officials during President Donald Trump’s second term, was released Tuesday night after spending 10 months in federal custody, according to his mother and his legal team.

Dylan, now 21, was a student at ELLIS Preparatory Academy, a Bronx school geared toward older, newly arrived immigrant students, and his arrest was one of the highest-profile early examples of an unprecedented tactical shift in immigration enforcement last year in which officers arrested immigrants in the hallways of federal court following their legal hearings. Chalkbeat first reported Dylan’s arrest.

Kristin Kepplinger, a spokesperson from the New York Legal Assistance Group, which had been representing Dylan in his immigration court case and federal habeas corpus lawsuit, said the reason for his release wasn’t yet clear, as they had yet to review his release documents.

His legal team was thankful to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration and to the office of U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer who’d been advocating for his release, Kepplinger added.

Dylan’s federal habeas corpus petition was denied. An immigration judge also denied his asylum claim, but his lawyers appealed.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to a request for comment on Dylan’s release.

A native of Venezuela, Dylan first entered the country in 2024 through a program under former President Joe Biden that allowed migrants to make appointments to cross the border and seek asylum.

Dylan’s arrest quickly earned local and national attention, prompting former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration to file an amicus brief seeking his release, along with rallies and calls from national elected officials. Last month, Dylan’s mother, Raiza Contreras, attended the State of the Union with Sen. Chuck Schumer.

““[I’m] emotional,” Raiza told Chalkbeat in a brief interview Wednesday in Spanish. “I’m grateful to God first and foremost and to all the people who were present in this case.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul said on X Wednesday that she mentioned Dylan’s name in a recent meeting with Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan.

Mamdani said the city was “overjoyed” by Dylan’s release.

“Throughout this injustice, Dylan has shown remarkable strength, resilience, and courage,” the mayor said in a statement.

Even as federal immigration enforcement swept up other city students — some of whom subsequently won quick releases — Dylan remained in custody in Western Pennsylvania for nearly a year. In a September interview with Chalkbeat from detention, he described the frustration and depression of having his life put on hold.

Norma Vega, the principal of ELLIS, where staffers rallied behind Dylan and helped coordinate legal and other forms of support for the family, said she believes the sustained public campaign for Dylan’s release paid off.

“It confirmed for me we did the right thing,” she said. “Keeping him in the public eye, he became the face of every immigrant youth across the country.”

She added: “It was about this kid who they [the federal government] inaccurately thought was alone … and how important it was for us to let them know he’s not alone.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Gwynne Hogan covers immigration and homelessness for THE CITY.

A wave of immigration buoyed dozens of NYC schools. Now, their enrollment is plummeting.

2025-11-26T00:12:42+00:00

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New York City’s public schools enrolled tens of thousands of new students during a wave of historic migration starting in 2022.

The surge transformed some campuses as educators adapted to meet the needs of children coming with limited English, trauma from their journeys, and little access to basics like food, clothing, and housing.

ATLAS, formerly known as Newcomers High School, in Long Island City, Queens, took in perhaps the largest number of new arrivals. Enrollment more than doubled in just three years, swelling to a high of 1,428 in the 2023-24 school year, compared to 676 in 2020-21, according to city data.

At P.S. 111, which sits amid a cluster of emergency homeless shelters blocks away from ATLAS, enrollment ballooned from under 300 to 564 in four years. After a 3,500-person migrant shelter opened in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, enrollment at nearby P.S./I.S. 157 leapt from 250 to nearly 400 in a matter of months.

But over the last year, the boom came to an abrupt halt, a Chalkbeat analysis of preliminary enrollment data found. Citywide, enrollment fell 2%, the largest drop since the pandemic, with steeper declines at those schools that enrolled the most migrant students. Chalkbeat identified 60 schools that likely took in the largest shares of migrant students between 2022 and 2024. Combined, they lost 11% of their enrollment this year, nearly wiping out all the gains from the previous three years, the analysis found.

Chalkbeat’s analysis is the first attempt to systematically understand how migration has reshaped enrollment in the nation’s largest school district in recent years.

Like other cities across the country, New York City lost students as President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign drove some families to leave for fear of immigration enforcement — and dramatically slowed the pace of new arrivals. Compared to 2023, encounters at the U.S. southern border have plummeted by 77%, while the number of newcomers entering city shelters shrunk from a high of 4,000 a week to around 100.

Amid that slowdown, the number of new students registering in city schools this summer has fallen significantly: down 7% compared to the same period last year, Education Department officials said.

Federal enforcement efforts are not the only change that has contributed to the sudden shift in enrollment patterns. As Mayor Eric Adams attempted to deal with the surge, his administration enacted policies that made it difficult for migrant families to find stable housing, forcing many to switch schools or leave the city, educators and advocates said.

The enrollment reversal isn’t just a problem for individual schools, who may lose staffers and programs because school budgets are tied to student numbers. If the decline persists, as the city’s own projections predict, the Education Department will have to confront thorny questions about closing or merging underenrolled schools.

“That’s going to mean a big cut to the city’s federal funding, and that’s going to mean tough decisions for the NYC schools system as a whole, and that will trickle down to individual schools,” said Loredana Valtierra, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and former official at the U.S. Department of Education.

At several of the schools that took in the most migrant students during the influx, enrollment has fallen just as dramatically as it rose.

The student headcount at ATLAS fell from over 1,400 to just 829 as of this fall, a 42% drop over two years. At P.S./I.S. 157 in Clinton Hill, enrollment cratered after the city closed the nearby migrant center in June — from nearly 400 last school year to 278 this fall, a 29% drop.

Though schools with big losses got a temporary reprieve from budget cuts this year if they fell short of enrollment projections, it’s not clear how long that support will last.

Lara Evangelista, the executive director of the Internationals Network, a nonprofit that supports city public schools geared toward newly arrived immigrants, said that schools were grateful to avoid midyear budget cuts, but she noted that principals will have to plan for the future. “What do you need to put in place this year to prepare for lower budgets going forward?”

Schools opened their doors to a historic influx of immigrant students

New York City enrolled an estimated 48,000 migrant students in a two-year period, officials have said, with many hailing from Latin America and West Africa.

City schools do not ask families for their immigration status or national origin, making it difficult to track enrollment of migrant students. But because many of the new arrivals took up residence in the city’s homeless shelters, Education Department officials used the number of homeless students newly enrolling in city schools as a proxy for migrant students.

To identify which schools took in the largest shares of migrant students, Chalkbeat compiled a list of schools with the biggest increases in both homeless students and English language learners, relative to their overall size, starting in 2022. Several education data experts said the approach was a reasonable way to approximate the number of new migrant students.

Migrant students often enrolled in schools near emergency shelters. Many of those were in midtown Manhattan and Long Island City in Queens, where officials converted hotels into shelters.

But enrollment patterns also depended on which schools had the space — along with the expertise and willingness — to take migrant students.

In East Harlem’s District 4, school and district leaders were “strategic” about opening their doors to newcomer families living in nearby Manhattan shelters, said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a parent in the district and president of its Community Education Council. The district had both space, after years of declining enrollment, and a large number of dual-language programs to offer.

The district’s share of English learners doubled from 9% to 18% between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years — the largest percentage jump in the city — leading to District 4’s first overall enrollment gain in at least a decade, according to city data.

Central Park East II, a K-8 school in East Harlem, took in roughly 100 newcomers, said Principal Naomi Smith. The school worked with district officials and partner organizations to connect families to free food and clothing, along with MetroCards and legal and emotional support, Smith said.

“I am proud of our school, our district, the [Education Department] in general for supporting our families,” she said. “I’m proud of what we do.”

NYC’s shelter policies threaten migrant enrollment

Some principals at schools with large migrant influxes anticipated the enrollment numbers would eventually level off as families left the shelter system, settling in different neighborhoods or leaving the city.

That accelerated in early 2024 when Adams — who said the pace of migration could “destroy the city” — began limiting stays in migrant shelters to 60 days to relieve an overburdened shelter system. Advocates and educators said the move made it difficult for families to remain in their schools and pushed some out of the city altogether as they struggled to find affordable housing.

“The piling on of one inconvenience after another made it impossible for people to stay at first in their school and then in the city,” said Naveed Hasan, a Panel for Educational Policy member who has supported schools with large numbers of new arrivals.

When Trump began his second term in January, his Justice Department pushed prosecutors to drop federal corruption charges against Adams, in part, so the mayor could aid the new administration’s immigration crackdown.

As the number of migrants in city shelters fell rapidly, city officials shuttered dozens of migrant shelters starting in early 2025. At some schools, the effect of the shelter closures was immediate.

P.S. 46 in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, which was several blocks away from a 3,500-person mega-shelter that opened in summer 2023, took in dozens of migrant students in the 2023-24 school year.

After the shelter closed earlier this year, “many families and friends were separated and isolated,” said Carolina Zafra, a teacher at the school. Over the past year, enrollment has fallen by 16%, according to city figures.

At Central Park East II, some families have moved to schools closer to their new accommodations, or left the city for states like Texas and Florida, Smith said. Enrollment at the school is down about 40 students, or 10%, this year.

Across District 4, schools have seen a similar pattern, Salas-Ramirez said. Seven of District 4’s 29 schools saw enrollment drops of 15% or greater from last year to this one, according to Chalkbeat’s analysis. Districtwide, enrollment is down nearly 6%, the second-largest drop in the city.

In August, when city officials closed The Row hotel in midtown Manhattan, the last remaining large family migrant shelter, 138 families in East Harlem schools were displaced, she said.

“It’s been hard to track the families,” she said. “A lot of our principals and assistant principals have spent a lot of effort … just trying to figure out where they are.”

Trump’s immigration crackdown exacerbates enrollment losses

Attendance dipped among many immigrant families as Trump took office. Then, as immigration enforcement intensified in the spring, educators and advocates said they saw more families go into hiding or leave the country voluntarily to avoid being detained.

At least five city students have been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, though several have been released. Dylan Lopez Contreras, the first known city student detained by ICE during Trump’s second term, remains in detention in Western Pennsylvania six months after he was arrested during a routine court hearing. A judge denied Dylan’s asylum claim in September, and his lawyers have filed an appeal.

Schools across the city have also seen ICE sweep up students’ parents.

“People are leaving, or they’re staying in hiding,” said Power Malu, the co-founder of an aid group called ROCCNYC that has been helping connect migrant families with services since the beginning of the influx.

John Sullivan, the superintendent overseeing transfer schools for older students who have struggled in traditional high schools, said at a recent City Council hearing that his district has also seen a growing number of English learners leaving school for jobs. English learners have long dropped out of high school at higher rates than their peers, and some educators worry the pressure to earn money has increased as students worry they may have limited time in the U.S.

Despite the challenges, many educators are doing all they can to keep their newcomers.

Across schools in the Internationals Network, enrollment has largely stayed flat — a pattern Evangelista attributed in part to her schools’ strong relationships with families and ability to connect them to services, such as housing.

At East Harlem’s Central Park East II and Brooklyn’s P.S. 46, while some families displaced from their shelters have left, others still crisscross the city each day so they can stay enrolled, educators said.

Educators said the loss of a single student can reverberate across the entire school.

“Students are still really struggling,” said Valtierra, the Century Foundation fellow. “Having their friends and classmates not showing up … having to explain where those kids are going, that’s tough.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Chicago educators try to allay students’ immigration enforcement fears

2025-11-24T19:00:00+00:00

This story was originally published by Borderless Magazine. Sign up for their newsletters here.

Editor’s note: Borderless Magazine has chosen not to publish the full names of some of the sources mentioned in this story to protect their safety and privacy. For questions, please contact us at board@borderlessmag.org

Kat wrote a plan for her mom: where to find her spare car keys, caregiving instructions for her dog, where to find her asthma medication and passwords to several of her personal accounts.

The list, Kat says, serves as a guide in case federal agents detain her.

Kat is a teacher born and raised on the Southwest Side, an area that’s been a target of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids since September.

“It felt a little bit like I was sharing how to check the boxes in my life if I’m not there,” said Kat. “Which feels like a crazy thing to have to do as just a person living your life in places that I have always been.”

The fear of being detained follows the Southwest Side resident every day that she drives to work on the North Side. She sees the same worry and vigilance over immigration raids in her students. When a helicopter flies by during recess, her students ask: “Is that ICE?”

Her students worry about whether their parents will be home when they return to school, she says.

Teachers like Kat are noticing students on high alert and withdrawing in class. Some have also seen a dip in student attendance as federal immigration agents have carried out military raids citywide. Many students skip school, while others who used to be accompanied by a parent now walk to school on their own.

School staff and community members have responded in and outside of schools to make families feel safe when students attend school, creating informal escorting systems, in-school food pantries, and sanctuary teams to support affected families.

Since “Operation Midway Blitz” began in September, ICE encounters have escalated with agents teargassing neighborhoods, fatally shooting a man near schools and raiding an apartment complex with children in the middle of the night. U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino told WBEZ Chicago that agents were arresting people partly based on “how they look.”

In several instances, federal agents have waited outside schools, detaining parents and teenagers as other parents and students look on, elevating fears throughout school communities. In response, educators and neighbors have sought ways to alleviate the fears that have swept through immigrant communities.

“People are very high alert,” said Kat. “I think it’s affecting students and parents and teachers, and that wears on your nervous system. It’s hard to be vigilant all the time.”

Learning under a cloud of fear

Northwest Side teacher Mahli has noticed a decline in student attendance. Some students miss a day or two at a time, while others are absent for more than a week at a time.

Earlier this school year, about half her students showed up after hearing rumors of ICE targeting schools a day prior, she says.

“Attendance has definitely suffered, especially in our bilingual classrooms,” she said. “I would say that focus is affected, and there [are] more complaints about tummy aches and headaches and the energy just being down.”

According to an analysis by Chalkbeat, attendance rates dropped by 1.25 percentage points after Sept. 8, when news of immigration sweeps in Chicago became public. The decline is more than double between the first and second months of school over the last two years.

Psychologist Ricardo Camacho says children’s sense of security, trust, and safety is currently threatened by aggressive immigration enforcement in their neighborhoods. This can manifest into withdrawal, difficulty concentrating and physical symptoms, he noted.

For children and students in immigrant or mixed-status families, exposure to distressing or violent social media content about immigration enforcement can reinforce feelings of fear and instability, Camacho says.

In Chicago, over one-third of school-age children have at least one immigrant parent, according to a WBEZ analysis of 2024 Census data. A recent survey by A Better Chicago, a venture philanthropy organization, found that over half of Latino youth in Chicago over the age of 15 say they “worry a lot” about a family member or friend being deported due to their immigration status.

Kat notices students are worried in her classroom, openly discussing their fears with one another.

“There are both visible and invisible effects to this, and it’s affecting every part of the community,” says Kat. “I think even more now they need that to bring joy and curiosity into the classroom.”

Navigating how and when to acknowledge their fears has been difficult, Kat and Mahli agree.

“It’s been a delicate balance between wanting to acknowledge the weight of the moment, but then also wanting it to be a joy-filled space where they feel safe in a space where they can forget about the weight of the world for a little bit,” Mahli said.

“It is my responsibility”

For teachers like Mahli, the experience has prompted her to act.

Mahli is part of her school’s sanctuary team, led by social workers, which aims to protect students and families. The team checks in on families, connects them with mutual aid and legal services, and tracks active detention cases involving parents of students. Mahli said she knows of about five cases in which ICE has detained parents from her school community.

Gabriel Paez teaches bilingual Spanish language arts, English as a Second Language and social studies to 7th and 8th grade students in a school on the Northwest Side, most of whom are immigrants who arrived in the U.S. in the last few years.

“As an educator, we already know that we have to see our children as whole people,” said Paez. “If you are not physically safe, if you feel like you are in jeopardy or your family is unsafe, we know that higher-level thinking will not develop as it should in children.”

Inside the school, he connects his students with resources and information, including “Know Your Rights” cards and hotline numbers, which he has posted around his classroom. He is also in touch with the school counselors who work with students who are afraid of losing their parents.

Outside, he works with other neighbors to respond to ICE raids in his neighborhood. “It is my responsibility as an adult, as an American, as a naturalized U.S. citizen and as an educator to push back against ICE and make their job as hard as possible,” said Paez.

Chicago Public Schools teacher Gabriel Paez adjusts a sign in Albany Park that marks where the community prevented federal agents from detaining a neighbor.

The frequency of ICE raids has spurred conversations among students about deportations.

Chicago Public Schools teacher Silvia Gonzalez said her students are having these conversations right now.

“[Students are] just having questions that they want me to answer or want to think about with me,” she said.

Gonzalez created a resource for other teachers, including a curriculum on how to have conversations with young people about these issues and “Know Your Rights” information, with the context of a classroom.

Silvia Gonzalez, center, works with a group of educators and school staff at a breakout session during a community teach-in at 18th Street Casa de Cultura on Nov. 15, 2025.

In West Town, a group of parents volunteered to take turns driving a student to a school in the North Side. They organized after learning she had been missing school due to fear of encountering ICE. The group coordinates whose turn it is to drop her off or to pick her up, with each taking a turn about once a week.

“We sent several parents that day to make sure that she just felt really safe in coming out of the building,” said Kaili Emmrich, a parent and volunteer.

With school staff, Emmrich also organized a community response group of volunteers to monitor for ICE presence near her daughters’ school and escort students during pickup and drop-off times.

Her work doesn’t stop at the school. Emmrich and her husband have also opened their home to families to do laundry for anyone who fears visiting laundromats.

‘It is a race thing at this point.’

In the Southwest Side, escalating ICE encounters, aggressive tactics by agents and chaotic street stops mobilized students in Little Village to protest.

Hundreds of students from Little Village Lawndale High School staged a walkout in late October, following back-to-back raids in the neighborhood.

Students from Little Village Lawndale High School march towards 26th Street during a walkout in protest of recent immigrant enforcement across Chicago on Oct. 28, 2025.

Workers at shops on 26th Street smiled as they recorded students marching by in support of their immigrant parents and against ICE presence in their community.

Carrying signs, handing out whistles, and sharing “Know Your Rights” information, the students said they were marching for their parents, who face increased risks of detention amid the heightened ICE presence in their Little Village neighborhood.

“They left the only thing they knew,” said Lia Sophia Lopez, one of the student organizers of the walkout. “Their people, their family, in the hope that their children could call this country their home. A country that was supposed to be safe. And now, we have to live with the fear that our parents will not be here the next day.”

Lia Sophia Lopez, center, joins fellow students during a walkout in protest of recent immigrant enforcement in Little Village and Chicago on Oct. 28, 2025.

Cristian, who was protesting for the first time in his life, said he had witnessed people being taken by or teargassed by ICE in his neighborhood.

“They won’t take our people,” said Cristian, whose parents are immigrants from Mexico.

During the march, students chanted, “Trump escucha, estamos en la lucha (Trump, listen, we are in this fight).” Michel, a sophomore, held a pink speaker playing Chalino Sanchez, a Mexican singer, because she listens to his music with her parents. “Chalino [represents] our culture.”

“I was a little nervous, but parents can’t do this, so we had to come out here,” said Ashley, a student at the school. “It is a race thing at this point.”

Hope under pressure

CPS says schools remain “the safest place for students” and recommends that families update emergency contacts and create plans for childcare in case parents are detained by ICE. The district also said it does not ask families for immigration status, coordinate or share student records with ICE or allow ICE agents or other federal representatives access to CPS schools or facilities.

“We know that anxiety remains high, especially in our Black and Brown communities, and among our immigrant and mixed-status families,” CPS said in a statement. “I wish that our school communities were not saddled with this burden, and that we could all just focus on helping our students learn and grow. As it stands, though, we want to remind everyone why our schools remain the safest place for students, and once again provide guidance for staying safe outside of school.”

Despite Kat’s worries about ICE in her personal life and at work for her students’ families, she remains hopeful about how people have stepped up to protect one another.

“What ICE is doing and what really the federal administration is doing is chaotic and hateful and haphazard,” she said. “It’s unsafe. They’re trying to turn Chicago into a warzone, and Chicagoans are stepping up with love in the face of that.”

Aydali Campa is a Report for America corps member and covers environmental justice and immigrant communities for Borderless Magazine. Email Aydali at aydali@borderlessmag.org.

Trump administration push to cut support for English learners turns spotlight on states

2025-09-23T23:28:16+00:00

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Even if the federal government renounces its role in educating English learners, Cheruba Sophia Chavez knows what’s in the fine print.

A federal toolkit helped the New Orleans educator support new immigrant students. Federal guidance helped her train teachers to avoid common violations of English learners’ civil rights. And U.S. Department of Education resources have shown her how Louisiana’s instruction stacks up with other states.

So when the Trump administration reduced the office that oversees English learners to a single person, revoked that guidance, and took the toolkits offline, she pointed teachers to the expansive footnotes on the now-rescinded guidance chock full of “precedent, and law, and case studies, and rulings.”

“Those are still standing,” said Chavez, who has worked with English learners for over a decade. “Our obligation to serve these children remains the same.”

Under President Donald Trump, the federal government is systematically retreating from helping educate English learners and protecting their civil rights. In addition to yanking federal guidance and resources, the president is seeking to eliminate all $890 million in federal funding for English language acquisition programs in schools.

All of that puts more responsibility on states and local schools to educate English learners. Their track record of doing so is mixed.

Some say states can and will fill the void, and may do a better job without federal oversight. But many educators and experts fear that setup will leave English learners and their families behind. Services and protections for English learners will become more scattershot, they say, and students whose rights are violated may have no recourse other than to file lawsuits — an expensive and uncertain proposition for families and schools.

Already, about 1 in 5 teachers say their school rarely or never meets the needs of children learning English, according to a 2023 nationally representative survey.

“We have states who will make sure that the students keep receiving the resources and the instruction that English learners need, but we have other states who aren’t necessarily going to,” said Montserrat Garibay, who led the federal Office of English Language Acquisition during the Biden administration. She worries “we’re going to go back to the ’90s ‘sink or swim’ methods, where you have students who are not going to learn the language and are going to fail.”

Should the feds pay for students to learn English?

All schools must help English learners overcome language barriers so they can access a meaningful education. It’s a requirement under the 1974 landmark Supreme Court ruling in Lau v. Nichols.

Right now, states get federal Title III dollars for English language acquisition programs based on census counts of children learning English. School districts apply for that money, and states award it based on how many English learners and immigrant students they enroll.

Immigrants are generally more successful in the U.S. if they acquire English skills, said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for lower rates of immigration. And public school programs that teach kids English are “an investment that’s generally understood as worth it,” Vaughan said, especially for younger children.

But she understands why taxpayers might be “frustrated by having to bear the cost” of programs for older children who arrive with little formal schooling and may need more intensive support.

To Vaughan, the Trump administration is doing the right thing by moving away from influencing what states provide with offers of federal funding.

“I would expect states to support local communities that are dealing with it,” she said. “States are going to have to work this out within their own budget.”

States already dictate what kind of instruction they offer to English learners and how much native language support schools provide.

Jonathan Butcher, a senior research fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, says eliminating Title III funding would rightly reduce the federal government’s role in education.

“I don’t believe that we need Title III in order to have programs for English language learners,” Butcher said. States should be able to identify on their own which student needs deserve the most support, he said. “This is the kind of freedom that we should be giving state officials.”

And if a state chose not to spend anything to help English learners become proficient in English? “There would be a civil rights lawsuit,” Butcher said.

Others say the federal government sets immigration policy, so it should help states pay for the K-12 education of new arrivals, and that the federal government has a vested interest in helping English learners — most of whom were born in the U.S.

“If they’re not well-equipped with the skills that they need for the 21st century, who’s going to pay for my retirement?” said Garibay, the former Biden official. “I hate to say that it’s an economy thing, but it is.”

Congress currently puts $890 million annually toward English language acquisition. That Title III money is meant to pay for extra support like after-school tutoring, family outreach, and teacher training.

But many educators and advocates say those federal funds have failed to keep pace with the growth of the English learner population and fall far short of what schools need.

Still, Trump has proposed eliminating Title III funds from the fiscal year 2026 budget, a move that his administration says would “end overreach from Washington.” After the president signed an executive order designating English as the nation’s official language, Trump officials said the English language acquisition program should be eliminated because it “actually deemphasizes English primacy” and encourages bilingualism.

The broader political climate is also a factor. Many children from immigrant families are experiencing heightened stress and fear as the Trump administration’s deportation campaign intensifies. That makes it harder to show up regularly to school and stay focused in class.

Federal law and court decisions say states can choose what kind of instruction they provide to English learners. Some states lean more heavily on helping children become proficient in their native language first, which research has shown can help them transfer skills and develop stronger English abilities.

The Senate appropriations committee passed a bipartisan bill that would hold Title III funding steady at $890 million. But the House appropriations committee approved the elimination of Title III, citing “funding constraints.”

Leslie Villegas, a senior policy analyst at New America, a left-leaning think tank, says ending Title III would be a general funding cut that would “hurt all students.” And it would put educators in “a really difficult position to make hard choices that they shouldn’t have to make.”

Becky Trammell, a special education teacher in Minneapolis Public Schools, knows what that’s like.

Recent waves of immigration brought more Spanish-speaking families to her elementary school, in addition to Somali- and Hmong-speakers. After splitting an English learner teacher with other schools, her school now has two full-time.

But Trammell said she still has to rely on apps and phone interpretation services that don’t always work.

Students at a New York City high school for newcomers work on a history essay using resources in the hallway.

Once, a Somali-speaking parent thought she was being pranked because the phone interpreter didn’t actually speak Somali. And one of her students told her he doesn’t like the phone translation app, so she reads it aloud in her broken Spanish.

“We’re already working at a deficit when it comes to staffing and money,” Trammell said. If her school were to lose Title III dollars, she worries “they’re going to cut positions or what little supports we do have, we’re not going to have those.”

What are key state policies for English learners?

States already set many of their own policies for educating English learners and see a wide range of outcomes.

English learners in Texas, for example, are much more likely to be enrolled in bilingual education programs where they receive native language support than in California, which has a complicated history with English-only instruction. Texas’ English learners consistently outperform English learners in California on key national tests — though state test scores in Texas have raised concerns.

With less federal involvement and oversight, Villegas at New America worries families of English learners and their advocates will find it harder to seek redress for their complaints.

“Leaving it up to the discretion of states to do that, that’s really troubling,” she said. That is “not the point of civil rights.”

The Trump administration has released several school districts, including Boston and Newark, New Jersey from settlement agreements meant to correct inadequate services for English learners. In Newark, the end of government monitoring came just months after the Biden administration flagged the district for failing to consistently use qualified interpreters.

Chavez, the Louisiana educator, fears that if Title III goes away, there will be less federal monitoring, and that English learners will only get their needs met if they make up a “critical mass” at a school.

One moment sticks in her memory: When Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry was sworn in last year, one of the Republican’s first actions was to veto a new policy Chavez and other educators lobbied for to help more English learners get their diplomas.

“We know their posture toward English learners,” Chavez said, adding that she and others aren’t “looking to the state for anything affirmative to protect our children and to close the disparate outcomes for English learners in our state.”

Still, advocates for English learners say there is a lot states can do.

They can enshrine the Supreme Court ruling that gave children the right to receive a free public education regardless of their immigration status in state law, as Illinois and Massachusetts recently did. Or they can bolster requirements for how English learners are taught in their state, as Michigan recently did.

School boards could also adopt policies that add oversight and consequences if goals aren’t met, Villegas said.

When Garibay worked in the federal English learner office, she saw “a lot of great work” happening in dual language programs and parent engagement.

“That gives me a lot of hope,” she said. “In these very uncertain times, the most important work happens at the local level.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s 2025 CMAS results: See how your school and district performed

2025-08-21T19:01:52+00:00

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The good news is that Colorado elementary and middle school students are now performing at or above their pre-pandemic achievement levels in most grades and subjects — with math gains a particular bright spot.

The bad news is that some groups of students, most notably English learners, are still achieving far below grade level.

These are some of the findings state education officials shared Thursday as they released results from last spring’s state tests, called the Colorado Measures of Academic Progress or CMAS, taken by students in grades 3 through 8. The release includes district and school level results, along with results for special populations, including English learners, students with disabilities, and students eligible from free or reduced-price meals, an indicator of poverty.

In some grades, only a tiny fraction of Colorado’s English learners — about 80% of whom speak Spanish as their first language — met or exceeded expectations in math or literacy.

For example, on math and English language arts tests, less than 3% of sixth grade English learners were proficient. Spanish-speaking students who were tested in Spanish didn’t fare much better: Only 16.5% of third graders and 13.1% of fourth graders met or exceeded expectations on the Spanish language arts test.

In several grades, English learners who took state tests last spring not only have proficiency rates well below their pre-pandemic counterparts, but their rates have slipped even lower than their 2024 peers.

Susana Córdova, Colorado’s education commissioner, said during a media briefing Tuesday that English learners have had a slower post-COVID recovery for various reasons, including because many attended schools that returned to in-person learning more slowly.

She noted that many English learners have enrolled in Colorado schools relatively recently and “are furthest from having proficiency in English.”

During the 2023-24 school year, thousands of migrant students arrived from South America.

Córdova said education department officials have also heard anecdotally about attendance problems among English learners, and that attendance data set to come out in a few weeks could shed more light on that issue.

Colorado’s PSAT and SAT 2025 scores: How did your school or district perform?

Colorado also administers standardized science tests to students in grades 5, 8, and 11. Students did better on the science tests this year compared to their counterparts in 2024.

Eighth graders made the biggest improvements, with about 36% meeting or exceeding expectations compared with about 32% the year before. A new state science test based on revised science standards was unveiled in 2023.

“This really speaks to the really good work that Colorado educators are doing, wrapping their heads around these science standards, and really teaching with fidelity,” said Christina Wirth-Hawkins, chief assessment officer for the Colorado Department of Education.

Many school districts saw test score gains

Statewide, the aggregate scores for all students in grades 3 through 8 show that 44.8% of students met or exceeded expectations on the CMAS literacy tests and 35.9% did so on the math tests. Both of those percentages are higher than in 2024.

Many Colorado school districts also saw their test scores tick up. For instance, 99 of the state’s 178 districts had the same or higher percentages of students meeting expectations on CMAS literacy tests this year than last year, with 69 districts seeing a decrease. Some districts did not have enough data for the state to publicly report aggregate scores across grade levels.

In math, 107 districts had the same or higher percentages of students meeting expectations, while 57 districts had lower percentages. Again, some districts didn’t have enough data.

About 42% of students in Denver Public Schools met or exceeded expectations on the CMAS literacy tests this past spring. That’s an increase from last year and nearly as high as the 42.8% of students who met expectations in 2019, before the pandemic.

In math, about 33% of Denver students met or exceeded expectations on CMAS this year, bringing the district’s math scores to just above pre-pandemic levels.

Jeffco Public Schools also surpassed its pre-pandemic scores, with 52.5% of students meeting or exceeding expectations in literacy this year and 42.8% doing so in math.

Aurora Public Schools, Adams 12 Five Star, Adams 14, Mapleton Public Schools, and the Brighton-based 27J district saw improvements in both literacy and math this year, but their scores remain below pre-pandemic levels.

Cherry Creek School District saw an improvement in math, bringing the district’s math scores nearly to what they were before the pandemic. But Cherry Creek’s literacy scores were essentially flat and still below pre-pandemic levels.

Some districts, including Harrison 2 in Colorado Springs, saw decreases in both subjects.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Trump administration rolls back pivotal guidance about educational rights of English learners

2025-08-20T20:01:44+00:00

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The Trump administration has quietly rescinded guidance spelling out the educational rights of the nation’s more than 5 million English learners that educators say was crucial to serving children from immigrant families.

In recent weeks, a Dear Colleague letter issued in 2015 by the Education Department and Department of Justice was stamped with a red message saying the document had been formally rescinded. Neither agency issued a public notice explaining the rationale for the change as they usually do when they roll back federal guidance.

The rescission comes after the Trump administration laid off nearly every staffer in the Education Department responsible for serving English learners and looks to wind down a federal website that provides toolkits for helping English learners. The administration has also proposed zeroing out dedicated Title III funding for English learners and issued an executive order declaring English the official language of the United States.

Trump officials also cleared the way for immigration agents to make arrests at or near schools, child care centers, and after-school programs, undoing a longstanding precedent to treat those places as sensitive locations. The administration’s mass deportation campaign has left many school communities shaken and lowered student attendance in some parts of the country.

Unlike students with disabilities, whose rights are clearly spelled out in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the rights of English learners stem from multiple Supreme Court cases and federal laws that prohibit discrimination based on national origin, which courts have interpreted to mean schools must take steps to help children overcome language barriers so they can obtain a meaningful education.

The 40-page Dear Colleague letter was groundbreaking when it was released under former President Barack Obama and remained a critical resource, according to educators who relied on the guidance. It gathered various case law, legal precedents, and federal requirements regarding English learners in the same place and provided clear examples about how students should be served.

Rescinding the guidance doesn’t change those laws, but advocates for English learners worry it will now be harder for schools to know if they are complying with the law and to hold schools accountable when they are not.

“A lot of people are very worried at the state and district level,” said Montserrat Garibay, the advocacy chair for the National Association for Bilingual Education. Without clear guidance, “there’s a high risk that EL students are not going to be receiving their linguistic and their academic support that they need.”

Trump Education Department decimates office serving 5 million English learners in public schools

Garibay, the former director of the Office of English Language Acquisition during the Biden administration, likened the guidance to a “bible” for educators who work with students learning English. Her organization is hosting a training next month to help schools navigate its loss.

Garibay said she used to print out the 40-page guidance document when she was a teachers union leader in Texas and use it to train teachers. She knew teachers who would highlight the pages and bring it to their principal to ensure they assessed English learners properly and provided families with documents in their native language.

An Education Department spokesperson told Chalkbeat on Tuesday that the department had rescinded the guidance “because it is not aligned with Administration priorities” but did not respond to followup questions about what exactly was out of alignment.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the agency had no comment on Wednesday.

But the agency referred the Washington Post to a July memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi sent to all federal agencies offering guidance to comply with Trump’s order that English be the official language.

That memo says the Justice Department would rescind any guidance that interprets the federal ban on national original discrimination to require language services for people who aren’t proficient in English. It also said the agency would “lead a coordinated effort to minimize non-essential multilingual services” and “redirect resources toward English-language education and assimilation.”

The 2015 guidance document says that schools must, to the extent practicable, translate certain notices for parents into a language they can understand and provide free oral translation when a written translation isn’t possible.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

As Trump’s deportation campaign grows, a Bronx school and undocumented teen face tough choices

2025-08-14T10:30:00+00:00

This is part two of a two-part series. Read the first story here.

Fifty students stood in front of the White House, with its manicured lawn and billowing American flag. They hailed from countries like Ecuador, Nicaragua, Senegal, and Mali. They spoke Spanish, French, Pulaar, and English. Some wore hijabs.

Like other tourists on that April day, the students on a field trip with their Bronx high school posed for a group photo.

Several asked if President Donald Trump was inside. One had told an English teacher before the trip that he wanted to ask Trump why he was so anti-immigrant. Others joked, “Trump is gonna get you,” not knowing the president’s mass deportation campaign would soon sweep up one of their classmates.

Students from ELLIS look at the Capitol on a tour of Washington, D.C., on April 30, 2025.

In the months since Trump took office, Norma Vega, the principal of ELLIS Preparatory Academy, had vowed to stick to the same practices that for years had helped her school lift immigrant students into college and out of poverty — even as fears grew. That meant forging ahead with the trip to Washington, D.C., an ELLIS tradition that strengthened first-year students’ connection to the school and exposed them to U.S. history outside the classroom.

“We can’t function out of fear,” Vega said before the trip. “We just can’t.”

The trip was particularly meaningful for 18-year-old Bridget, an undocumented first-year ELLIS student from Ecuador who almost stayed behind because her mom, Marta, was scared of spending two days apart. She marveled at the size and beauty of the White House and the clean streets and white limestone architecture of the city. The free night in a Holiday Inn Express and hotel breakfast the next day felt like an escape from the hardship and fear that marked her life in New York City.

“It’s very beautiful. It’s like a vacation,” she said in Spanish.

But for both students and staff, the glow of the trip was short-lived. Three weeks after they returned, their classmate, Dylan Lopez Contreras, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Dylan’s arrest marked an aggressive new phase of immigration enforcement and a turning point for ELLIS. Federal policy reached into the school as never before, threatening ELLIS’ ability to recruit new students, retain its current ones, and send its graduates to college. Even as Vega and other ELLIS staffers clung to the approach that had long made the school successful, they began to fear their model of education may not survive the Trump administration.

Nowhere was the challenge facing ELLIS more apparent than in the school’s attempts to keep Bridget on track.

Bridget gazes at the Lincoln Memorial on a field trip to Washington, D.C., in April 2025.

Bridget had several key ingredients for success at ELLIS: a deep relationship with staffers like counselor Hedin Bernard, a firm grasp on math and English, and a yearning to make it to college.

But despite her strong foundation, Bridget was drifting from school. As her fears grew and her mental health deteriorated in the wake of the Washington trip, Bridget’s grades slipped and her attendance faltered. She began seriously considering the prospect of going back to Ecuador. Even her eldest sister in their home city of Guayaquil — the one who initially encouraged her to come to the U.S. — had seen the news about Dylan. She urged Bridget and Marta to return.

ELLIS stepped up its support in response. Bernard connected Bridget with a therapist, helped her apply for housing, referred her to a lawyer to help with a court hearing coming up in late June and an ICE check-in a month later, and enrolled her in July classes to keep her engaged after the school year ended. But as a pivotal summer approached, he wasn’t sure it would be enough.

His work with Bridget felt like being caught in a riptide. “You can see the shore,” he said. But “you can’t move anywhere.”

Bridget and ELLIS Prep wrestle with doubts after Dylan’s arrest

When Bridget learned about Dylan’s arrest, she couldn’t stop picturing him in an orange jumpsuit with cuffs around his hands and feet. That was the uniform Bridget’s eldest sister had worn when she was detained by U.S. border agents a year earlier.

Bridget decided not to tell Marta that the lanky, purple-haired Venezuelan who’d made a point to shake her hand on a visit to ELLIS earlier that year was now in ICE detention.

“She would be very scared that they could deport us at any moment,” said Bridget, who, like her mother, asked to use a pseudonym, fearing immigration enforcement.

Bridget stands for a portrait in Madison Square Park in the Manhattan borough of New York City.

Bridget had tried for months to keep her own growing deportation fears at bay and stay strong for her mom. But after Dylan’s arrest, that grew harder. She started watching more TikTok videos about immigration raids and didn’t leave her midtown Manhattan shelter except for her trips to school and back.

ICE agents, facing pressure to meet stringent arrest quotas, had begun detaining immigrants after routine court dates and ICE check-ins, leading to a surge in arrests. Federal agents arrested roughly seven times as many immigrants in New York City during the first part of June compared to the same period last year. Nearly three-quarters of those arrests were of people who, like Dylan, had no criminal convictions or charges.

Bridget wasn’t the only one struggling to process the news about Dylan and the surge in immigration enforcement.

Students filled Bernard’s office to talk through questions about their immigration cases, and the stress crept into his home life. His own middle-school-aged children knew the details of Dylan’s case, and he often had to excuse himself from time with his family to take phone calls.

Dylan Lopez Contreras and his mother, Raiza.

But the stakes felt too high to dial back his work. Normally, in the final month of school, students were worried about moving to the next grade or graduating. This year, he said they wondered: “Is a masked person going to grab me off the street?”

Vega mapped out the school’s response to Dylan’s arrest from her cavernous office adorned with student artwork and overlooking the school’s football field and the Harlem River.

As ICE shuttled Dylan from New Jersey, to Texas, to Louisiana, making it impossible for his lawyers to contact him, Vega grew angry.

“This situation makes it really, really real,” she told a room full of mostly quiet staffers during a meeting in a science classroom. “One of our kids was taken.”

The school helped launch a fundraiser that collected $43,000 for Dylan’s family, organized a schoolwide letter-writing campaign, and redoubled its efforts to connect students with lawyers.

As Dylan’s arrest sparked national headlines and local protests, even Mayor Eric Adams voiced his support, despite initially refraining from weighing in. The city’s Law Department filed a friend of the court brief in Dylan’s legal case, arguing ICE’s tactics would prevent undocumented New Yorkers from using city services.

In the days after Dylan’s arrest, Vega never wavered from the refrain she’d repeated since Trump took office in January.

“There’s nothing — nothing — that we are to say, or behave, that’s going to send a message other than: ‘You are going to college. You are going to graduate and have a future,’” she said at the staff meeting. “Our kids need to have a hope.”

Principal Norma Vega participates in a virtual meeting in her office at ELLIS in the Bronx.

In the weeks to come, though, Vega wrestled privately with her own doubts about whether the playbook she’d long relied on still worked. Many of her students went to private colleges in upstate New York because those schools had a relationship with ELLIS and offered significant scholarships. But ELLIS students were often among the few immigrants in their classes. Would that make them bigger targets for immigration enforcement?

And the Trump administration was trying to make it harder for undocumented students to access college at all. Trump issued an executive order seeking to curtail undocumented students’ access to in-state tuition at public colleges, a key benefit that allows some ELLIS students to pursue higher education.

Vega had always believed that a college education was the “great equalizer” for ELLIS students. “I feel like that comes into question right now,” Vega said in June. “Is it?”

Housing uncertainty and hardship lead to tough choices for an undocumented teen

On a Friday morning in late May, a week after Dylan’s arrest, Bernard got a call he’d been waiting weeks for. With Bridget and Marta’s permission, he had applied on Bridget’s behalf to a shelter for unaccompanied youth that could provide long-term housing along with extra support.

He knew stability was critical for Bridget. She had stayed in family and friends’ spare rooms in recent months and was tired of not having a place to call her own. Some nights, she curled up on the floor while her mom shared a bed with other relatives, sleeping only a few fitful hours.

Shortly after Bernard applied, Bridget and Marta were offered spots in a city-run homeless shelter in midtown Manhattan. It provided free food and privacy, but it was farther from ELLIS.

On the phone, Bernard learned the youth shelter had an open room and needed to hear back by noon that day. But Bridget would have to live apart from Marta.

Hedin Bernard, a school counselor at ELLIS, checks on students in a history class at the Bronx public school.

For Bridget, the youth shelter’s offer was another reminder that her best chance at building a future in this country might require leaving her mom behind. Bridget had also applied, with the help of a lawyer recommended by Bernard, for Special Immigrant Juvenile status, a type of legal protection for youth abandoned or neglected by at least one parent. Bridget knew it was her best chance at legal protection, but it wouldn’t cover Marta.

Sitting in class that morning, Bridget could barely focus. She turned Bernard’s offer over in her head. In her English class, she stared at the pages of an autobiography she’d been working on for weeks.

On a page entitled “important people,” Bridget had written: “First my mom.” Marta had worked hard to make Bridget a “good person” and give her “a good future,” she wrote in neat handwriting.

Bridget turned down the spot in the youth shelter.

“Mama was alone. All she has is me,” she later said.

Whether they stayed in the U.S. or left, Marta and Bridget were going to do it together. Increasingly, they thought about returning to Ecuador.

Bridget missed her eldest sister, the smell of Ecuadorian street food, like caramelized apples, and sitting outside her house with her family, sipping on soda or juice as children played nearby.

On a warm morning in mid-June, as Bernard prepared for a meeting with parents to share legal resources, he got a WhatsApp message from Bridget that stopped him in his tracks.

“Mr Hedin good morning my mom is very frightened with everything and so am I,” she began. “To tell the truth I don’t feel good about all of this and we haven’t left the shelter at all, I know things are going to get worse and I think it would be best to go back to Ecuador.”

She asked if he knew how “voluntary removal” worked. For months, the Trump administration had been offering to pay for the flights of immigrants who agreed to “self-deport.” But few ELLIS families knew the details of the offer, or trusted the Trump administration enough to take them up on it, Bernard said.

Bernard quickly sent Bridget a voice memo asking her not to “make any decisions before talking to me.”

When they met in person the next day, Bernard urged her to stay in school while her legal case played out. Her court hearing was in a few weeks, on June 25, and the ICE check-in was about a month later.

Bridget hugs her counselor, Hedin Bernard, at ELLIS. She often seeks him out when she is overwhelmed by stress.

He encouraged her to come to July classes to keep up her connection with ELLIS and prepare for the English Language Arts Regents exam next year. The school had placed her in an advanced English course starting in the fall.

Bridget reluctantly agreed. She still wanted to leave, but it was logistically complicated. She and Marta didn’t have the money for plane tickets, which would cost upwards of $1,000. It would also take time to arrange travel.

And anyway, Bridget had started helping Marta collect bottles and occasionally clean apartments. Even though their daily earnings were meager, it was far more than they could make in Ecuador.

Bernard had bought some time, but he wasn’t sure how much.

ELLIS’ mission put to the test under Trump’s policies

As ELLIS’ staffers entered the summer, they faced two challenges: keeping up a connection with current students and figuring out how the school would need to adapt over the year ahead.

ELLIS expanded its summer school last year to keep students engaged and on track to graduate. But the accelerating mass deportation campaign had made that more difficult, and it showed no signs of abating.

ELLIS, a public school for newly arrived immigrants, shares the John F. Kennedy High School campus in the Bronx.

At the start of the summer, Congress approved a spending bill that set aside an unprecedented $170 billion for immigration enforcement. When an undocumented migrant shot a border agent in a Manhattan park just across the river from ELLIS, Border Czar Tom Homan promised to “flood the zone” with ICE agents, and Attorney General Pam Bondi sued the city over its “sanctuary” policies limiting local law enforcement’s cooperation with ICE.

On the last day of the school year, Bernard got a call from another first-year student and friend of Bridget’s: Her mom had been detained by ICE. The girl was devastated. With the arrest, she’d also lost the primary source of child care for her own toddler and the household’s main wage earner. She told the school she wouldn’t be able to make it to summer school.

Vega offered to take care of the student’s son in the principal’s office while she attended class. But the student never took her up on it, opting to work instead.

ELLIS has always had students balancing work and school. But some staffers saw the pressure to work growing — and starting earlier than usual — as deportation fears mounted.

“They feel the urgency to make money now,” said Maciel Lantigua, an ELLIS alumna and social worker for the Mission Society, a nonprofit that operates out of ELLIS, providing students with extra resources and support. “They don’t have the luxury of that time.”

Vega worried about hanging on to existing students. She was also stressed about recruiting new ones.

Cards informing students of their rights sit on Principal Norma Vega's desk at ELLIS.

As a result of Trump’s policies, the number of immigrants unlawfully crossing the U.S.-Mexico border sank to the lowest point in decades in July. The rate of new migrants entering New York City shelters, meanwhile, had dropped to fewer than 100 per week from a high of more than 4,000 weekly two years earlier.

ELLIS staffers noticed only a handful of new students registering through the end of July, compared with 20-30 over the same period last year.

The slowdown forced Vega to consider whether the 275-student school would need to adjust its policy of only enrolling students over 16 who have been in the country less than a year.

At the same time, the Trump administration ramped up its efforts to cut off undocumented students’ access to public education.

In July, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that undocumented preschoolers would no longer qualify for Head Start, a federally funded free child care program. Older undocumented students lost access to federally funded dual-enrollment, career and technical education, and adult education programs. Later that month, the Department of Education launched a civil rights investigation into universities providing financial aid to undocumented students who arrived as young children in the U.S. and have temporary legal protection, commonly known as Dreamers.

Norma Vega, principal of ELLIS, poses for a portrait.

“The way this second Trump administration is targeting every aspect of life for immigrants makes students’ ability to access education that much harder,” said Alejandra Vázquez Baur, a fellow at the left-leaning Century Foundation and founder of the National Newcomer Network. “For that reason, it might be the most intense attack on immigrant students to date.”

At ELLIS, Vega has been raising money from outside donors for years to help subsidize undocumented students’ college costs. The school raised a record, over $40,000, this year.

And while Vega is committed to keeping students at ELLIS for four years, she knows the school will have to be nimble about developing flexible schedules for students feeling pressure to earn money right away.

She’s hopeful that the tides will eventually turn.

As Americans have started to see the effects of the administration’s aggressive enforcement campaign, the anti-immigrant sentiment that helped propel Trump into office has begun to reverse. The percentage of Americans who support curbing immigration dropped from 55% in July 2024 to just 30% a year later, according to a poll from Gallup.

That’s why Vega is confident that if she can make it through a few years of lean enrollment, the school’s situation will improve.

“The goal is to survive,” she said. “To still be here post-Trump.”

Can Bridget hold on to her education dreams?

Bridget and Marta, who were still terrified of being detained by federal immigration agents, had one stroke of good luck: Their June 25 court hearing was virtual.

In the weeks leading up to the proceeding, the pair found a pro bono lawyer to help them submit applications for asylum and for Bridget’s special juvenile status. The judge scheduled another hearing for 2027 while their claims wound their way through the slow-moving courts.

But they still had their in-person ICE check-in on July 21. Bridget, who had been watching videos about immigration enforcement, knew ICE agents were increasingly using the check-ins to detain migrants.

The night before the appointment, Marta and Bridget barely slept. At the subway station, Marta didn’t have enough money to buy her own one-trip pass and slipped through the turnstile with Bridget when she tapped her student OMNY card — knowing full well that getting caught could have devastating consequences.

On the train, Bridget, wearing a matching set of pink pants and shirt with the logo from the Nickelodeon kids show “Rugrats,” carried the immigration papers in crisp folders and stared ahead.

Dressed in a white and blue floral dress, Marta thumbed the small brown stuffed mouse named Mickey, who had traveled with her from Ecuador, attached by keychain to her fanny pack.

She played the possibilities and questions over in her head. Should she have brought a suitcase with her in case she was deported? Would she be separated from Bridget if they were detained? Would they send her back to Ecuador, or to a country she’d never set foot in?

A couple of weeks earlier, she’d found a stuffed pink rabbit on the street, and she clipped it next to Mickey on her keychain.

“If we get out of this, I’ll give it a name,” she said.

President Donald Trump's photo hangs on the wall at 26 Federal Plaza.

A snaking line wound its way inside to the first checkpoint at 26 Federal Plaza, an imposing steel and glass federal immigration building. On the courthouse wall, looking down on them, was a stern-faced portrait of Trump. Marta leaned her head on Bridget’s shoulder, and Bridget wrapped her arm around her mom.

Bridget and Marta — who still had a shared immigration case because Bridget entered the country as a minor — were referred to a room on the fifth floor for family cases. Five floors above them, dozens of recently detained migrants were being held in a makeshift detention center, forced to use the toilet in public and sleep on the floor with only thin blankets.

Two hours later, Marta and Bridget emerged, wearing faint smiles and clutching paperwork that listed the date of their next ICE check-in: exactly a year later.

Outside the building, with the sun shining, Bridget and Marta made a video call to Bridget’s eldest sister in Ecuador, who had been waiting for news. Marta christened the stuffed rabbit on her fanny pack “Pinky.”

The women were relieved, but they didn’t feel like celebrating. Marta wanted a coffee, but had no money to buy one.

Bridget’s dream of becoming the first person in her family to attend college for the moment felt a little more within reach — at least until her next court date. She still thought often about her friend Dylan, who remains in detention in Western Pennsylvania.

Bridget and her mother, Marta, hold Marta's stuffed animals, a mouse she named Mickey and a rabbit she named Pinky.

ELLIS staffers also hadn’t given up trying to reel Bridget in.

One morning in late July, Lantigua, the social worker, spotted Bridget and Marta near the school with a shopping cart full of cans and bottles. Bridget had for weeks been helping Marta collect them in the punishing heat. Lantigua invited Bridget to go see “Superman,” one of a series of activities she’d organized for students to keep them connected to ELLIS over the summer.

Bridget didn’t go. But Lantigua tried again with a trip on Wednesday to the New York Botanical Garden. She attempted a move that had worked in the past: inviting Bridget and Marta, too.

This time, they both showed up.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

At a Bronx school for immigrants, an undocumented teen fights for an education under Trump

2025-08-13T10:30:00+00:00

This is part one of a two-part series. Read the second story here.

In the hours after one of his students was apprehended by federal immigration agents, Hedin Bernard was on the phone nearly nonstop. He’d comforted the student’s mother. He’d called advocates and lawyers.

And in the moments in between, the school counselor had agonized over how he would tell his other students at ELLIS Preparatory Academy that Dylan Lopez Contreras, a first-year student from Venezuela, had been detained.

He was particularly worried about telling one student.

Bridget, an 18-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant, was a friend of Dylan’s, close enough that he shared arepas with her at lunch. Bernard knew that Bridget and her mother, Marta, were dreading their own upcoming court date and immigration check-in, and word of Dylan’s arrest would get out soon. He wanted Bridget to hear it from him. In her eight months at ELLIS, Bridget had often retreated to his cramped office and sunk into a plush black bean bag whenever her stress became too much to bear.

Hedin Bernard, a founding staff member and school counselor at ELLIS, in his office in May, 2025.

For Bridget and Marta, who asked to use pseudonyms because they fear immigration enforcement, life in New York City as undocumented immigrants had been defined by hardship. They had bounced between three friends’ and relatives’ apartments before landing in a homeless shelter in midtown Manhattan. Marta collected cans, making about $20 a day, and was often unable to afford food.

Their anxiety had increased since President Donald Trump began his second term in January, promising to launch the “largest deportation program in American history.” Fearful that any wrong move could get them detained, separated, or deported, the mother and daughter tried to stick together. Marta even used some of her precious dollars to commute with Bridget to school.

With Dylan’s arrest, Trump’s enforcement campaign had arrived at the school’s doorstep.

Founded in 2008, ELLIS’ mission is based on the belief that all of its students, including undocumented ones, can build a future in the U.S. The Bronx school has pushed hundreds of newly arrived immigrants into college and out of poverty with a playbook staffers have honed for years, relying on strong relationships with students and a sophisticated network of support for families’ needs. For Bridget and Marta, ELLIS often felt like the only public institution with its arms open in a city and country that otherwise seemed not to want them.

“They’ve given her a lot of hope,” Marta said in Spanish. “It’s the reason we don’t want to leave.”

ELLIS is one of seven schools that share the John F. Kennedy High School campus in the Spuyten Duyvil section of the Bronx.

But over the last seven months, ELLIS educators have been forced to confront a fundamental question: Could the school continue to help its students work toward a life in this country when the federal government was sending the message that many of them weren’t welcome here?

Bernard stood in his office with Bridget that Thursday afternoon in late May, explaining how plainclothes agents had seized Dylan. He watched her smile fade.

He knew the arrest was stirring up painful memories from Bridget’s own immigration journey.

Bernard had helped Bridget find free food and clothes, navigate the city’s complex shelter system, and access legal advice. He had celebrated with her when she’d passed the Algebra I Regents exam required for graduation. He had seen her face light up talking about plans to attend college and become a veterinarian.

But now, Bridget just wanted to know if her friend was OK. And Bernard didn’t know what to tell her.

Starting high school, again

In Guayaquil, Ecuador, Bridget had been a strong student, just one year away from finishing high school. But gangs had become so prevalent in her neighborhood that she no longer felt safe walking home from night classes.

Bridget’s oldest sister, now 38, came up with the idea of immigrating to the U.S. so Bridget could continue her education.

Bridget poses for a portrait in Manhattan. She left Ecuador in search of a better education.

Bridget, who loves Korean pop music and animals, was devastated to part with her dog, Molli, a small white Pekingese, but excited for what the future held. Marta, anxious by nature, worried most about the trip, but agreed to go for Bridget’s sake.

“It’s not going to be my fault that her dream dies,” Marta decided.

The women had one advantage: Marta’s middle daughter, who left Ecuador six years earlier at age 19, had an apartment in the Bronx with her husband and two kids, giving the rest of the family a roadmap and a place to stay.

But the journey quickly veered off course. They got stuck for about a month in Mexico, losing almost all of their belongings. They arrived in the U.S. in April 2024 with just the clothes on their backs and a few prized possessions: a Bible, a hymnal, and a light brown stuffed mouse named Mickey who remains attached to Marta’s fanny pack.

As soon as they crossed into Texas, the women were detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and separated. As Bridget was a minor, she and Marta were released with plane tickets to New York. Her eldest sister was imprisoned by border agents for a month before being deported to Ecuador.

Bridget and Marta have clung to each other ever since.

Marta shows off "Mickey," one of her only possessions that survived the journey to the U.S.

In New York City, Bridget and Marta moved in with Bridget’s middle sister. Sharing a small apartment with her family of four wore on everyone. Marta struggled to find work. Then at their first check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officials encouraged Bridget to enroll in school.

Bridget got a list of four public schools from an Education Department enrollment center, but three rejected her, saying they didn’t have space and didn’t accept older students.

Last on the list was English Language Learners and International Support Preparatory Academy, or ELLIS, a nod to the famous New York City island through which millions of immigrants have passed. That’s where Bridget started classes in September 2024.

She was part of a historic wave of roughly 50,000 migrants who have enrolled in New York City schools starting in summer 2022, according to the city’s estimates — a pattern echoed across the country as cities like Denver, Chicago, and Los Angeles absorbed thousands of families fleeing Latin America, Africa, and other parts of the world.

Bridget (right) and an ELLIS classmate work on an assignment for history class. ELLIS is one of the few NYC schools geared toward older newcomers.

The influx has posed new challenges, as schools scrambled to hire bilingual staff, add counselors and social workers to help students struggling with trauma from their journeys, and assist older students seeking to graduate quickly. But the new students have also been a boon for school districts previously losing students and funding. In New York City, former schools Chancellor David Banks described the migrant influx as a “godsend,” saying they staved off potential school mergers or closures.

ELLIS, a small school with 275 students, is one of only a handful in the city explicitly designed to enroll older, newly arrived students, who face a steep climb to graduation. At a meeting with the guidance team early in the school year, Norma Vega, ELLIS’ founding principal, told staffers: “Our 67% graduation rate is someone else’s 98%. The amount of work everyone does to get each kid to the finish line is beyond comparison.”

Unlike other schools, ELLIS requires all new students, regardless of age or how much high school they’ve completed in their home country, to enter as first-year students. The model ensures that students leave school with the English fluency and familiarity with the American education system they need to succeed in college and beyond.

Starting high school again made Bridget nervous: Her only knowledge of American high schools came from movies. She worried about speaking English and making friends. But she was also hopeful. She and her mother had traveled nearly 3,000 miles for this chance.

ELLIS Prep braces as Trump takes office

What Bridget and her mother hadn’t counted on was arriving in the U.S. at a moment when a growing number of Americans saw illegal immigration as a critical problem. A July 2024 poll found that 55% of Americans said they wanted to curb immigration — the first time since 2009 that a majority of the country expressed that view.

In the run-up to the presidential election, Trump focused his campaign on immigration, though he promised to target his deportation efforts on violent and dangerous criminals that most Americans agreed should be expelled from the country.

An ELLIS student works on an assignment in the hallway. Most of the school's students hail from Latin America or Africa.

Even some ELLIS students offered support for Trump’s immigration platform in class discussions, a history teacher said.

Some conservatives questioned, too, whether the country should continue to educate undocumented students, a practice codified in the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case, Plyler v. Doe. Critics, including the authors of the influential Project 2025 domestic policy blueprint, argued that the recent influx of migrants put an unsustainable strain on public schools, to the detriment of U.S.-born students.

School systems don’t track the immigration status of students, making it difficult to know how many undocumented students have enrolled in public schools. But an estimated 850,000 undocumented children are living in the U.S., according to Pew Research Center. Another estimated 4.4 million U.S.-born children have at least one parent who is undocumented — an umbrella term describing migrants without a valid visa or legal residence.

After Trump’s win in the 2024 election, Bernard, the school counselor, noticed an uneasy quiet fall over the school.

A founding ELLIS staff member with a dry sense of humor and encyclopedic knowledge of history and geography, Bernard kept a fourth-floor office that was seldom empty, with visitors ranging from a teen caught vaping marijuana outside to a colleague looking to vent.

Counselor Hedin Bernard has been at ELLIS since the school launched in 2008.

Bernard had lived his own version of the immigrant success story. His parents came from the Dominican Republic and ran a grocery store on Manhattan’s Lower East Side so they could afford Catholic school. He wanted to give his students that same support, and he often served as a kind of stand-in family member for students who’d left their homes and loved ones thousands of miles away.

In the days after the November election, Bernard expected a queue of students with questions and concerns. But few students wanted to talk about the new administration. It felt like everyone was just “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he said.

That happened the week of Jan. 21, after Trump delivered a fiery inauguration address vowing to “begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.” The next day, Trump rescinded longstanding guidance prohibiting ICE from carrying out immigration raids at or near schools.

Absences at ELLIS skyrocketed, like they did across the city. Bernard and other counselors tried to reach families by phone and WhatsApp to assure them it was safe to attend. Many students, including Bridget, said they wanted to wait a couple of days.

A week later, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a video of an ICE raid in the Bronx — one of several in neighborhoods surrounding ELLIS — accompanied by the message: “Getting the dirt bags off the streets in New York City this morning.”

ELLIS students saw videos of ICE on social media and heard rumors of immigration agents showing up in their neighborhoods. ELLIS staffers posted “Know Your Rights” guidance on bulletin boards in the hallway, and Vega, the principal, went around to classrooms instructing students on what to do if they came into contact with immigration agents.

“They wanted to know: ‘Is someone going to come pick me up?’” said Vega. “The answer in this building is that every student here is going to be protected. The goal is to make sure every student … is aware of their rights. That they’re entitled to be in school.”

Principal Norma Vega, pictured in her office, sought to reassure students they would be safe at school after Trump's inauguration.

Most of the ELLIS students who skipped school quickly returned. But a few — like a senior who missed more than a month of school and only came back after Vega did a home visit — were paralyzed by fear of immigration enforcement.

The threat of deportation had become another obstacle standing between ELLIS students and graduation, one that the staffers faced like any other challenge: with a belief that caring educators can keep students on track. But Trump’s message was proving powerful, too.

Paving a path to college for immigrant students

Midway through the school year, Bridget had come on ELLIS’ radar as a first-year student with unusual maturity and potential who dealt with significant stress outside school.

Bridget had proven a quick study in English and math. Her attendance was excellent, and her grades were almost all As and Bs. Her fluency in English had progressed, and she’d made an impression on friends and educators with her generosity and kindness.

Vega believed Bridget would earn a scholarship to a good college if she made it to graduation.

Bridget works on an assignment for her English class at ELLIS.

In her 17 years leading ELLIS, Vega had developed a kind of radar for the barriers that could keep each student from making it to graduation and college.

The daughter of a tight-knit Puerto Rican family, Vega attended public schools on the Lower East Side until her family was priced out to the Bronx. Before founding ELLIS, she had worked as a social worker and principal of another school for new immigrants, but she was frustrated by the lack of options specifically geared toward older newcomers.

Starting and leading ELLIS had been a labor of love, propelled by the small schools movement under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

When it came to Bridget, Vega and Bernard quickly realized Marta’s anxiety about immigration enforcement was taking a toll.

Bernard asked Marta for permission to bring Bridget on an ice skating field trip in Manhattan. Marta refused, too worried about what could happen to Bridget to give her consent. “‘She’s all I have,’” she told Bernard.

The school didn’t give up. In early March, Bernard and Vega invited both Marta and Bridget on a school trip to John Jay College — a CUNY institution with an especially well-developed set of resources for undocumented students.

For Vega, it felt like a turning point in getting both Bridget and Marta to buy into the school’s guiding vision: that a college education and a future in the U.S. are within reach.

“[Marta] started crying when she realized there’s hope,” Vega recalled.

The trip also gave Vega a chance to offer a delicate piece of advice she often shares with fearful parents — one she sensed would be particularly relevant for Marta and Bridget, who were so fiercely attached: If Bridget were to build a life in the U.S., her mother would need to loosen her grip and let her explore.

Staying the course despite rising threats of deportation

On a Friday afternoon in mid-March, Vega was driving her kids to a martial arts tournament, listening to bachata on a music streaming app and trying not to think about work, when she heard an ad that made her jaw drop.

In a Department of Homeland Security ad, Noem said, “President Trump has a clear message to those that are in our country illegally: Leave now.

“If you don’t, we will find you, and we will deport you. You will never return.”

Vega was horrified. She took the app off her phone. But the ad popped up on another platform later that day.

In the months since Trump took office, Vega had done all she could to insulate her school from anti-immigrant political rhetoric. But listening to the ad, it occurred to Vega that if she was having difficulty escaping the fear campaign, it must be even harder for her students and their families.

“What they’re trying to do,” she said, “is scare people into leaving.”

A screenshot of an ad featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Just weeks earlier, she’d learned that a student who stopped coming to school after the presidential inauguration returned to Colombia — the first time Vega knew of that happening in the school’s 17-year history.

The ad, part of a multimillion-dollar campaign playing on radio, TV, and music streaming platforms across the country, was one prong of the administration’s quickly escalating immigration enforcement tactics.

Agents had detained U.S. green card-holders at airports, including a German citizen who had lived in the country for 17 years. The Trump administration had invoked an arcane law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to deport hundreds of migrants to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador. One of them was a 19-year-old Venezuelan living in the Bronx. He could have been an ELLIS student, Vega thought.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, meanwhile, had signaled his willingness to cooperate with the enforcement push locally. Trump’s Justice Department succeeded in getting federal corruption charges against Adams dropped, in part, so he could better support the administration’s immigration agenda. After a meeting with Border Czar Tom Homan, Adams vowed to reverse a city policy barring ICE from making arrests on Rikers Island.

The school had several annual field trips approaching, including an overnight trip to Washington, D.C., for first-year students. The trip felt fraught with new risk this year, and some staffers and parents — including Marta — had expressed concerns. But Vega knew how important it was to give her students, all of whom came from low-income households, the same type of rich cultural experiences as students from more affluent families.

Vega believed, too, that going to the nation’s capital, where federal officials crafted the immigration policies shaping the lives of ELLIS students, would send a powerful message that the school would not cow to fear.

“We’re going. We’re going,” Vega said as the school began preparations for the trip to Washington.

A mother and daughter from Ecuador confront their future in NYC

By mid-April, Bridget and Marta were growing increasingly nervous about their upcoming court hearing and ICE check-in. Despite their best efforts, they hadn’t found a lawyer to represent them in front of an immigration judge in June.

But with Bernard’s recommendation, Bridget and Marta visited a Manhattan church that helps connect immigrants to services, securing a phone appointment with a screener for a legal organization.

They took the call at ELLIS in a storage room that Bernard unlocked so Bridget and Marta could have privacy.

The screener explained that winning an asylum claim — the most common path to legal status for Latin American migrants — would be an uphill battle given the high bar to prove they faced a specific fear of violence or persecution in Ecuador.

But there was another possible legal route. The screener suggested that Bridget would be a strong applicant for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, a type of legal protection available to immigrants under age 21 who had been abandoned or neglected by one or both parents. Bridget told the screener her father had never been a part of her life.

The protection would only apply to Bridget, not Marta.

Marta embraces Bridget in Manhattan's Madison Square Park.

After the screener hung up, the mother and daughter sat quietly for a few moments. Marta began to cry, and Bridget wrapped her arms around her.

“Maybe they’ll let her stay and send me back home,” Marta said, as if thinking out loud, before turning to Bridget. “Don’t help me, help your sisters. Be humble, love your sisters, keep moving forward. Don’t be like me and be nothing, and have to collect bottles.”

Bridget glanced at Mickey, the dirt-encrusted mouse attached to Marta’s fanny pack who’d been with them since they left Ecuador.

She thought about all they’d been through and all of the sacrifices her mother had made to enable her dream of pursuing an education in the U.S. She couldn’t imagine life here without her mom.

Over the days and weeks ahead, Bridget’s resolve to remain in the country began to falter.

It would be up to her school to keep it alive.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Teachers lean on AI to help English learners as Trump pushes schools to integrate the technology

2025-08-12T20:42:45+00:00

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Selina Yu Ye has been helping immigrant students learn English for nearly two decades. In recent years, she’s seen her students engage in new ways when she brings AI into the conversation.

When one of her fourth graders was reluctant to speak up in class, Ye introduced her to a chatbot from the company Brisk that the student could interact with in both English and her native language. Ye says that soon the student began confidently leading group discussions — with help from her AI companion.

Ye, who’s a literacy coach in New York City public schools, also likes AI-integrated activities involving robots like Cubetto and KaiBot that students can program with voice prompts. Many students shy about speaking aloud will jump at the chance to do so when it involves that kind of exercise.

In such activities, multilingual learners and especially newcomers “feel seen and heard because they notice that the content actually meets them where they are, linguistically and culturally,” said Ye. “I do notice that students participate more in whole class discussions.”

Ye’s work in the classroom is an example of how AI tools have become especially popular for teachers serving English learners and students with individualized learning needs, according to a recent survey by the research corporation RAND. However, some observers worry such tools could exacerbate instructional gaps. Experts also highlight linguistic issues like inaccurate translations, and how AI can even mistake these students’ work as AI-generated. And federal funding cuts could complicate efforts to use the technology ethically and effectively for language acquisition, even as the Trump administration has pushed for schools to rely on AI.

Federal data from 2021 indicated the share of public school students who were English learners was on the rise.

Student-facing AI tools can provide a space for students learning English to get more practice reading aloud with one-on-one feedback.

For example, Amira is what the company behind it calls “an AI-powered reading assistant”. The tool offers feedback in both English and Spanish and recognizes various dialects within both languages. Ye says these AI speech to text tools can provide students the opportunity to practice their oral language skills and hear model pronunciations so that they’re more confident speaking in class.

“It’s a fancy technology, but it’s a very simple premise,” said Joe Siedlecki, Amira’s chief impact officer. “It’s just impossible the way schools are staffed to do one-on-one work with every kid you know for 30 to 40 minutes a week which is generally what kids need”.

Staffing isn’t the only issue that might lead schools to turn to AI to help English learners.

About half of general education teachers report feeling not at all or only somewhat prepared to serve students learning English, RAND’s survey found.

Moreover, addressing the needs of English learners ranked low on principals’ priorities in selecting professional development and instructional materials, even at schools where they make up a large proportion of the student body. Ashley Woo, a researcher at RAND, said that AI can help fill those gaps for teachers by modifying classroom materials to meet student’s language proficiency and reading levels.

AI tools can also help analyze student’s assessment data to identify gaps in their instruction, said Margarita Machado-Casas, president of the National Association of Bilingual Education.

But all that doesn’t necessarily mean AI-driven differentiated instruction is in the best interest of students, said Robbie Torney, senior director of AI programs at Common Sense Media.

English language learners are more likely to miss out on grade-appropriate assignments, and they’re less likely to have teachers with high expectations and receive strong instruction. With many teachers already underprepared to deal with English learners, Torney worries that relying on AI to make reading passages easier for these students could amplify inequitable access to grade-level materials.

AI-powered translation can also be inaccurate or misrepresent the original sentiment of a text, Machado-Casas warned; a quarter of teachers using AI say it helps with translation, RAND found. Sometimes translations can also simply produce lower-quality materials; when Amira first began Spanish reading instruction they used stories translated from English. After instructors and students reported their disengagement, the company switched from translated material to stories written by native Spanish speakers.

Moreover, English learners may be unintentionally hurt by teachers’ efforts to root out AI-generated writing material. A recent study at Stanford University found that AI detectors tend to falsely identify essays by non-native English students as AI-generated, despite being “near-perfect” with their native English counterparts.

“We have to think about some of the systemic influences associated with the application of AI,” said Torney. “It’s about using the technology well to teach kids. It’s not about just using the technology to personalize for the sake of personalizing.”

Cuts complicate AI support for English learners

The Trump administration has pushed for greater AI integration in schools. But cuts at the U.S. Department of Education, including to education research, could make it a lot harder for schools to identify ethical and effective ways to use the technology, especially when it comes to serving traditionally overlooked student populations.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has announced her intention to prioritize grants advancing AI in education. However, her department’s guidelines for the responsible integration of artificial intelligence do not directly address issues like bias in AI tools, or consider the needs of English learners.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration fired nearly every staffer in the department’s Office of English Language Acquisition. In addition to overseeing funding grants for programs serving English learners, the office maintains the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition, a hub for data, research, and best practices.

All that could mean schools won’t have federal guidance or research to help inform their use of AI in supporting students learning English.

AI technology “is moving so quickly that the more we wait and the more we have these conversations without training, I think we run the risk of [AI] being misused,” Machado-Casas said.

Funding cuts to research could also threaten the development of innovative technologies for English language acquisition.

Mark Warschauer, an education professor at the University of California Irvine, is developing Rosita, an AI avatar that helps bilingual families read together by facilitating comprehension questions about books in Spanish and English.

In late April, however, the National Science Foundation informed Warschauer that his grant would be cancelled. A little over a month later, the grant for his lab was reinstated, but now, the pilot of Rosita on PBS platforms has been delayed after Congress ended federal support to PBS for the next two years.

“Innovative technologies have this dual potential to either amplify inequality or help mitigate it,” said Warschauer. “We have to be intentional about how we develop it, use it, and we have to study what works and doesn’t work.”

Norah Rami is a Dow Jones business reporting intern on Chalkbeat’s national desk. Reach Norah at nrami@chalkbeat.org.

Equipo de Trump suspende supervisión del fallido programa de aprendizaje de inglés en las escuelas de Newark

2025-07-18T16:11:25+00:00

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Read in English.

El Departamento de Justicia de EE. UU. ha terminado silenciosamente su supervisión del programa de aprendizaje del idioma inglés de las escuelas públicas de Newark, incluso después de que el departamento, bajo el expresidente Joe Biden, encontró que el distrito no usaba regularmente intérpretes calificados para los padres que no hablaban inglés, según descubrió Chalkbeat.

Un acuerdo de 2021 halló “fracasos de amplio alcance” en el programa de aprendizaje de inglés del distrito y dio un plazo al distrito hasta finales de 2024 para solucionar 10 asuntos que violaban la ley federal.

En diciembre de 2024, el Departamento de Justicia encontró que el distrito había solucionado la mayoría de los problemas, pero no estaba utilizando constantemente intérpretes calificados para ayudar a los padres con un dominio limitado del inglés cuando se ponían en contacto con las escuelas o proporcionaban información en un idioma que entendían, según una carta federal que parcialmente terminó y prorrogó el acuerdo de 2021.

El Departamento de Justicia también encontró que el personal del distrito estaba usando Google Translate para proporcionar información escolar a los padres que hablan inglés limitado. Estas deficiencias llevaron al Departamento a prorrogar el acuerdo hasta julio, según la carta de 2024 del departamento federal.

Pero luego, en abril, Alina Habba, que fue nombrada fiscal interina del Distrito de Nueva Jersey por el presidente Donald Trump, notificó al distrito que había cumplido con sus requisitos bajo el acuerdo de 2021 y el acuerdo ampliado de 2024. El distrito no ha anunciado públicamente el fin de la supervisión federal, sino que en lugar de ello incluyó la noticia en un informe del comité de mayo.

El acuerdo ampliado obliga al distrito a realizar pruebas para determinar la capacidad del personal de entender y hablar un idioma en particular y presentar una propuesta al Departamento de Justicia en febrero. También requería que el distrito presentara un informe final para el 1o de julio. No está claro qué pasó con esos requisitos ahora que la vigilancia ha terminado.

La investigación del Departamento de Justicia que resultó en el acuerdo de 2021 comenzó en 2017, cuando el distrito escolar todavía estaba bajo control estatal, en respuesta a las quejas de que Newark estaba fallando a los estudiantes de inglés. La investigación duró cuatro años y encontró que el distrito no estaba cumpliendo con las leyes federales de derechos civiles relacionadas con la educación. Específicamente, se encontró que las prácticas del distrito dejaron a algunos estudiantes de inglés con pocos o ningún servicio lingüístico, mientras que otros fueron retirados de los programas de idiomas antes de que dominaran el inglés.

Como resultado, en 2021 el distrito acordó revisar su programa de aprendizaje de inglés y cumplir con los términos de un acuerdo de 25 páginas que exigía al distrito evaluar a todos los estudiantes que hablaban idiomas distintos del inglés para verificar si necesitaban servicios lingüísticos, proporcionar esos servicios en cualquier escuela a la que asistieran, contratar más maestros calificados, verificar su progreso e informar a los funcionarios federales.

La población que aprende inglés en las escuelas públicas de Newark ha estado creciendo a lo largo de los años, y los funcionarios escolares están luchando con una escasez de maestros bilingües que puedan comunicarse en diferentes idiomas. Desde el año escolar 2020-21, los estudiantes de inglés en el distrito han crecido del 17.1% al 24.2% en 2023, según el informe de rendimiento escolar de Nueva Jersey de 2023-24.

El distrito es hogar de más de 11,000 estudiantes de inglés e incluye una mezcla de estudiantes nacidos en el país y en el extranjero. La mayoría habla español o portugués, aunque algunos hablan árabe, francés, creole haitiano u otros idiomas.

Paul Brubaker, director de comunicaciones del distrito, no respondió a los correos electrónicos sobre el plan de las escuelas públicas de Newark para solucionar problemas con el uso de intérpretes calificados.

El Departamento de Justicia no ha explicado la razón por la que puso fin a su supervisión, ni ha publicado un informe en el que se indique cómo ha cumplido el distrito con sus obligaciones.

La agencia federal se negó a comentar sobre el fin de la supervisión, según un correo electrónico del 5 de junio de NaSheena Porter Poznansky, oficial de asuntos públicos para el U.S. Attorney’s Office District of New Jersey (Fiscalía Federal de EE. UU. en Newark).

Desde que Trump asumió el cargo en enero, ha sido claro acerca de eliminar las prácticas y políticas que apoyan la diversidad, la equidad y la inclusión en las escuelas. En marzo, Trump declaró al inglés el idioma oficial de los Estados Unidos y despidió a casi todos los empleados del Departamento de Educación responsables de asegurar que los distritos escolares estuvieran usando fondos federales destinados a ayudar a los estudiantes de inglés.

El Departamento de Justicia destacó las deficiencias de los traductores de las Escuelas Públicas de Newark a lo largo de los años

Entre las 10 formas en que el distrito violó la ley federal, el Departamento de Justicia ya había encontrado que no se estaba comunicando eficazmente con los padres que no hablaban inglés y que también estaba fallando al personal de sus programas de aprendizaje del inglés con maestros bilingües certificados, según el acuerdo de conciliación de 2021.

Durante una reunión de la junta en enero de 2024, los estudiantes informaron que en los últimos años, usaban aplicaciones de traducción en sus teléfonos para comunicarse con los maestros, mientras que otros dijeron que era difícil comunicarse con los compañeros de clase. En esa misma reunión, un exmaestro también afirmó que los educadores no estaban recibiendo suficiente apoyo para ayudar a los estudiantes bilingües.

Como parte de la vigilancia cuatrienal del Departamento de Justicia que comenzó en 2021, los funcionarios federales visitaron las escuelas del distrito, de acuerdo con las cartas de cumplimiento federal de 2023 y 2024 al distrito. Observaron varias clases de inglés como segunda lengua y bilingües y entrevistaron a directores, maestros bilingües de evaluación de necesidades y secretarios de inscripción, según las cartas.

Los funcionarios del Departamento de Justicia bajo la administración de Biden encontraron que la mayoría de las escuelas tenía una lista de personal, y en algunos casos personal de todo el distrito, que hablaba diferentes idiomas, pero esas listas típicamente incluían una combinación de personal que estaba certificado bilingüe y otros que se autoidentificaron como hablantes de otros idiomas en sus respuestas a una encuesta escolar, según las cartas de cumplimiento federal de 2023.

Del mismo modo, en 2023, los funcionarios federales también encontraron que el distrito aún tenía que capacitar a todos los maestros de ESL que también trabajaban con estudiantes con discapacidades, según las cartas de cumplimiento federal. Los funcionarios federales también encontraron que el distrito no contrató suficiente personal con experiencia relacionada con la intersección de estudiantes de inglés y servicios de educación especial, según las cartas de cumplimiento de 2023.

En 2024, los funcionarios federales continuaron visitando las escuelas de Newark y encontraron que el distrito había progresado al contratar más maestros certificados de inglés como segunda lengua (ESL por sus siglas en inglés) después de descubrir que algunas escuelas no tenían maestros sustitutos ESL a largo plazo. El distrito también proporcionó más recursos a los maestros bilingües de evaluación de necesidades, quienes deben ayudar a los padres con el proceso de inscripción utilizando intérpretes calificados. Newark también mejoró la forma en que rastreaba el progreso de los estudiantes de inglés y fortaleció las necesidades de los estudiantes para salir del programa de aprendizaje de inglés del distrito.

A pesar de las deficiencias de Newark, el distrito “ha trabajado diligentemente” para corregir los problemas descritos en el acuerdo de conciliación de 2021 y ha demostrado un “cumplimiento sustancial” con los términos del acuerdo durante al menos un año, como lo requiere el acuerdo, señaló la carta de diciembre de 2024.

Sin embargo, en la misma carta también se señalaba que el distrito no utilizaba sistemáticamente intérpretes calificados en las escuelas o a través de Language Line, una empresa que proporciona servicios de traducción e interpretación para ayudar a las organizaciones a comunicarse con personas que hablan diferentes idiomas. También señaló que los secretarios escolares y otro personal del distrito son responsables de hablar con los padres que no hablan inglés sobre la registración, matrícula, selección de escuelas, y los servicios de aprendizaje en inglés.

Los funcionarios federales también señalaron en la carta de 2024 que se debe recordar al personal que use intérpretes calificados y materiales traducidos por ellos cuando se comuniquen con padres con un dominio limitado del inglés y deben ser entrenados para usar servicios telefónicos de interpretación.

Este año escolar, el distrito lanzó un nuevo programa de educación bilingüe en la escuela preparatoria Malcolm X Shabazz High School para ayudar a la creciente población de estudiantes de inglés de Newark a tener acceso a los servicios más cerca de donde viven.

Traducido por Bernardo de la Cruz.

Esta traducción fue proporcionada por New Jersey Hispanoen asociación con el Centro de Medios Cooperativos de la Universidad Estatal de Montclair, y cuenta con el apoyo financiero del Consorcio de Información Cívica de NJ. La historia fue escrita originalmente en inglés por Chalkbeat Newark y se vuelve a publicar en virtud de un acuerdo especial para compartir contenido a través del Servicio de noticias de traducción al español de NJ News Commons.

Jessie Gómez es una reportera por Chalkbeat Newark y cubre las escuelas públicas de Newark. Puede ponerse en contacto con ella: jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Trump withholding $76M from Colorado puts immigrant student support at risk

2025-07-09T23:09:55+00:00

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To serve an influx of new immigrant students, Jeffco Public Schools came up with an innovative idea last year: retrofitting a school bus to serve as a mobile welcome center. When new families arrive, a small team that speaks multiple languages shows up to help the family not only enroll in school but access basic needs like diapers and baby formula.

As a result of the Trump administration withholding $76 million in federal education dollars from Colorado, Jeffco Superintendent Tracy Dorland said the mobile welcome center is one of several programs at risk of losing its funding.

“We have newcomers all across Jeffco, so being able to have a mobile team that’s pretty flexible and can go to the families has been a game changer for us,” Dorland said, noting that the district, the state’s second largest, spans 800 square miles and 150 schools.

“Asking families to come to a centralized location doesn’t work for our newcomer families,” she said. “It’s one of the things I’m most worried about.”

Dorland spoke Wednesday at a roundtable discussion hosted by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis about the impact of the withheld funds. The Trump administration announced last week that it was holding back nearly $7 billion nationwide to ensure the money is spent according to the president’s priorities and not “to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.” States were expecting to receive the funds July 1.

Some of the withheld funding is earmarked to support immigrant students, English language learners, and students whose parents are migrant farmworkers. Other funds pay for after-school and summer programs. Another pot of money is for teacher recruitment and training.

The Colorado Department of Education released a map this week showing how much funding each of the state’s 179 school districts stands to lose. Denver Public Schools would be out $11.9 million, according to the map. Jeffco Public Schools is waiting on nearly $3 million.

Polis called the withholding “absurd,” emphasizing that Colorado school districts were banking on these funds and have already set up programs and hired staff.

“You have teachers who don’t know if they have jobs at this point,” Polis said.

Dorland and other district leaders mostly declined to say how many staff members could lose their jobs if the funding doesn’t come through. But they said the timeline for making those decisions is as tight as 10 days from now.

Simone Wright, chief of academics for Denver Public Schools, gave one example: the equivalent of 11.3 full-time positions that are funded with Title III dollars. The educators in those positions help principals, deans, and teachers support students learning English as a second language. In DPS, that’s about a third of the district’s 90,000 students.

“For some districts, it’s a subgroup,” Wright said of multilingual learners. “For us, it’s who we serve.”

Katie Allen, a third grade teacher at Denver’s Florida Pitt-Waller ECE-8 School, spends half of her day coaching other teachers, including the school’s English language development teachers. She said losing that centralized district support would be “devastating.”

“I can see a lot of students slipping through the cracks if we don’t have those layers of support built around the classroom,” said Michelle Horwitz, a bilingual speech language pathologist at Bryant-Webster Dual Language ECE-8 School in Denver.

“Educators are tired of doing more with less,” Horwitz said.

Stuart Jenkins, the executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs in Colorado, said the clubs in the metro areas of Denver and Pueblo were supposed to receive a combined $1.9 million in federal after-school funding to serve more than 2,000 children across 13 sites.

The two school districts in Pueblo, in the southern part of the state, have four-day school weeks, making the Boys & Girls Club programming even more essential there, he said.

“We worry these kids will have no safe space to go in Pueblo if these funds don’t come through,” Jenkins said, noting that many of the children are living in poverty.

Polis said he and other state leaders are urging the Trump administration to release the funds and are considering all options, including possible legal action. Asked if Colorado could make up the federal shortfall with state money, Polis said no.

“There is no additional money to spend,” he said.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Money for Indiana after-school programs, professional development in limbo after Trump freeze

2025-07-03T17:43:01+00:00

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An estimated $107 million in federal funds to support after-school programs, academic enrichment, English language learners, and more in Indiana are in limbo following a decision by the Trump administration to withhold the funding as it completes a program review.

States expected to receive more than $7 billion in federal K-12 education funding on July 1, but were told on Monday that the applications were still under review. The pause is part of an ongoing push by the Trump administration to ensure that no federal funds are flowing to programs that support what it describes as illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

On Thursday, Indiana education officials said in a weekly newsletter that additional information “will be shared with schools as we know more about these allocations.” The department reiterated the statement in response to questions from Chalkbeat.

In a statement announcing the pause to states, the U.S. Department of Education said “decisions have not yet been made concerning submissions and awards for this upcoming academic year.”

Funding could have an impact this school year

Indiana has already taken steps to verify that the state’s schools do not engage in diversity, equity and inclusion practices in order to preserve federal funding.

It’s not clear yet how the latest decision by the administration will affect Indiana, where students return to schools as early as July 24.

The allocations for the affected programs in the 2025-26 school year, as approved by Congress in March, were expected to stay the same as in the previous year. Here’s what they totaled in 2024-25:

$41.2 million for Title II-A, which supports professional development for teachers and administrators;
$20.7 million for Title IV-A, which supports academic enrichment and can include STEM, music, and arts education, technology access, as well as programs to prevent bullying and abuse;
$19.9 million for Title IV-B, which is for before- and after-school care programs known as 21st Century Community Learning Centers;
$12.8 million for adult basic and literacy education;
$10.1 million for Title III-A, which supports English learner programs; and
$2.5 million for migrant education

The announcement blindsided out-of-school care providers, which were counting on the funds being released in order to hire staff and prepare for the upcoming school year, said Brent Wake, senior vice president of engagement for the Indiana Afterschool Network.

The 21st Century Community Learning Centers serve 20,000 students in 200 communities in Indiana, Wake said. Many offer free or low-cost care, which includes academic enrichment, homework help, and social emotional learning.

“We’re taking programs that work and removing necessary funding and saying ‘good luck,’” Wake said.

If the funds are not released quickly, some providers may face decisions about cutting staff or hours, or eliminating programs for the upcoming school year, Wake said. Others may need to close their doors.

The Title IV-B grant is the largest source of dedicated funding for before- and after-school programs, Wake said. The centers may be supplemented by private donations, tuition charged to families, or the state’s two childcare assistance programs — the Child Care and Development Fund and On My Way Pre-K. Both state programs currently have waitlists.

Wake said providers had been preparing to advocate to preserve a dedicated funding stream for 21st Century Community Learning Centers in the 2026-27 budget, which sought to consolidate many federal grant programs into block funding for states.

Indiana agreed to strip DEI, racial and ethnic studies to save funding

This is not the first time this year that federal education funding has been at risk over concerns that programs it funds do not align with the new administration’s goals.

In April, the Department of Education told states that in order to receive federal funding, they must certify that their schools do not engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Indiana education officials said they would comply.

During this year’s legislative session, lawmakers also stripped state requirements related to racial and ethnic studies electives, citing a request by the Indiana Department of Education amid concerns that the state could risk losing its federal funding.

The state previously required high schools to offer one semester of a racial or ethnic studies class each school year, but did not require students to take it.

Republican lawmakers said during the session that $1 billion in federal funding was at risk if lawmakers did not remove the course requirement. Democrats pushed back on the change.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado school districts worry about ‘unconscionable’ withholding of federal education funding

2025-07-02T22:43:13+00:00

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The small 900-student Lake County School District in the Colorado mountains may have to cut its after-school programming. A popular dual language program in the 3,500-student Fort Morgan district could take a funding hit. And stipends for paraprofessionals training to become teachers in the 90,000-student Denver Public Schools may be at risk.

All of those programs are funded with federal dollars that were expected to arrive this week but didn’t. In total, Colorado hasn’t received about $70 million in federal education funds after the Trump administration refused to release billions in K-12 dollars on July 1.

The U.S. Department of Education told state officials that it is withholding the money to ensure it’s spent according to the president’s priorities, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education said. The uncertainty is causing concern among school officials who may have to gut programs for some of their most vulnerable students if the money doesn’t show up.

“The idea of not fully serving my kids and families absolutely wrenches my heart, and I just want people to understand that we’re going to do everything we can do to minimize disruptions,” said Kate Bartlett, the Lake County superintendent.

“But I’ve got to be real,” she said. “I think it’s going to be a disruptive period.”

The estimate that Colorado could be short $70 million in federal funds for the 2025-26 school year comes from the Colorado Department of Education and is based on funding levels from 2024-25, which were expected to hold steady. The $70 million includes:

About $11.2 million to support multilingual learners and immigrant students. This federal funding is distributed to Colorado’s 179 school districts based on each district’s count of students learning English as a second language. Districts use the money to hire and train bilingual teachers and buy textbooks and other materials.
About $7.2 million to support migrant students. This money is not for the influx of new immigrants from South America that Colorado experienced over the past few years. Rather, it is meant to support the children of farmworkers. It’s distributed to districts based on student counts and used to pay for health screenings, summer programs, and mental health support for migrant students who experience frequent moves.
About $26 million to recruit, retain, and train teachers and reduce class sizes. Districts use this funding in a variety of ways, including by offering incentives to teachers who work in high-needs schools or teach hard-to-staff subjects.
About $13 million for before- and after-school programs, summer programs, tutoring, clubs, and other enrichment activities, primarily for students from low-income families.

The Trump administration is withholding a total of nearly $7 billion in federal funding for K-12 schools. The funds were approved by Congress earlier this year, and states and school districts were relying on the money for this upcoming school year.

Melissa Gibson, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, called the withholding “unconscionable.” She said her organization has been fielding phone calls from Colorado superintendents worried about how they’ll fill the gaps and how they’ll break the news to their teachers, families, and students if they can’t.

“This is going to force some really painful decisions,” Gibson said.

Two-thirds of Lake County’s after-school programming is funded by nearly $400,000 in federal money that is now being withheld, Bartlett said. The programming is both popular and crucial: Most students use it because their parents commute long distances to work, she said. Students stay after school to build robots, learn to play the bagpipes, and get homework help. Most programs are free and feed students an after-school snack and a to-go dinner.

As one of the many Colorado districts on a four-day school week, Lake County also runs programs on Fridays when there is no school.

Bartlett said the withholding of federal funds will have a ripple effect.

“Of course it impacts kids,” she said, “but then it impacts families and the broader economy. If suddenly your kid is not in a safe and fun place until 6 o’clock at night but instead they are done at 3:45, it puts a lot of pressure on families and ultimately, the economy.”

Denver Public Schools, Colorado’s largest district, stands to lose about $10 million if the federal funds continue to be withheld, said Chuck Carpenter, the district’s chief of finance.

That money is earmarked for teacher training, multilingual learners, and after-school programs. If the funding doesn’t come through, the district will have to make cuts, Carpenter said.

“This is a defunding of programming for 5- to 18-year-olds,” he said. “We’re taking money we were giving to children and saying this isn’t important anymore.”

In a joint statement, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero and Denver school board president Carrie Olson called the move “a dangerous overreach of federal authority.”

“For our Latino, Black, and multilingual learners — and all students served in historically underfunded districts — this delay threatens core programming,” Marrero and Olson said. “It weakens our national commitment to equity and public trust in government.”

Rob Sanders, the superintendent of Morgan County School District Re-3 in Fort Morgan, said his district is waiting on about $285,000 in federal education funds. In addition to offsetting costs in its popular dual language program, Sanders said his district uses the money to pay for instructional coaches and paraprofessionals.

“We already passed our budgets,” Sanders said. “We’ve already offered positions to people, they’ve already accepted, and now we’re looking at a shortfall of $285,000.

“I do believe at some point that they’ll release the funds,” he said of the federal government. “It’s all about sowing chaos, and I don’t think that chaos is good.”

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Trump administration holds back nearly $7 billion in K-12 funds, sparking outcry from schools

2025-07-02T16:09:22+00:00

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Schools are scrambling to plan for what could become a massive budget hole after the Trump administration said Monday it would not release nearly $7 billion in K-12 education funds that had been expected to go out July 1.

The withheld funds, which were approved by Congress earlier this year, include all $890 million meant to help English learners develop their language skills and $375 million to provide academic support to the children of migrant farmworkers, according to an email that was sent to states by the U.S. Department of Education and obtained by Education Week.

The money being held back also includes $2.2 billion in Title II funds that support teacher training, $1.4 billion for before- and after-school programs, and $1.3 billion in funding for academic enrichment programs, such as STEM and college and career counseling.

Several states, Democratic lawmakers, and education advocacy groups are calling on the Trump administration to release the money, calling the move an illegal act of impoundment. The Education Department referred inquiries to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which said Wednesday that the move was part of an ongoing programmatic review of education funding and that no decisions had been made yet.

But the Office of Management and Budget spokesperson also said its initial findings “have shown that many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.”

The spokesperson said the office had found examples in which New York schools used English language acquisition funds to “promote illegal immigrant advocacy organizations” while Washington state used funds to “direct illegal immigrants towards scholarships intended for American students.” In another instance, the spokesperson wrote, school improvement funds were used to hold a seminar on “queer resistance in the arts.”

The office did not provide documentation for its findings, and a spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for that documentation.

Congress had previously approved this funding as part of a continuing budget resolution in March, which was supposed to keep K-12 education funding mostly level for the 2025-26 school year. But the Trump administration told states on Monday that it has not yet decided how this money will be allocated, and won’t send funding notices until it completes a review, the email obtained by Education Week stated.

In a Tuesday press conference, California education officials said the Trump administration’s letter indicated the money was being held back to ensure the funds were spent in accordance with the president’s priorities. As it has in other recent instances, California will “continue to pursue all available legal remedies to the Trump administration’s unlawful withholding of federal funds appropriated by Congress,” Superintendent Tony Thurmond told reporters.

The unreleased funding aligns with many of the K-12 budget cuts the Trump administration proposed to make in fiscal 2026 — cuts that Congress has yet to vote on and which shouldn’t affect schools’ bottom lines until the 2026-27 school year.

In a written statement, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, the vice chair of the Senate appropriations committee who also sits on the Senate education committee, said the funding holdup had forced schools to delay hiring staff and pause initiatives for students.

“Local school districts can’t afford to wait out lengthy court proceedings to get the federal funding they’re owed — nor can they make up the shortfall, especially not at the drop of a pin,” Murray wrote.

Ray Hart, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, which represents many of the nation’s large urban districts, said schools were counting on this money to pay teachers and principals, provide summer school, and cover school safety costs.

Holding back the after-school funding affects nearly 10,000 after-school programs, said Jodi Grant, the executive director of Afterschool Alliance, and has left many worried they will have to close.

In a Tuesday press conference, advocates for immigrant children and English learners sounded the alarm about how withholding Title III funds would hurt schools’ ability to hire translators and staff to work with multilingual students and host workshops for immigrant families.

Some summer programs that rely on Title III funds to train school staff were put on hold, said Susanne Pena, an assistant teaching professor at Florida International University. (The Trump administration gutted the Education Department office that used to oversee Title III earlier this year.)

“Families who do not speak English could be cut off from schools and the support system that they need in order to help their students be successful,” said Anabolena DeGenna, the superintendent of Oxnard School District in southern California.

This story has been updated to include a comment from the Office of Management and Budget.

National reporting intern Norah Rami contributed reporting.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Graduation brings hope, fear at a Bronx school touched by immigration politics

2025-06-25T22:59:36+00:00

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Bronx high school Principal Norma Vega stood on stage on a sweltering morning earlier this week surveying the 50 graduating seniors seated in front of her.

Clad in blue and white caps and gowns, many also wore colorful sashes representing the countries they left behind, like the Dominican Republic and Mali, just years earlier, often with little English. Each of these newly minted grads from ELLIS Preparatory Academy, all older than traditional U.S. high schoolers, are now set to enroll in college, a remarkable feat for students who face among the steepest odds of any group to make it to graduation and higher education.

Graduates listen to a speech during the ELLIS Preparatory Academy commencement ceremony at University of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York, on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. Two ELLIS Prep graduates with decorated mortarboards. The mortarboard on the left translates to: “Dedicated to my parents.”

But before Vega began handing out diplomas, she took a moment to acknowledge a student who wasn’t there: Dylan Lopez Contreras.

“This isn’t the easiest conversation to have,” she told the crowd of students, family members and staff. “But we do need to have it. And that is that one of our own was taken.”

Dylan, a 20-year-old Venezuelan native, was in his first year at ELLIS when he was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents last month after attending a routine court hearing. Dylan was the first known New York City public school student to be detained by ICE during President Donald Trump’s second term and remains in ICE detention in Western Pennsylvania, sparking local protests and galvanizing staff and students at ELLIS to rally for Dylan’s release.

“All of us will make sure that this young man is not forgotten,” Vega said. “The mistake they made when they took him is not realizing that he’s not alone. So I want you to be very much aware that … when you go off to these different places, you are never alone.”

Graduates in the class 2025 walk the stage to receive their diplomas at the ELLIS Preparatory Academy commencement ceremony at University of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York, on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. The mortarboard on the left translates to: “The end of this chapter but my story continues. Thanks to God and my grandfather and my parents.”

Graduations have always taken on extra meaning at ELLIS given the towering hurdles many students surmount to make it to the stage — from arriving in a new country, to learning a new language, to navigating homelessness and poverty, to balancing full-time jobs with school.

Citywide, only 55% of public school students learning English graduated within four years last year, compared to 85% of native English speakers, according to city data. And while the college enrollment data isn’t broken out for English learners, only 7% of city high school seniors still learning English met CUNY’s college-ready standards as of 2020, compared to 63% of students proficient in English.

But this year more than any other, the political environment hung over the occasion. Trump’s mass deportation campaign charged the ceremony with uncertainty and urgency, Vega said. It felt unavoidable to address the politics given how closely they’ve affected the school, she added.

Graduation ceremonies at schools across the country serving immigrant students have been similarly marked by the country’s immigration politics. In Los Angeles, where Trump called in the National Guard and Marines to quell widespread protests against immigration enforcement, some families expressed fears that graduation ceremonies could be targeted by ICE. Local leaders promised to post school district police officers outside of graduation ceremonies to protect them from immigration enforcement.

Luis Rodriguez, an ELLIS Prep graduate from the Dominican Republic who won an award for leadership, speaks on stage at the graduation ceremony at University of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York, on Tuesday, June 24, 2025.

At ELLIS, staffers had to have more one-on-one conversations with families wary about attending graduation than in years past, explaining the ceremony would be on a private college campus with gates and security guards. Even with those extra conversations, family attendance seemed more sparse this year than in the past, Vega said — though she noted that could also be due to a growing number of students who come to the country unaccompanied and don’t have family members in the U.S. to attend the ceremony.

Vega, who conceived of and founded ELLIS in 2008, has always believed staunchly in the power of vaulting her immigrant students into higher education as a path to help them build lives in this country and escape poverty — and she still believes that. But the past year has tested her and the school in unprecedented ways.

“It feels more dire,” Vega said. “I think about some of our young people now going upstate, and I’m like, ‘Are they gonna get stopped? Are they gonna get more than just stopped?’”

“The idea that going to college … that education is the great equalizer … I feel like that comes into question right now.”

A long road to graduation

When they enrolled at ELLIS four years ago, it was not inevitable that the 50 students gathered in the auditorium in their graduation robes would have earned diplomas — much less acceptance to college, students and staffers said.

Immigrant students who come to the U.S. in high school — especially when they are already 16 or older, as all new students at ELLIS are — often struggle to find a school that will even enroll them because their odds of on-time graduation are so low. State law entitles students to remain in high school through age 21.

ELLIS has developed a system for not only enrolling those students, but often helping them make it to college.

ELLIS Preparatory Academy's graduate Nana Keita poses for a portrait after the commencement ceremony at University of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York, on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. Kaeta, a 21-year-old ELLIS Prep graduate from Mali, juggled multiple jobs and a two-hour commute during her time at school. She will attend Niagara University next year.

Vega compares the school’s mission to the inscription on the Statue of Liberty overlooking the school’s namesake, the famous island in New York Harbor that processed more than 12 million immigrants.

“She says, ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,’” Vega said during the graduation ceremony. “And that is who we are. This school will take on everybody who nobody else wants or wants to be bothered with.”

Nana Kaeta, a 21-year-old graduating ELLIS senior, was one of those students. She arrived in the country at 17 from Mali on her own. In her four years at ELLIS, she has bounced between different living situations in multiple boroughs, commuting up to two hours each way to get to school. She held down two jobs at once while in school to earn income.

“At the beginning, I was thinking I wasn’t gonna make it, and I wasn’t going to college,” Kaeta said. “But my principal and all the staff talked to me, and I was not believing in myself but they believed in me.”

Kaeta plans to attend Niagara University in upstate New York next year on a full scholarship.

A student wears a sash decorated with both the U.S. and Mexican flags at the Ellis Preparatory Academy commencement ceremony at University of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York. Yunuen Bonaparte for Chalkbeat

ELLIS Principal Norma Vega acknowledges Dylan Lopez Contreras, an ELLIS student detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yunuen Bonaparte for Chalkbeat

Students gather outside the ELLIS Prep graduation ceremony for the class of 2025 on a sweltering June day in the Bronx. Yunuen Bonaparte for Chalkbeat

Parents and friends in the audience record graduates as they receive their diplomas at the ELLIS Preparatory Academy commencement ceremony at University of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York. Yunuen Bonaparte for Chalkbeat

Graduates in the class 2025 walk the stage to receive their diplomas at the ELLIS Preparatory Academy commencement ceremony. Yunuen Bonaparte for Chalkbeat

College counselor Jackie Peña develops relationships with colleges that understand the backgrounds and needs of ELLIS students. The school’s robust fundraising program brought in over $40,000 this year for students whose immigration status makes them ineligible for federal financial aid. And a network of alumni and volunteers continues to keep tabs on ELLIS graduates once they’re in college, even visiting them on campus to help them stay on track.

Even amid the fear and uncertainty from the political climate, ELLIS graduates said they’re determined to forge ahead.

All graduating seniors face the future with trepidation and excitement. But the feeling is mixed with sadness and fear for seniors like Kai Almonte, a 20-year-old ELLIS graduate from the Dominican Republic who expects to attend LeMoyne College in the fall. He’s able to go to the Syracuse school with the support of the $10,000 Yankees Stonewall scholarship, awarded to one student from each borough who shows leadership in the LGBTQ+ community.

“It’s a little bit scary,” Almonte said, “when you don’t know the future when you’re an immigrant.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Biden’s DOJ found lingering issues in Newark’s English language learner program. Trump’s team closed the case.

2025-06-18T09:45:00+00:00

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Leer en español.

The U.S. Department of Justice has quietly ended its monitoring of Newark Public Schools’ English language learner program, even after the department, under former President Joe Biden, found that the district did not consistently use qualified interpreters for non-English speaking parents, Chalkbeat has learned.

A 2021 settlement agreement found “wide-ranging failures” in the district’s English learner program and gave the district until the end of 2024 to fix 10 issues that violated federal law.

In December 2024, the Justice Department found the district had fixed the majority of the problems but was not consistently using qualified interpreters to help parents with limited English proficiency when they contacted schools or provided information in a language they understood, according to a federal letter that partially terminated and extended the 2021 settlement agreement.

The Justice Department also found that district staff were using Google Translate to provide school information to parents who speak limited English. Those deficiencies prompted the department to extend the agreement to July, according to the federal department’s 2024 letter.

But then in April, Alina Habba, who was appointed acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey by President Donald Trump, notified the district that it had satisfied its requirements under the 2021 settlement agreement and the 2024 extended agreement. The district has not publicly announced the end of federal monitoring but instead tucked the news into a May board committee report.

The extended agreement required the district to conduct testing to determine staff’s ability to understand and speak a particular language and submit a proposal to the Justice Department in February. It also required the district to submit a final report by July 1. It is unclear what happened to those requirements now that the monitoring has ended.

The Justice Department investigation that resulted in the 2021 settlement agreement began in 2017, when the school district was still under state control, in response to complaints that Newark was failing English learners. The investigation took four years and found that the district was not complying with federal civil rights laws related to education. Specifically, it found that the district’s practices left some English learners with little or no language services, while others were removed from language programs before they were fluent in English.

As a result, the district in 2021 agreed to overhaul its English learner program and comply with the terms of a 25-page settlement agreement that required the district to assess all students who spoke languages other than English to check if they needed language services, provide those services at any school the students attended, hire more qualified teachers, monitor their progress, and report back to federal officials.

Newark Public Schools’ English language learner population has been growing over the years, and school officials are wrestling with a shortage of bilingual teachers who can communicate in different languages. Since the 2020-21 school year, English language learners in the district have grown from 17.1% to 24.2% in 2023, according to 2023-24 New Jersey school performance report.

The district is home to more than 11,000 English language learners and includes a mix of students born in the country and abroad. Most speak Spanish or Portuguese, although some speak Arabic, French, Haitian Creole, or other languages.

Paul Brubaker, the district’s communications director, did not respond to emails about Newark Public Schools’ plan to fix problems with using qualified interpreters.

The Justice Department has not explained its rationale for ending its oversight, nor has it released a report outlining how the district has met its obligations.

The federal agency declined to comment about the end of monitoring, wrote NaSheena Porter Poznansky, public affairs officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office District of New Jersey, via email on June 5.

Since Trump entered office in January, he has been clear about stripping away practices and policies that support diversity, equity, and inclusion in schools. In March, Trump declared English the official language of the United States and fired nearly every Education Department employee responsible for ensuring that school districts were using federal funds meant to help English learners.

DOJ highlighted NPS’ translator deficiencies over the years

Among the 10 ways the district violated federal law, the Justice Department had already found it was not communicating effectively with non-English speaking parents and that it was also failing to staff its English learner programs with certified bilingual teachers, according to the 2021 settlement agreement.

In recent years, students reported using translator apps on their phones to communicate with teachers, while others, during a January 2024 board meeting, said it was tough to communicate with classmates. A former teacher during the January 2024 meeting also said educators weren’t getting enough support to help bilingual students.

As part of the Justice Department’s four-year monitoring beginning in 2021, federal officials visited district schools, according to 2023 and 2024 federal compliance letters to the district. They observed several English as a second language and bilingual classes and interviewed principals, bilingual needs assessment teachers, and the enrollment clerks, according to the letters.

Justice Department officials under the Biden administration found that most schools had a list of staff, and in some cases districtwide staff, who spoke different languages, but those lists typically included a combination of staff who were certified bilingual and others who self-identified as speaking other languages in response to a school survey, according to 2023 federal compliance letters.

Similarly, federal officials in 2023 also found that the district had yet to train all ESL teachers who also worked with students with disabilities, according to federal compliance letters. Federal officials also found that the district did not hire enough staff with experience related to the intersection of English learners and special education services, according to 2023 compliance letters.

In 2024, federal officials continued to visit Newark schools and found that the district had made progress by hiring more certified ESL teachers after finding that some schools had no long-term ESL substitute teachers. The district also provided more resources to bilingual needs assessment teachers, who are required to help parents with the enrollment process by using qualified interpreters. Newark also improved the way it tracked English learner progress and bolstered student requirements to exit the district’s English learner program.

Despite Newark’s shortcomings, the district “has worked diligently” to correct the problems outlined in the 2021 settlement agreement and has demonstrated “substantial compliance” with the terms of the agreement for at least one year, as required by the agreement, the December 2024 letter noted.

However, that same letter also noted that the district did not consistently use qualified interpreters at schools or through Language Line, a company that provides translation and interpretation services to help organizations communicate with people who speak different languages. It also noted that school clerks and other district staff are responsible for speaking with non-English speaking parents about registration, school selections, enrollment, and English learner services.

Federal officials also noted in the 2024 letter that staff should be reminded to use qualified interpreters and materials translated by them when communicating with parents with limited English proficiency and must be trained on using telephone-based interpretation services.

This school year, the district launched a new bilingual education program at Malcolm X Shabazz High School to help Newark’s growing population of English language learners access services closer to where they live.

A translation of this story was provided by New Jersey Hispano, in partnership with Montclair State University’s Center for Cooperative Media and is supported financially by the NJ Civic Information Consortium. The story was republished under a special content-sharing agreement through NJ News Commons’ Spanish Translation News Service.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Their student was detained by ICE. Now this Bronx school is rallying to get him back.

2025-06-05T23:33:32+00:00

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In the panicked moments after immigration agents detained Dylan Lopez Contreras in a Manhattan courthouse last month, his mother dialed a familiar number.

It was Hedin Bernard, a counselor at her son’s high school, English Language Learner and International Support Preparatory Academy, or ELLIS Prep — a nod to the famous island through which millions of immigrants entered New York City last century.

“He’s always given us support,” said Raiza, who asked to use only her first name for fear of retaliation. “He knows my son is a good kid. They’ve taken him in there, and they’re always available to help.”

Dylan’s arrest two weeks ago — the first known case of a New York City public school student detained by immigration agents in President Donald Trump’s second term — has galvanized local opposition to federal immigration policy and sparked a fierce debate about the city’s role in protecting immigrant students. His detention also has put a spotlight on the unique brand of public education offered by schools like ELLIS Prep.

Hedin Bernard, a bilingual school counselor at ELLIS Prep, center, helps to proctor an exam with students outside of his office in the Bronx public school.

Within an already specialized group of schools serving new immigrants, ELLIS is unique: It’s one of just a handful of schools citywide geared toward students who have been in the country for less than a year and are considered “over-age” to start at a traditional high school. Such students often struggle to find schools willing to enroll them and face among the steepest obstacles to finishing high school. Some, like Dylan, start at ELLIS as old as 19. (State law entitles students to remain in public school through age 21.)

A Bronx high schooler showed up for a routine immigration court date. ICE was waiting.

The school’s model represents an expansive vision of public education, embracing students like Dylan, regardless of immigration status, with academic and emotional help as well as connecting them with housing, food, and legal support with an explicit goal: getting them to college and out of poverty. But that mission stands in contrast to the policies of the Trump administration, which has ramped up deportations, rolled-back longstanding protections from immigration enforcement at school, and sought to curtail public funding for undocumented students pursuing higher education.

Dylan, center, is flanked by his younger siblings.

In the wake of the arrest, while some social media commenters questioned why Dylan, a 20-year-old native of Venezuela, was even enrolled in a public high school, staffers at ELLIS set about trying to get their student back.

The school mobilized to quickly connect Dylan and Raiza with resources while helping its other students — many worried about their own legal cases — make sense of the news.

In some ways, it’s a crisis that ELLIS was tailor-made to confront — drawing on its 17 years of expertise, close relationships with families, and extensive past experience supporting immigrant students through all manner of out-of-school challenges, including detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

The walls of the cafeteria of ELLIS Prep fill with commotion as students eat lunch, work on class assignments, and enjoy competitive games of foosball in the Bronx school.

“If it was going to happen, in a strange way, I’m glad it happened to us,” said Norma Vega, the school’s founding principal, who designed and launched ELLIS in 2008.

“They thought this was some kid they were going to pick up and no one was going to miss him,” she added. “That was a mistake.”

But ELLIS’ particular population and mission have also made it that much more susceptible to the ripple effects of Dylan’s arrest.

Students gather around a foosball table during lunch in the cafeteria of ELLIS Prep.

Breaking the news of Dylan’s arrest to other students felt almost like sharing news of a suicide, said Bernard, causing other students to immediately question: “Is it going to happen to me? Is it going to happen to more? What if somebody is going to court next week?”

One student told the school a little over a week after Dylan’s arrest that her family was planning to return to the Dominican Republic after hearing about relatives arrested under similar circumstances as Dylan.

In a matter of days, the school, one of seven nestled in the hulking John F. Kennedy High School campus overlooking the Harlem River in the Spuyten Duyvil section of the Bronx, had convened meetings with students and staff. They also launched a letter-writing campaign that yielded hundreds of hand-written notes of support to be delivered to Dylan at his Western Pennsylvania detention center. A teacher’s father created a GoFundMe page that has so far raised nearly $40,000 for the family.

Left, Emmanuel Ortiz, a member of the community outreach and technology support team displays a bundle of letters addressed to Dylan Lopez Contreras, a student who was detained by ICE agents on May 21 in New York City. And, right, letters written by students to send to Dylan.

“They’re always writing to me, calling me, seeing if I need anything emotionally,” Raiza said in Spanish. “So much, so much support.”

For Vega, the past few weeks have been a lesson in “how important it is to not function out of fear.”

“The more we continue to support, the more other people will be willing to support,” she said.

‘In a panic’: ELLIS leaps into action

At first, Bernard, the school counselor, didn’t see Raiza’s calls on May 21. He was wrapped up in one of the many small crises that fill his days.

A fixture and founding ELLIS staff member, Bernard, a bilingual counselor with Dominican roots, serves as a sounding board for students, families, and staff on everything from teen relationship drama to legal crises. He’s one of roughly a dozen people on the staff of about 40 dedicated to supporting the school’s 250 or so students with challenges beyond the classroom.

Hedin Bernard, a bilingual school counselor at ELLIS Prep, sits for a portrait in his office.

When Bernard noticed the multiple missed calls and finally got in touch with a distraught Raiza, he leapt into action.

“I was in a panic,” he said.

Bernard called every legal organization he could think of. He reached someone at Metro Baptist Church in midtown Manhattan, which houses multiple groups supporting migrant families, and connected Raiza with an advocacy group that provided case management and pro bono lawyers from the New York Legal Assistance Group, or NYLAG.

ELLIS counselors have long taken on the role of helping students find lawyers. Over multiple years, Bernard assembled an 18-page packet of pro bono lawyers that he distributes to students. But finding pro bono legal help has become more difficult this year, he said.

Because of the rapid-fire changes to immigration enforcement since Trump took office, routine hearings that used to be safe to attend without a lawyer now often require legal representation, said Melissa Chua, a co-director of the Immigrant Protection Unit at NYLAG who has been overseeing Dylan’s case. That has “exacerbated the distance between the need and the ability to provide help,” she said.

Bernard knew what to do when Raiza called, in part, because it wasn’t his first time facing this situation. Nearly a decade earlier, the school successfully rallied for the release of a student detained by immigration authorities under former President Barack Obama.

“It was all hands on deck,” recalled Bernard of that past effort.

As students of ELLIS Prep make their way to their scheduled classes, one student stops at Hedin Bernard's office before their class.

But Bernard feared this time might be different. The Trump administration has rolled out unprecedented enforcement tactics, arresting immigrants at courthouses and thrusting them into fast-track deportation proceedings. Detainees, including Dylan, are routinely whisked around the country from state to state, making it more difficult for their lawyers to reach them. And Bernard wasn’t sure whether Trump administration officials would respond to pressure in the same way the Obama administration had. ICE under Trump is seeking to push deportation to record levels as part of what administration officials say is a necessary corrective to overly permissive immigration policy during former President Joseph Biden’s tenure.

For ELLIS, the incident raised serious questions about whether the standard advice staffers had always given students — attend court dates — still made sense during the second Trump administration.

Vega, the school’s principal, wrestled with those questions the night of Dylan’s arrest: “How do I counsel them? What do I tell them? What do I say?”

‘It’s going to be hurtful:’ News of Dylan’s arrest spreads

Any hope that school staffers had that Dylan might be released quickly began to dim by the third day, when they learned he had been shuttled from a detention center in New Jersey to another in Texas.

Vega, preparing to share the news with students and teachers on Friday morning, struggled against her own anger and frustration about Dylan’s condition while seeking to reassure the school community.

In a cavernous science classroom filled with raw spaghetti sculptures, dozens of students filed in for a meeting with Vega and several of the school’s counselors.

ELLIS Prep in the Bronx.

“What I’m about to share with you is really important. It’s going to be hurtful,” Vega began. “On Wednesday, we were informed that one of our classmates was detained.”

Vega urged them to come talk to the staff if they have an upcoming court date.

“There’s no reason for you to feel ashamed, embarrassed,” she told them. “I know each of you by name. I know your stories. Everybody here knows who you are, because you matter.”

Many of the students in the crowded science classroom were still in the early stages of learning English and struggled to understand all of the details of Vega’s message. It wasn’t until after the meeting, when they began clustering in small groups to translate and discuss that it began to sink in. In hallways decorated with photos of students on international trips, billboards with college acceptance letters and Know Your Rights guidance, African students huddled to parse through the news in French, while Latin American students whispered in Spanish.

Many of them made their way to Vega’s office, a central gathering place where the door is almost never closed and students often come in to pray, use the bathroom, or eat.

“Noooo, Dylan,” said one junior as he pieced together the details of who had been detained.

Bernard joined one circle of Spanish-speaking students standing in the doorway of Vega’s office to help translate.

A boy with braids, purple headphones resting around his neck, and a gray Walt Disney sweatshirt with a Mickey Mouse logo cast his eyes down as Bernard explained. He had a court date coming up.

‘You’re not alone:’ Students offer their support

Public attention — and outrage — over Dylan’s case has continued to mount. Last Thursday, hundreds of Dylan’s supporters rallied on the steps of the Education Department’s downtown Manhattan headquarters demanding his release. Meanwhile, his lawyers filed a “habeas corpus” petition alleging Dylan’s detention violated his due process rights. Even Mayor Eric Adams, who initially sought to distance himself from the case, voiced support for Dylan as his law department filed a friend-of-the-court brief in his legal case.

A crowd stands Thursday, May 29, 2025, at a rally for Dylan, a 20-year-old New York City public school student arrested by immigration officials last week.

At ELLIS, staffers wanted to come up with their own way to make a quiet statement, while also giving their other students a chance to process their feelings.

On the same day as the rally, students and staffers set aside time during class to pen their thoughts for Dylan in handwritten notes, then sealed them in envelopes to ship to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Western Pennsylvania. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the letters.

The notes were a mix of familiar teenage concerns and heartfelt offers of support.

One student recalled that Dylan, who had recently dyed his own shaggy hair purple, offered to color their hair. “Truthfully, I like my hair now more because of you,” the friend continued in Spanish. “I want to change it to blonde or blue now … what do you think?”

Another student, a fellow native of Venezuela, tried to boost his spirits by appealing to their shared national pride.

“It’s important to keep in mind that Venezuelans ‘NEVER GIVE UP.’ We’re warriors, strong, made to keep going.”

A sign dedicated to student Dylan Lopez Contreras who was detained by ICE agents on May 21 in New York City, greets staff and students of the Bronx public school.

And many others let him know that the entire school was behind him.

“I want you to know the school will do everything possible for you and keep your mom informed of everything,” one student wrote.

“We all confront our individual battles,” she continued. “And yours is very difficult, inhumane, and unjust. But you’re not alone.”

Earlier this week, Raiza informed the school that ICE declined to deliver the letters to her son.

They were marked, Dylan told her, as contraband.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Waiting to learn: How Chicago’s approach to staffing bilingual education programs falls short

2025-06-05T10:00:00+00:00

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This story was reported and published in collaboration with Block Club Chicago. Sign up for their newsletters here.

A few years ago, Nash Elementary was thrown into disarray when dozens of English language learners — largely migrant kids from South and Central America — began enrolling at the West Side school.

Teachers had to scramble to find ways to help the new arrivals.

They used Google Translate and turned to resources online. One struggling teacher assigned her students “busy work” and eventually decided to travel abroad to learn Spanish.

And every day, students — like one Ecuadorian fourth grader who struggled to read and write in English — were left without the support guaranteed to them in state law.

“He shouldn’t have had to suffer for almost three years before he was able to receive the type of help that he needs,” said Sylvelia Pittman, a 20-year teacher at Nash who advocated for more bilingual resources in the new Chicago Teachers Union contract.

English language learners in bilingual programs are often waiting for what they’re legally entitled to — instruction in their native language — and teachers feel their schools are ill-equipped to serve large shares of these students, according to interviews and a Block Club and Chalkbeat analysis of public records.

Since an influx of migrant students began arriving in Chicago in 2022, the number of Chicago Public Schools required by state law to open a bilingual program increased by about 20%, according to records obtained by Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago through a Freedom of Information Act request. This school year, 57 additional schools, including charters, must meet state requirements.

State law requires schools to launch a bilingual education program after 20 students who are English language learners and speak the same native language enroll.

But under the district’s funding formula, CPS provides a school with a full-time bilingual coordinator when it enrolls 50 or more English language learners. That person is meant to help schools carry out extra services for English language learners, a group that’s grown by 25% in district-run schools since 2022. The state declined to comment on the district’s formula.

CPS officials said bilingual coordinators are not meant to be the sole individuals in the school providing additional support to English learners. District and state officials say there’s no predetermined number of how many bilingual teachers are needed for a bilingual program.

Using data obtained through an open records request, Chalkbeat and Block Club conducted its own analysis to explore what staffing looks like in schools required to teach English learners in both English and their native language.

Across the district, there are on average about five bilingual teachers per every 100 English language learners. But that picture looks different on the school level. The district-run schools newly required to have bilingual programs, on average, have half as many certified teachers per English learner compared to more established programs.

Of the district schools required to have bilingual programs, 1 in 4 enroll more than 40 English learners for each bilingual-certified teacher on staff, according to Chalkbeat and Block Club’s analysis. Nearly 40 schools enroll more than 60 English learners for each certified bilingual teacher. A handful of schools have no one certified to teach bilingual education on staff, despite legal requirements to provide bilingual services.

In a statement, CPS said bilingual programs vary in size and don’t necessarily require full classrooms at every grade level overseen by bilingual teachers.

At Nash, where there are now two certified bilingual teachers and more than 70 English language learners, teachers say it’s taken multiple years to see any growth in some of their newcomer students. The school has been required to have a bilingual program for the past two school years.

And at schools newer to bilingual education, like Nash, bilingual coordinators are sometimes the only people certified to teach in a child’s native language, Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago found.

The analysis included 3,400 staffers certified to teach bilingual education. It does not include teaching assistants, a position the district has agreed with the teachers union to beef up but is not certified to teach bilingual education.

In addition to bilingual coordinators, the district said it provides guidance to schools that are supposed to launch bilingual programs. Officials also contend that CPS has significantly increased the number of bilingual teachers and that it’s up to principals to hire the right people for their schools.

Yennifer Ruiz walks her daughter Gabriela, 12, to school most days in their South Shore neighborhood. Both of them are from Venezuela.

But the issues at Nash reflect broader challenges in CPS. Last year, Block Club and Chalkbeat found that many migrant students from South and Central America were struggling to learn after landing at segregated schools on the South and West sides that had not previously served children with language needs.

In recent years, nearly all bilingual programs have failed audits conducted by the district. And the number of investigations conducted by the Illinois State Board of Education into alleged violations of bilingual education at Chicago schools has increased, Block Club and Chalkbeat found.

And as President Donald Trump declares English the official language of the U.S. and guts the office meant to serve the country’s 5 million English learners, the state could play a bigger role in holding districts like Chicago accountable for failing to provide enough support to kids learning English as a second language.

Schools that are out of compliance are “out of step with the research” on what works for English learners, said Conor Williams, a senior fellow who studies English learners at The Century Foundation, a progressive leaning policy think tank.

“If we’re not going to fund helping schools become bilingual, as the state mandates us to do, we should own that that’s something we’ve decided we don’t care enough about to fund,” Williams said.

Sylvelia Pittman, a 20-year teacher, speaks to her grandson Cahari at Nash Elementary School in Austin on June 3, 2025. Pittman said her principal is trying to encourage more staff to get certified in bilingual education.

Nash’s new bilingual coordinator only the ‘tip of the iceberg’

Pittman, who has taught in CPS schools for 24 years, is currently an interventionist at Nash, 4837 W Erie St. The district created the role in response to the pandemic to provide extra support to struggling students.

As Pittman and her colleagues worked to help students recover from the public health crisis, however, Nash began to face a new challenge.

In the months before the 2022-23 school year, busloads of migrant families began arriving in Chicago from the southern border. The school had 230 students at the time, fewer than half what the district calculates Nash’s building could enroll. Historically in CPS, fewer students have meant smaller budgets.

The surge of newcomer students boosted Nash’s enrollment. By the end of September 2023 — about a year after migrants began arriving — Nash had enrolled 48 English language learners, according to preliminary enrollment data from that time pulled by Chalkbeat and Block Club. Some time that month, CPS said it gave the school a part-time bilingual coordinator position, but Chalkbeat and Block Club were unable to verify exactly when that person was hired.

In the meantime, teachers felt they didn’t have adequate tools to teach the school’s English learners.

Staff relied heavily on Google Translate to communicate with the new students and their parents — a practice educators at other schools have told Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago they have also adopted.

Corinne Lydon, a middle school English teacher at Nash, said she felt like a “deer in headlights” when a lot of English learners first began enrolling at Nash a couple years ago.

The school didn’t have a Spanish language curriculum available for Lydon to use, so she tried to find help online and assigned her newcomer students a lot of “busy work,” she said. (CPS has developed a Spanish language arts curriculum for bilingual programs, a spokesperson said.)

Before the 2023-24 school year, the district only provided schools with a full-time bilingual coordinator if the school had at least 100 English learners. Officials said they dropped that threshold to 50 English learners starting last school year.

Teacher Corinne Lydon poses for a portrait at Nash Elementary School in Austin on May 28, 2025. Lydon said the need at her school for Spanish-speaking staff was so great, she traveled abroad to learn Spanish.

By March 2024, Nash had enrolled 61 English learners, according to preliminary enrollment data.

Now, more than a year later, Nash has two staffers certified to teach bilingual education, including the bilingual coordinator, and five others who can teach English as a second language but not bilingual education, according to district staffing records. The school today enrolls more than 70 English learners, the most for Nash in at least 15 years.

CPS said it allocated an additional part-time bilingual coordinator position to Nash this school year, but it’s unclear if that position has been filled.

Lydon recently finished her courses to teach English as a second language after encouragement from Nash’s principal. The district covered half the cost of the certification and Lydon financed the remaining $1,300. (This was before the new teachers union contract, which would have afforded Lydon full coverage.)

But Lydon also felt it was critical to learn Spanish, so she traveled on her own dime to Guatemala last August and Mexico over this spring break to learn the language through immersion, in part by living with local families.

“I felt so unprepared, so I just wanted to do all the things possible to be able to best service my kids,” Lydon said.

Lydon thinks her ESL training and Spanish lessons are helping her students. For example, one of her sixth grade students is finally completing assignments and saying full sentences in English — but that’s two years after first enrolling at the school.

Corinne Lydon, an English teacher at Nash Elementary, poses for a photo with two of her Spanish teachers during a trip to Guatemala to learn the language.

Despite the challenges Nash has faced, Karime Asaf, chief of multilingual and multicultural education at CPS, touted the school as a good example of how the district helps a school create a new bilingual program, in part by providing a bilingual coordinator who can train other teachers working with English learners.

Pittman said the bilingual coordinator has made a difference at Nash by being able to talk to students and their parents about their needs. And Pittman said she has seen some academic growth in students.

But as a part-time staffer, the coordinator hasn’t had enough time to spend with all the new English learners, particularly in middle school, Lydon said.

Pittman said bilingual coordinators are just “the tip of the iceberg.” One bilingual coordinator plus a couple of staffers who speak Spanish don’t add up to an actual bilingual program, she said.

Sylvelia Pittman, a 20-year teacher, speaks to her grandson Cahari at Nash Elementary School in Austin on June 3, 2025. Pittman says the school has not had enough certified staff to provide additional services to English learners.

A challenge to launch bilingual programs

More than three-quarters of the 57 CPS and charter schools now required to launch bilingual education programs are on the city’s South and West Sides in communities that don’t have predominantly Latino populations, according to the records obtained by Chalkbeat and Block Club through an open records request. Only seven of those schools had previous bilingual program requirements anytime in the last five school years.

But both CPS and the state said bilingual programs can’t be created immediately, and they don’t look the same at every school.

By state law, a bilingual program requires teaching students language arts, math, science and social studies in both English and their native language. Schools will still also provide English as a Second Language — or English only — instruction. The state gives schools “time to implement necessary programs” and links each district with a state expert to help them create the programs, said Lindsay Record, spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Education.

“It’s a multi-year program,” Asaf, from CPS, said. “It doesn’t mean that if you receive 30 students, next month, you can have a full, established bilingual program.”

Under the district’s funding formula, CPS provides positions to schools, and principals hire people to fill those roles. Schools get more positions if they have greater needs.

CPS officials said they’ve prioritized recruiting more bilingual certified teachers. But when it comes to ensuring individual schools have the right staff, officials described a largely hands-off approach.

Asaf’s office works with bilingual coordinators to “identify gaps in services” for English learners and recommends solutions to school leaders, said Sylvia Barragan, a CPS spokesperson, in an email to Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago.

Nash Elementary School, 4837 W. Erie St., in Austin on May 28, 2025.

One principal whose school has dozens of English learners said the district is offering “less advice” than before on how to serve English learners, even though the school is still trying to figure out how to meet legal requirements and student needs.

“Normally when I advocate [for resources], I get heat” from the district, said the principal, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The principal takes issue with the district’s bilingual coordinator formula, saying the needs of individual English learners, not the total number of English learners, should be the determining factor.

“You don’t know the needs of those 75 kids or those 40 kids or those 50 kids,” the principal said.

Research has shown that English learners grow better academically in bilingual education programs than when they’re taught in English, according to three experts who have studied English language learners and immigrant communities.

But a shortage of bilingual teachers can make setting up a bilingual program difficult.

“If you’re a school and you’re fully staffed, you’ve got all your teachers, and suddenly you trigger a bilingual education mandate, you can’t just fire half of your teachers because they’re English-speakers only and hire a bunch of new Spanish-dominant or bilingual staff,” Williams, from The Century Foundation, said.

And it’s not easy for schools to convince longtime staffers to get bilingual certification.

For example, at Tarkington Elementary School in Chicago Lawn, the principal told seventh grade teacher Vivian Perez she would be laid off because the school needed more bilingual-certified staff. Perez then scrambled to get a temporary bilingual license.

But CPS says the school’s efforts to encourage other staff to get certified haven’t been successful — and Tarkington still needs bilingual teachers for seventh grade.

Perez now teaches her class in English and Spanish, which she believes makes students “feel like they’re not forgotten.”

The district views its role in solving the problem as “really dramatically increasing the supply” of bilingual teachers, who often seek jobs in predominantly immigrant school communities, said Ben Felton, chief of talent for CPS.

Felton said the district recruits and provides early offers to teaching candidates at the city’s hardest-to-staff schools, which disproportionately exist on the South and West sides and are seeing a “higher need” for bilingual teachers, he said.

CPS will now cover 100% of costs of getting a bilingual certification for up to 300 teachers in high-need areas each year as part of the new Chicago Teachers Union contract.

As of April, 3,400 of the district’s roughly 20,000 teachers were certified to teach bilingual education — a 22% increase since just before migrants began arriving in Chicago in spring 2022, according to data CPS shared with Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago.

But how those teachers are deployed across the district is uneven, especially among schools newly required to provide bilingual services in the 2024-25 school year.

On top of that, it’s not clear how many of those certified educators are actually teaching in a bilingual program or are certified to teach their students’ native language.

Teacher Sylvelia Pittman stands outside of Nash Elementary School in Austin on June 3, 2025. Pittman said that having a bilingual coordinator at the school, which now serves dozens of English learners, is far less than what Nash actually needs.

Schools caught in the middle

The district’s policies for staffing bilingual programs are also flawed in a practical sense, according to teachers and other school leaders.

A few miles east of Nash, Morton School of Excellence, 431 N. Troy St., is an example of district policy failing to keep up with the unpredictable nature of mass migration.

Like Nash, Morton teachers and administrators were completely unprepared when the Humboldt Park school received an influx of newcomer students last school year, according to Local School Council president and parent Cori Bradley.

Historically, most of the school’s students have been Black native English speakers. The school had 18 English learners at the start of the 2023-24 school year. By that March, the school had more than 80 English learners, almost doubling the student population. The staff had to respond on the fly.

“The school was operating in emergency mode for four or five months,” Bradley said.

“We didn’t have books for them. You had classrooms that had 35 kids. … The concern was: Are students learning? Can teachers adequately teach? Are there enough chairs and desks? It felt like the school had become a shelter.”

The hallways at Morton School of Excellence display flags from various different countries. After enrolling dozens of English language learners, Morton was newly required to launch a bilingual program this school year.

But by the time the district gave Morton a full-time bilingual coordinator at the start of this school year, the situation had completely changed. Morton’s English language learner population had shrunk by more than half to 35 students as of late February.

Because of that, Morton’s bilingual coordinator is slated to be part-time next year.

Barragan, the district spokesperson, said schools that don’t qualify for bilingual coordinators typically “nominate” an existing staffer to take on the role for an additional stipend.

Morton currently has five teachers certified to teach English as a second language and one who is certified to teach bilingual education — the current bilingual coordinator — according to the district’s April staffing data.

When Bradley asked if the part-time bilingual coordinator will be sufficient at a recent Local School Council meeting, Morton’s principal, Zachary Korth, told her he’s discussing the issue with staff and plans to advocate for more resources if necessary.

Korth said there are “rumblings” more newcomer families are planning to move. Two city-run shelters near the school have closed, driving families to other parts of the city and elsewhere, school leaders said.

School districts generally can’t easily respond to rapidly changing student populations, said Williams, from The Century Foundation. They fund schools based on a certain enrollment count or projection.

The district has a pool of bilingual teaching assistants that it can deploy to schools that are seeing more English learners enroll, according to district officials.

Chicago schools under state oversight for bilingual education

CPS is currently under state oversight for failing to meet bilingual education requirements.

The state requires corrective action any time an investigation finds that a CPS school is not in compliance with bilingual education requirements, officials said. When investigators find evidence of wrongdoing, the district is put on an action plan.

If a district doesn’t properly address the action plan, it can be subject to “sanctions” including loss of state or federal funding, said Record, the state spokesperson. State officials did not say when CPS must meet goals outlined in its latest corrective action plan.

Since the 2021-22 school year, ISBE has conducted no more than two investigations annually of alleged violations of bilingual education requirements at CPS schools. But this school year, the state has nine open investigations and has already completed two others — one of which found violations at Catalyst Charter School.

At Catalyst, an undisclosed disagreement among staffers led to the principal asking a teacher to stop offering English learner services to a group of fifth graders for about a month. Teachers were also not taking students’ English proficiency levels seriously, potentially impacting the type of services they received, according to the investigation notes.

The spike in complaints could be due to heightened awareness of the problem and advocacy for solutions. The Chicago Teachers Union made a big push for compliance and hosted workshops to train school staff how to file state complaints around bilingual education.

Others say the surge is a reflection of the state and school district’s longstanding inability to meet the needs of English learner students.

Audits that CPS conducted of bilingual and ESL programs from 2018 to the beginning of 2024 found that all but two programs did not comply with state law, according to public records obtained last year by Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago.

Complaints about CPS schools failing to provide proper bilingual education also prompted federal oversight in the past.

From 1980 to 2009, Chicago Public Schools was under a federal consent decree that ordered the district to desegregate its schools and ensure English language learners were getting enough support. The decree had to be updated twice, in part because CPS was failing to provide enough staffing and materials to English learners.

The American flag waves outside Nash Elementary School in Austin on June 3, 2025. The school enrolls more than 70 English language learners, the most in at least 15 years.

Experts say that sort of oversight is highly unlikely under the Trump administration.

In March, the federal government fired nearly every employee responsible for ensuring that districts were properly using federal funds meant to support English learners.

Patricia Gándara, a UCLA research professor who co-authored a book about the impact of immigration enforcement on schools, said the president’s executive order to make English the nation’s official language suggests the administration is not interested in bilingual education.

As a result of these moves, state and local officials will likely be tasked with ensuring those students are getting the support they need.

Pittman, the Nash teacher, said her principal has encouraged teachers to earn their bilingual certification. The principal is also planning to create virtual programming for some grades of students who need to learn English and Spanish, she said. The principal declined to be interviewed.

Newcomer students at Nash “are growing academically, but it’s taking them longer because they do not have all the bilingual support they’re supposed to have,” Pittman said.

Nash Elementary School in Austin has been required to have a bilingual education program for the past two school years.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Mina Bloom is an investigative reporter for Block Club Chicago. Contact Mina at mina@blockclubchi.org.

Kae Petrin is a data & graphics reporter who covers data related to K-12 education, voting rights, and public health for Civic News Company. Contact them at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

In rebuke of Trump, NYC files legal brief in support of Bronx student detained by ICE

2025-06-02T22:47:05+00:00

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In a rare rebuke from Mayor Eric Adams of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, New York City’s Law Department filed a legal brief Monday in support of a Bronx high school student detained by immigration authorities.

It was also a remarkable shift from the mayor’s previous efforts to distance himself from the case, as other local politicians condemned the arrest of 20-year-old Dylan Lopez Contreras, a native of Venezuela who was detained after attending a routine immigration court date.

In a 17-page filing submitted to federal court in Western Pennsylvania, New York City’s Corporation Counsel Muriel Goode-Trufant decried Dylan’s arrest as a “trap” that undermines faith in the court system. Dylan, who attended ELLIS Prep, a Bronx High School that caters to older newly arrived immigrants, is the first known case of a city public school student detained by immigration authorities during Trump’s second term.

“The tactics employed in Dylan’s case — using his appearance at court for a routine immigration hearing as an opportunity to detain him — threatens to deter people from accessing the court system on which local governance depends,” Goode-Trufant wrote. “The implications threaten to reach well beyond the immigration arena and reach the countless other matters affecting public welfare that require our residents to appear in court every day.”

The city’s legal filing comes as Dylan’s personal lawyers intensify their efforts to secure his release. Last week, lawyers from the New York Legal Assistance Group, or NYLAG, filed a writ of “habeas corpus” asking a federal judge to order his release. On Monday, lawyers also sought a temporary restraining order in an effort to get him out of detention even quicker because of severe gastrointestinal-related medical issues.

Lawyers cited a medical expert who reviewed Dylan’s health records and testified that keeping Dylan in detention without access to specialists “will likely lead to significant morbidity and possibly death,” according to a legal filing.

Judge Stephanie Haines denied that request on Monday afternoon, according to a NYLAG spokesperson. But lawyers received news that Dylan passed an interview with an asylum officer to determine whether he has “credible fear” of returning to his country — staving off the risk of immediate deportation.

“While we are disappointed with today’s decision by the judge, we remain unwavering in our determination to fight for justice, due process and to bring Dylan home as soon as humanly possible,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We are extremely heartened by the fact that Dylan successfully passed his credible fear interview, which is an important win for his case in recognizing his valid need for asylum relief.”

Dylan’s arrest, first reported by Chalkbeat last Monday, has become a high profile example of a new enforcement tactic that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents are using across the country. In an effort to boost deportations, federal government lawyers have moved to dismiss deportation proceedings, allowing agents to arrest unsuspecting immigrants on the spot in courthouses and thrust them into a fast-track deportation process with fewer legal protections. The enforcement blitz has picked up in Manhattan over the past week, prompting protests and denunciations from the city’s congressional representatives.

Officials from the Department of Homeland security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. They previously criticized former President Joseph Biden’s policy allowing migrants like Dylan to enter the country and said “ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been.”

The city’s intervention in Dylan’s case represents a dramatic about-face from Adams’ initial response last week. Asked about the arrest at a press conference last Tuesday, Adams repeatedly said federal immigration enforcement was not his concern, argued the arrest would not keep immigrants from using city services, and declined to commit to looking into Dylan’s case or pushing for his release.

Adams spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus argued on the social media platform X that Adams “didn’t have all of the information” at the time.

In a statement Monday, Adams said Dylan “was going through the exact legal proceeding that we encourage new arrivals to go through in order to be able to work and provide for their families — and even accessed the center that we created for migrants to be able to avoid city shelters and become independent.

“But instead of being rewarded for following the law, he was punished for doing what we all asked him to do,” Adams continued.

Dylan’s mom Raiza, who asked to use only her first name for fear of retaliation, told Chalkbeat in Spanish that the city’s legal filing is “very good news.”

“I’m very grateful,” she said. “My son is not a criminal. He’s a student.”

City’s intervention marks a shift

The city’s friend-of-the-court brief marks one of the most direct rebukes from the Adams administration of Trump’s immigration policy — a topic that played a central role in the scandal that has enveloped Adams’ mayoralty. Adams faced federal corruption charges last year, but the Justice Department under Trump moved to dismiss the charges. One argument Trump’s Justice Department lawyers made for dismissing the case was that criminal proceedings would curtail Adams’ ability to help execute Trump’s immigration policies. Adams has expressed a desire to roll back the city’s “sanctuary” protections, including a longstanding agreement that kept ICE from operating on Rikers Island.

Dylan’s case — and Adams’ lack of involvement — drew a major outcry from local and national elected officials in the last week. Hundreds of supporters gathered at a rally last week to demand Dylan’s immediate release, with multiple local elected officials criticizing the mayor’s silence.

Adams faces a long-shot bid for reelection this year, and several of his challengers immediately issued statements criticizing Dylan’s detention and Adams’ response.

While Adams argued last week that the ICE courthouse enforcement blitz would not interfere with immigrant New Yorkers accessing city services, his lawyers made the opposite case in Monday’s legal brief.

The city has welcomed over 100,000 asylum-seekers in recent years and “has an obligation to ensure that those residing in its jurisdiction can access basic municipal services and continue contributing as members of our community while here,” the brief reads.

The new enforcement tactics “risk driving underground those otherwise inclined to follow the country’s immigration laws, undermining the very system that those laws are designed to serve,” according to the filing.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Lawyers for Bronx high school student detained by ICE file petition for immediate release

2025-05-30T12:28:11+00:00

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The campaign pushing for the release of a Bronx high school student arrested by immigration authorities last week continued to escalate with a new legal petition challenging the validity of his detention.

Attorneys for Dylan, 20, a native of Venezuela, made several moves Thursday they hope will slow, and ultimately stymie, the government’s efforts to fast-track his deportation following his arrest last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents after a routine court date.

Dylan is the first known current New York City public school student to be detained by immigration authorities in President Donald Trump’s second term. In the days following Chalkbeat’s Monday report on Dylan’s arrest, his case has become national news and galvanized local efforts to oppose Trump’s immigration policies, including a rally Thursday on the steps of the city’s Education Department headquarters in lower Manhattan.

A card from Dylan's school, ELLIS Prep, displayed at the rally for his release.

Dylan’s attorneys from the New York Legal Assistance Group, or NYLAG, filed a “habeas corpus” petition late Thursday night in federal court in Western Pennsylvania, where Dylan is being held, arguing that immigration officials violated his due process rights by preventing him from making full use of the court system. They assert that Dylan is ineligible for “expedited” deportation because he had legal permission to enter the country under a Biden-era humanitarian program.

Dylan’s arrest was part of a nationwide enforcement blitz where government lawyers move to dismiss migrants’ immigration cases, allowing authorities to arrest them on the spot and thrust them into a fast-tracked deportation process with fewer legal protections.

Officials from the Department of Homeland security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new legal petition. They previously criticized former President Joseph Biden’s policy allowing migrants like Dylan to enter the country and said “ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been.”

Legal case builds momentum after slow start

For the first week of his detention, Dylan’s lawyers could not reach him because he was shuttled so rapidly between four different states, according to a NYLAG spokesperson and his mother, Raiza, whose last name is being withheld at her request to avoid retaliation.

His lawyers finally managed to make contact Wednesday morning — just in time to prepare him for an interview with an asylum officer about whether he has a “credible fear” of returning to Venezuela — a hurdle Dylan must clear to avoid immediate deportation.

The interview took place early Thursday morning, with no advance notice to Dylan’s lawyers. They were only able to get a lawyer patched into the interview after Raiza alerted them shortly before, according to one of the attorneys.

A determination on that hearing could take several days or more. But even if Dylan prevails, he likely will not be immediately released, and will have to continue to litigate his asylum case from detention, according to his lawyers.

That’s why they also filed a habeas corpus petition Thursday night, asking a federal judge to order ICE to release Dylan immediately and to prevent him from being moved to any other detention sites.

“Dylan’s arrest and ongoing detention cause him enormous and continued harm,” the filing alleges. “He has been ripped away from his high school studies, his work, and his mother and young siblings who rely on him.” The full-time student at ELLIS Prep, which caters to older newly arrived immigrants, has also been working part-time as a delivery worker, helping his mom and two younger siblings move out of a shelter and into their own apartment.

His attorneys argue that Dylan’s arrest and detention have curtailed his ability to access the court system — a violation of the due process rights guaranteed to anyone in the U.S., regardless of immigration status. In addition to his asylum claim, Dylan is applying for Special Immigration Juvenile Status, a type of legal protection for youth under 21 who can’t be reunited with both parents (his father passed away years ago), according to the petition.

Dylan was scheduled to have a hearing in family court for that case Friday morning but was unlikely to be able to attend from detention — endangering his case, according to his attorneys.

The lawyers argue that Dylan was never eligible for “expedited removal” in the first place, since the procedure is not meant for people who were “admitted or paroled” into the country like Dylan was, according to federal immigration law.

Adding to the urgency of the situation is the fact that Dylan is facing severe gastrointestinal issues that doctors were still trying to diagnose when he was detained. “These specialists are currently in the process of assessing whether Dylan’s symptoms are the result of cancer or [Crohn’s] disease,” and recommended an “immediate in-person follow up appointment,” the filing states.

Trump administration officials have recently discussed suspending habeas corpus as part of their efforts to increase deportations, but legal experts say an act of Congress would be required to do so.

Dylan’s detention continues to draw widespread attention

Meanwhile, Dylan’s case has continued to pick up public attention. An online fundraiser that launched Wednesday to help Dylan’s mom with expenses related to his legal case and caring for her two younger children had collected more than $27,000 by Friday morning.

And hundreds of supporters — including elected officials and city schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos — rallied outside of the Education Department’s downtown Manhattan headquarters calling for his release.

Chants of “Free Dylan” echoed through the crowd of teachers union members, immigration advocates, students, and anti-Trump protesters.

Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos addresses the crowd at the rally to release Dylan from ICE detention.

“Dylan is a student, a worker, and part of our community. He did everything right, and still, ICE tore him away from his life and family in New York,” U.S. Rep. Nydia Velasquez said in a statement, the second federal elected official to publicly challenge Dylan’s detention.

Aviles-Ramos’s brief comments sought to reassure families that schools are safe and that the city school system “stands firmly” with its immigrant students, but offered few specifics.

Her presence at the rally was notable given Mayor Eric Adams’ refusal to speak out about Dylan’s case in recent days. Asked at a press conference on Tuesday whether he had concerns about Dylan’s detention or whether he would push for his release, Adams repeatedly declined to weigh in.

On Friday, City Hall released a statement encouraging New Yorkers to not “live in fear” and to continue using public resources, such as sending children to school or dialing 911 when they need help.

“While the Adams administration had no involvement in the apprehension of Dylan, we are sad to learn of this incident — especially since Dylan was reportedly following the legal process to seek asylum when he was taken into custody," the statement said.

Other speakers emphasized that even if schools themselves haven’t been targeted in ICE raids, immigration enforcement that sweeps up students elsewhere still has ripple effects that spread into schools.

“Our public schools are doing social work, they’re doing wraparound services,” said Naveed Hasan, a Manhattan parent and member of the Panel for Educational Policy. “And that means that, while schools are safe…the other places that are near schools, [on] the way to schools, have to be guaranteed as safe places.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres demands answers from ICE on arrest of NYC high school student

2025-05-28T22:36:46+00:00

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U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres demanded answers Wednesday from the Department of Homeland Security about the arrest of a 20-year-old New York City public school student by immigration officials last week, according to a copy of his letter shared with Chalkbeat.

Dylan, whose full name is being withheld at the request of his family, fled Venezuela and entered the country legally last year under a Biden-era entry program while requesting asylum. He was living in the Bronx with his mom and two younger siblings, in Torres’ congressional district, when he was detained last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, after attending a routine court hearing, Chalkbeat first reported Monday.

Dylan’s arrest was part of an ongoing nationwide immigration enforcement blitz where government lawyers move to dismiss immigration cases, which allows ICE agents to arrest migrants on the spot in courthouses and place them in an “expedited removal” process that affords fewer legal protections, according to lawyers and numerous news reports.

His case has sparked outrage among many local elected officials, some of whom are planning to rally alongside advocates outside the city Education Department’s Manhattan headquarters on Thursday for his release. Mayor Eric Adams has been notably muted, maintaining that federal immigration actions are not his responsibility and declining to commit to push for Dylan’s release.

Torres, a Bronx democrat, is the first federal elected official to publicly intervene on Dylan’s behalf.

Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres

In his Wednesday letter to ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Torres expressed “deep concern” about Dylan’s arrest, saying it “has left his school, his community, and even me — his elected Congressional representative — shocked and searching for answers.”

Torres asked immigration officials to explain why Dylan was detained and how his removal “serve[s] the public interest or promote[s] public safety.” He also sought “confirmation that Dylan’s full legal rights are being upheld,” including “access to counsel, medical care, and the opportunity to contest his removal.”

Federal officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Torres’ letter. A DHS official previously said regarding Dylan’s case that former President Joseph Biden erred in allowing migrants like Dylan to enter the country and “ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been.”

Detainees under expedited removal face interviews with asylum officers to decide whether they face “credible fear” of returning to their home country — though Dylan’s lawyers noted he had already applied for asylum before his case was dismissed and will likely not have access to representation when he’s interviewed in detention.

Torres said the “basis for his detention hinges on a disturbing trend of deporting those without criminal records and without any evidence of criminal conduct.”

Dylan has “demonstrated extraordinary resilience and responsibility” since arriving in the U.S., Torres wrote, noting that he enrolled full time in public school, got a job, and helped his family move out of a homeless shelter. “He is, by every standard, contributing to his community and making good on the promise of the American dream.”

Dylan has been shuttled between four different states in the days since he was arrested on May 21, according to his mom Raiza and lawyers from the New York Legal Assistance Group, or NYLAG. (Chalkbeat is also withholding Raiza’s last name at her request.) Dylan’s attorneys were first able to make contact with him Wednesday morning — a week after his arrest — and said he was in a detention facility in Pennsylvania.

He suffers from severe stomach issues and said he had not received medical care in detention and had spent most of his time with his hands and feet cuffed, Raiza previously told Chalkbeat.

Torres argued that Dylan’s arrest at a legally mandated court hearing will have a “deeply chilling effect on immigrant communities in my district,” discouraging families from attending court dates and school.

“Dylan’s case sends a message to the people of New York that for the Trump administration, instilling fear in the public is more important than following the law,” the letter continued. “I strongly urge you to review Dylan’s case with fairness, compassion, and common sense. Immigration enforcement should be rooted in public safety, not in punishing young people who are working hard, playing by the rules, and striving to build better lives.”

Read the full letter here:

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Illinois lawmakers pass bill aimed at expanding dual language programs

2025-05-27T17:58:56+00:00

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Illinois lawmakers have passed a bill that will help school districts expand dual language programs, in which students are taught in English and another language throughout the school day.

House Bill 3026 passed the Democratic-controlled Senate along party lines with a 43-12 vote on Thursday. The proposal now heads to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office for final approval.

The bill requires the Illinois State Board of Education to create guidance for school districts interested in establishing new dual language programs or expanding existing programs. The guidance must be completed by Dec. 15, 2026 and would be required to cover topics such as curriculum, instruction, assessment and accountability, and professional development for staff.

State law currently requires school districts to educate English learners through bilingual programs that are designed to help them become proficient in English, but school districts can also implement dual language programs, in which students are taught in both English and another language. This bill does not add requirements, but helps to provide a framework and best practices for school districts thinking about starting a dual language program.

Under the bill, the state board’s Equity Journey Continuum, a data tool used in the state report card to highlight gaps in students’ academic performance, would include dual language education and standards for dual language teachers that focus on hiring, retaining, and professional development. These changes would have to be made by July 1, 2029.

HB 3026 also would require the state board to create new pathways to biliteracy by July 1, 2027 for students before they enter high school. The pathways are a way for districts to acknowledge students who are proficient in English and another language and receive the state seal of biliteracy.

State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, the sponsor of the bill and a Democrat representing southwest Chicago neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs, said in an interview with Chalkbeat that dual language programs are personally important to him because he grew up in a multilingual household speaking Spanish, Arabic, and English. In addition to the academic and economic benefits of being bilingual, he said “simply being proud of your heritage” and keeping one’s language are important.

“I believe that it’s something that would help uplift students across the state, if we’re able to offer them these opportunities,” said Rashid.

While English learners are not the only students to benefit from dual language programs, the number of English learners in the state has grown and now make up 16.4% of Illinois’ student population, roughly 303,166 students, according to the Illinois State Board of Education’s 2024 report card. In 2023, there were 271,983 English learners, or 14.6% of the state’s student population.

Guide for schools to expand dual language programs

Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro, vice president of education policy & research for the Latino Policy Forum, a Chicago-based advocacy organization supportive of the bill, said the groundwork for HB 3026 started in 2023 when lawmakers passed a bill requiring the Illinois State Board of Education to publish a report on dual language programs.

The final report, published in the fall, looked at no-cost, low-cost, and high-cost recommendations to expand dual language programs. HB 3026 has incorporated the no-cost recommendations from the report by requiring the state board to create guidance, adding in new requirements for the state board’s Equity Journey Continuum, and creating new pathways to biliteracy.

“What we wanted to do is write something that could be a resource for someone on the ground to take to their board, to either start or expand dual language,” said Vonderlack-Navarro.

Jorge Macias, a senior advisor for the Latino Policy Forum, worked to establish dual language programs across Chicago Public Schools as the former chief officer of bilingual education.

Macias said the district was “fortunate” to be able to use grant funding for partnerships and to pay for coordinators to work at schools to train educators where programs were launched. He said he hopes funding for schools improve so districts can provide training for teachers in dual language programs.

Chicago Public Schools currently offers dual language programs in 37 elementary schools and three high schools around the district, up from 12 elementary schools with dual language programs in 2016. A spokesperson for the district said in a statement to Chalkbeat that dual language programs often start in preschool or kindergarten and continue through eighth grade with a few options for dual language courses in high school.

A spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Education said in a statement that the board is in support of HB 3026 because it won’t add costs to districts.

“These programs promote bilingualism, biliteracy, high academic achievement, and cross-cultural competency—skills that are critical for college, career, and civic life,” the state board said in the statement “Being bilingual is a superpower, and the expansion of dual language programming will strengthen schools, communities, and the state as a whole.”

Support for English learners dries up at federal level

As the state board, state lawmakers, and education advocates continue to promote policy supporting English learners and literacy in more than one language, the federal government is taking a turn in the opposite direction.

In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating English as the official language of the U.S., which rescinded a policy made under the Clinton administration requiring federal agencies and organizations receiving federal funds to provide language assistance to English learners, according to a White House fact sheet.

The U.S. Department of Education also fired nearly all of the staff working for the department’s Office of English Language Acquisition, an office overseeing support for nearly 5 million English learners in K-12 schools and in higher education, and plans to merge the office with the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.

U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, who represents Illinois’ 4th District, which includes Chicago and nearby suburbs, along with three other Democratic Congress members said in a letter to the Education Department that the administration’s recent action for the Office of English Language Acquisition was “an outright attack” on English learners.

Still, Illinois advocates hope that dual language programs will have bipartisan support, since they serve all students and have some academic benefits for students.

“In a time when programs that are solely for English learners might be under attack, dual language is a program that we can reframe the conversation and bring people from all walks of life into the conversation,” said Erika Méndez, director of pre-K to 12 education policy at the Latino Policy Forum.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

A Bronx high schooler showed up for a routine immigration court date. ICE was waiting.

2025-05-27T00:35:33+00:00

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The Bronx high school student from Venezuela was trying to do everything right.

Dylan, 20, fled his home country last year and turned himself in at the U.S. border in April 2024 through a Biden-era entry program. He requested asylum and was permitted to enter the country while he awaited a court date, allowing him to obtain a work permit and driver’s learner permit, according to his lawyers and his mom, Raiza.

He joined his mom and two younger siblings in the Bronx, finding part-time work as a delivery driver to help Raiza scrape together enough money to move the family out of a city-run homeless shelter and into their own apartment.

And even though he had already finished high school in Venezuela, he enrolled in a Bronx high school that caters to older newcomers, determined to continue studying and make it to college.

Dylan’s return: NYC’s first public school student detained by ICE returns to school after 10 months

So when Dylan’s mandatory court date arrived last Wednesday, he and Raiza had little hesitation about showing up in person as instructed in lower Manhattan, assuming it would be a routine check-in, according to Raiza, who asked to use only their first names for fear of retaliation from immigration authorities.

Instead, Raiza said, Dylan, who attended the court hearing without a lawyer, unwittingly relinquished his legal protections and was promptly arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents who followed him out of the courtroom and into the courthouse lobby.

Dylan’s arrest was part of a nationwide blitz. In courthouses across the country, government lawyers asked judges to dismiss cases against migrants, then immediately reopened them as “expedited removal” cases — allowing authorities to apprehend their targets on the spot and thrust them into a sped-up deportation process with fewer legal checks, according to lawyers and numerous news reports.

“It seems like a dirty game on their part,” Raiza told Chalkbeat in Spanish. “When someone appears in front of a judge, it’s because they don’t have any criminal record, they want to do the right thing. … The only thing he wants is to study.”

The arrest has sent shockwaves through ELLIS Prep, the tight-knit Bronx high school Dylan attends, and is the first known example of a current New York City public school student detained by ICE during Trump’s second administration, according to several immigration advocates and educators.

At a Bronx school for immigrants, an undocumented teen fights for an education under Trump

ELLIS Prep Principal Norma Vega gathered staff members last Friday to tell them about Dylan. “One of our kids was taken,” she said.

Vega said she’s been heartened by the support Dylan is already receiving and hopes to organize more efforts to fight for his release. “They thought he was easy pickings and [a] nobody … [but] there are a lot of people out there willing to support.”

In a statement in response to a Chalkbeat inquiry and later posted to social media, schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said, “Our hearts go out to the student who was detained by ICE, and we are deeply saddened for their family. While this incident did not occur on school grounds, we want to reassure our families: we will continue to speak out and advocate for the safety, dignity, and rights of all of our students.”

In the five days since he was detained on May 21, Dylan, who suffers from severe stomach issues, has been shuttled between four different states — New Jersey, Texas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania, according to his lawyers and mom.

As Trump’s deportation campaign grows, a Bronx school and undocumented teen face tough choices

The rapid moves have prevented his lawyers from making contact with him, since it usually takes several days after a transfer to set up a consultation, according to an attorney from the New York Legal Assistance Group, or NYLAG, which is representing Dylan. Raiza, who has spoken to Dylan by phone, said he has not received medical care and has spent most of the time with his hands and feet cuffed.

ICE did not respond to Chalkbeat’s inquiry about Dylan’s case.

A grueling journey leads to more struggle and hope

Dylan’s family is part of a historic wave of migrants arriving in New York City in recent years. Raiza first took her two younger kids — now ages 7 and 10 — through the dangerous Darien Gap in 2023. But she couldn’t afford Dylan’s trip at the time, and he had to undertake the journey on his own a year later.

The experience was traumatic. Dylan was kidnapped in Mexico by the notorious Sinaloa cartel and held for ransom, Raiza said.

Once she secured his release, Dylan entered the country with an appointment through the CBP One App, a Biden-era program recently revoked by Trump that was meant to formalize and streamline the process of entering the country. Dylan was allowed to enter the U.S. while he awaited his first court date, and he applied — without the help of a lawyer — for asylum and for Special Immigration Juvenile Status, a type of legal protection for youth, according to his attorney at NYLAG.

Dylan’s legal status allowed him to qualify for both a work authorization and a driver’s permit, according to his mom. He was able to buy his own e-bike and work part time as a delivery driver.

Life in the U.S. wasn’t easy for his family. His mom worked multiple jobs — including selling chocolate, cleaning apartments, and assisting a carpenter — to help move her family out of the homeless shelter where they were staying in the Bronx. Then Raiza said she almost lost thousands of dollars in an apartment rental scam and only recovered some of it back after threatening to call the police.

Dylan struggled to balance work and school, at one point considering dropping out until the school and Raiza intervened, she said. And most recently, Dylan was struggling with severe bouts of illness that kept him out of school, Raiza added. Dylan was in the process of getting additional medical testing when he was detained, Raiza said.

But despite all of their struggles, Raiza was proud of the life she and her children forged in New York City.

Dylan, third from left, poses with his mom and younger siblings.

“The only thing I want is a better future for them,” said Raiza. “Unfortunately, my country doesn’t lend itself to that.”

All three kids loved their schools. Dylan, a homebody with little interest in partying, took an active role in caring for his younger siblings as Raiza worked long hours. He picked them up from school and corrected their behavior when necessary, she said.

And Dylan, who often wears his black hair shaggy and shoulder-length, won many admirers among staff and students at ELLIS for his shy but kind demeanor. One classmate recalled him freely sharing his arepas, a popular Venezuelan dish of fried cornmeal stuffed with meat or cheese. Dylan used to play Uno at lunch with a group of friends and was interested in learning the guitar in music class, his guidance counselor said.

A court date turns into handcuffs

Normally, a court date like Dylan’s would have been relatively straightforward. But when Dylan and his mom arrived at immigration court at 290 Broadway in lower Manhattan, the government lawyers made an unusual request. They asked the judge to dismiss the deportation proceedings against Dylan, according to his mom and lawyers.

But when Dylan’s deportation proceedings were dismissed, his asylum claim was too, leaving him without legal protection and allowing the government to initiate an expedited removal.

If the family had a lawyer present, they might have been able to oppose the request to dismiss, or might have more fully understood the possible repercussions, said Dylan’s NYLAG attorneys. But Raiza said she had looked in vain for an attorney before the hearing and could not afford a private one.

After Dylan’s case was dismissed, Raiza said two men entered the courtroom and then followed her and Dylan outside and into the elevator.

“When we got out of the elevator, they said, ‘get up against the wall,’” Raiza recalled. Next to them, another girl was screaming while she was detained, recalled Raiza, who was also cuffed initially. She pleaded with the officers that Dylan had no criminal record, and told them she has young kids at home. The officers released Raiza, but took Dylan into an unmarked car, she said.

Raiza and her son Dylan.

The practice of making arrests at courthouses “will cause fear and cause people to be afraid to go to hearings and to assert their right to asylum,” said Dylan’s lawyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his case. But missing a court date can also lead to a deportation order, she noted.

The hours after Dylan’s arrest were a blur of activity as Raiza tried in vain to get more information about Dylan’s detention. She called her son’s guidance counselor, Hedin Bernard, at ELLIS Prep, who referred her to a church that could help connect her with legal representation and case management.

Under expedited removal proceedings, which do not require a hearing with a judge, Dylan will have an interview with an asylum officer about whether he has “credible fear” of returning to Venezuela, and his answers could determine whether he has any legal basis to remain in the country. He likely won’t have access to a lawyer during the process, his attorneys said.

That means Dylan will essentially have to start the process of applying for asylum “all over again, but detained and alone,” said his attorney.

According to Raiza, Dylan has no close family left in Venezuela, and she worries that he could be imprisoned by the government if he returns. “This is what I despair about,” she said. “It’s not going to turn out well.”

Dylan’s lawyers said there are multiple reasons his detention and the attempt at expedited removal are legally dubious. There is an ongoing lawsuit challenging whether people who entered the country in the same way as Dylan can be placed in expedited removal. And his lawyers say Dylan has an upcoming hearing in his request for Special Juvenile Immigration Status.

Dylan’s detention has devastated his two elementary-age siblings, who see him as “a dad,” said Raiza.

When Raiza didn’t come home on time the day Dylan was detained, her younger kids began frantically calling. She had to break the news by phone.

“The boy started to cry desperately … they were just asking, ‘when is he going to return?’” she said. “I told them that their brother was taken by ICE, to keep up their faith in God that everything is going to be okay, and that they should pray, because God listens to kids.”

Dylan has put on a brave face during her phone calls with him, Raiza said, but she knows he’s scared.

As for Raiza, her grueling journey to the U.S. has made her fearless about most things. Except for one: “The only thing I’m scared of is something happening to my kids,” she said. “I don’t want to lose my son.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Democratic lawmakers want to restore federal office that serves English learners

2025-04-22T19:40:32+00:00

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A top Illinois congressman is calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to reverse recent changes to the U.S. Department of Education office that provides support to over 5 million English learners nationwide.

In a letter sent Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García from Illinois, along with Democratic Reps. Juan Vargas of California, and Grace Meng and Adriano Espaillat of New York, called the recent firings of nearly all staff in the department’s Office of English Language Acquisition and the department’s plan to merge the department with the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education “an outright attack” on English learners. The “reduction in force” happened in March when the Education Department announced it was cutting staff by half.

The letter also called the abrupt change to the office “legally dubious” since the office was created by statute. In federal law, the Education Department is required to have a director over the Office of English Language Acquisition to oversee bilingual education programs and report directly to the department’s secretary. While the Education Department can shrink the office, it is not able to eliminate the office without congressional approval.

The Democratic lawmakers not only want the department to reverse the firing of the staffers in the Office of English Language Acquisition, but they also want to see the office operate as an independent office as it has in the past and to ensure that the office is enforcing federal Title III requirements, which are meant to ensure that English learners gain proficiency in English and meet academic standards.

The group of lawmakers wrote that merging the Office of English Language Acquisition with the already “stretched thin” Office of Elementary and Secondary Education “signals a blatant disregard for the needs of English Learners and will have catastrophic consequences.”

According to the letter, the office of English Language Acquisition was responsible for allocating $890 million in funding to schools through Title III and oversight into programs such as the Native American and Alaska Native Children in Schools grants to help native children learn English alongside indigenous languages, the National Professional Development grants program to address the bilingual educator shortage, and the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition, an online resource with data, research, and best practices for schools to support English learners.

Education Department officials told state education leaders in March that money for Title III will continue to flow to schools and there would not be any disruptions to programs.

English learners make up 16.4% of Illinois’ student population, roughly 303,166 students, according to the Illinois State Board of Education’s 2024 report card. The state received $56 million in Title III funding this school year.

Nationwide, there were over 5 million English learners in the fall of 2021, according to the National Statistics for Education Statistics. The federal government appropriated $890 million in Title III funds in fiscal year 2024.

The lawmakers who signed the letter want McMahon to answer their questions by April 30 regarding next steps for the Office of English Language Acquisition.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Trump Education Department decimates office serving 5 million English learners in public schools

2025-03-21T19:35:02+00:00

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President Donald Trump has declared English the official language of the United States.

But his administration has fired nearly every Education Department staffer who ensured states and schools properly spent the hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked to help over 5 million students learning English.

It appears that just one staffer remains from the Office of English Language Acquisition, or OELA, after the Trump administration announced last week it would cut the Education Department staff in half.

“Your organizational unit is being abolished along with all positions within the unit – including yours,” an official with the department’s human resources team told the laid-off OELA staffers in a March 12 email.

Two days later, an administration official told state officials that the department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education would take over the OELA.

Advocates for English learners and outgoing Education Department staffers worry the deep cuts to OELA will have serious effects on students, families, and school staff. Without a dedicated office to keep an eye on spending, they fear federal dollars won’t reach the English learners they’re intended to serve, and that the quality of teacher training will suffer.

“There won’t be any more staff to provide guardrails on the federal funding,” said one laid-off OELA staffer who spoke with Chalkbeat on the condition of anonymity because they fear retaliation from the Trump administration. “Ultimately, it will affect the quality of education that English learners get across the nation.”

Among those expressing concerns is an official who led the OELA — and helped maintain it as a standalone office — during Trump’s first term.

Adding to the uncertainty is Trump’s executive order that he said will close the Education Department. The president said Thursday before he signed the order that the federal government will preserve high-profile programs at the department, but did not mention its office for English learners.

OELA staff have played a key role in monitoring how states and schools spend $890 million in federal Title III funds, which are allocated based on the number of newly arrived immigrant children and students learning English. When states and schools have questions about whether they can use their money on a certain after-school program or a new family liaison role, OELA staff track down the answers.

The office supports dozens of universities, nonprofits, and others who train bilingual education teachers. It oversees a grant program that helps Native American and Alaska Native children learn English alongside indigenous languages.

And the staff maintain the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition, a hub for data, research, and best practices that many schools rely on. Some resources, like a recently released dual language playbook, take over a year to produce.

OELA had 15 staffers in January, according to a staff list posted on the Education Department’s website. The team already had more work than it could handle before the mass layoffs, said Montserrat Garibay, who led OELA during the Biden administration and left her role as the assistant deputy secretary shortly before Trump took office.

“They were overworked,” Garibay said. “It was almost impossible to keep up.”

Hayley Sanon, the acting assistant secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, told state education officials in a March 14 letter that her office would manage Title III funds for English learners, as it did prior to December 2023.

She also said formula funding under the nation’s main federal education law, which includes money for English learners, “will continue to flow normally, and program functions will not be disrupted.”

“The Department is committed to fulfilling its statutory obligation to prepare English learners attain (sic) English proficiency and develop high levels of academic achievement in English,” wrote Sanon, who is also the principal deputy assistant secretary at the department.

In response to questions from Chalkbeat, Madi Biedermann, the Education Department’s deputy assistant secretary for communications, reiterated that Title III and OELA would now fall under the elementary and secondary education office. But Biedermann did not respond to questions about why or how many OELA staff are left.

Students learning English have often been denied help

In addition to decimating the English language acquisition office, the Trump administration has eliminated nearly 200 civil rights attorneys who would make sure school districts meet their legal obligations to support English learners.

Some see the elimination of staff who oversee Title III as a precursor to bundling up that money in block grants that states could spend with fewer restrictions. Several Republican governors have championed that idea, but advocates for immigrant children worry that could divert resources away from kids learning English.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon, center, attended the March 20 ceremony at which Trump signed an executive order seeking to close the Education Department. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, center second row, has championed the idea of giving states education block grants.

“There’s plenty of districts and states who would do the right thing,” said David Holbrook, the executive director of the National Association of English Learner Program Administrators, which represents state and district staff. “But the reason we have laws, and the reason we see all the regulations, and the reason we have watchdog agencies” is because some would not.

In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled in Lau v. Nichols that the San Francisco Unified district violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act by failing to provide supplemental English language classes to students of Chinese heritage who did not speak English. The ruling led to significant changes in federal law and regulations, and spurred nationwide efforts to help English learners.

Several school districts, including Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco, entered into court-ordered settlements, known as consent decrees, to better serve English learners. But progress has been slow and uneven, and many English learners are still denied the services they should receive.

Three decades after those court orders, Chicago schools still did not have enough teachers or materials in native languages for English learners. In Denver, nearly 1 in 3 students failed to improve their English skills after two years in the district, test results showed.

Concerns about such issues aren’t confined to students’ English language skills and academic proficiency. Some advocates for English learners worry that Trump’s executive order declaring English as the official language of the United States could lead schools to put less effort into translating documents and conversations for immigrant families.

Then there’s the backdrop of how the president is enforcing immigration policy and who gets to remain in the country legally.

Trump is seeking to deport millions of immigrants who do not have legal status in the country, and he cleared the way for immigration arrests to happen at schools. He’s taken away the temporary status that protected hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians from deportation. And Trump has pledged to strip birthright citizenship from children born to undocumented parents on U.S. soil.

Office helped train teachers and supported immigrant families

A dozen OELA staffers got notices that they would be placed on administrative leave as of Friday and terminated in June, according to the union that represents Education Department staffers who are not supervisors.

Two staffers listed in the January directory whose names did not appear on the union layoffs list had phone numbers that no longer worked. Another staffer had an email autoreply saying she was on extended leave.

“I looked at that list and I looked at all of the names on it and I realized: Oh that’s our entire office,” the laid-off OELA staffer said.

That seems to leave only the deputy assistant secretary, Beatriz Ceja, who was still responding to emails from organizations that work with English learners as of last week. Ceja did not respond to an email message or a voicemail from Chalkbeat seeking comment.

The Education Department layoffs are being challenged or questioned on multiple fronts. Twenty-one state attorneys general filed a lawsuit on March 13 challenging the staff cuts, and several members of Congress are probing them. Sheria Smith, a civil rights attorney who was among the laid-off Education Department staffers and president of the union that represents a dozen fired OELA staffers, said she did not think the layoffs complied with the law.

The first Trump administration tried to fold OELA into the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education back in 2018, but the plan ultimately did not come to fruition.

José Viana, who led OELA during the first Trump administration, told Chalkbeat in a written message that he is concerned about the cuts to OELA and “engaged in diplomacy efforts” with the new Trump administration.

“My focus right now is on providing guidance regarding the decisions that have been made, outlining the legal requirements, and working toward solutions that best support multilingual learners,” he wrote.

Oversight of Title III returned to OELA just over a year ago during the Biden administration. The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education oversaw Title III funds for 15 years before that.

Garibay led that transition and added four staffers to the team that handled Title III. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona saw the previous staffing level of two as “unacceptable,” Garibay said.

“We put systems in place so we could have better communication,” Garibay said. “Every time I would go to a state, they were just so grateful to have technical assistance.”

There can be benefits to the elementary and secondary education office overseeing Title III, because it can make federal program monitoring more consistent and cut down on some duplicative tasks, Holbrook said. But he also highlighted fears that existing staff won’t have the capacity to take on OELA’s workload.

One of the key roles OELA plays is in supporting universities, nonprofits, and others who train teachers who work with English learners.

Belinda Gimbert, an associate professor in education administration at The Ohio State University, has experienced that firsthand.

Gimbert is the project director for HELPERs, a program that helps pre-service teachers and paraprofessionals get their bilingual education teaching license and that trains existing teachers to work with English learners in small groups.

It also provides support for immigrant families, such as family-school connectors who translate over video chat — a key strategy for engaging Somali parents in central Ohio who speak Maay Maay, which is primarily an oral language. The program received a $3 million, five-year grant from OELA.

When Gimbert had a technical or financial question, she could shoot an email to OELA and they were quick to respond. If she didn’t understand a legal requirement, OELA staff would translate it into plain English and explain what it meant for her program.

Several times, OELA helped Gimbert quickly add a partner so she could serve more Texas schools without going over her original budget. That helped meet the sudden demand for adults to provide English language acquisition services when a wave of immigrant children moved to an area or military families relocated near a base.

“We’ve always had a person to lean on to be able to administer this grant,” Gimbert said. “Everybody is really concerned about making sure that we are in compliance.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado teachers need help teaching English learners to read. The state wants more training.

2025-03-12T02:59:14+00:00

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While Colorado is seeing some improvement in reading instruction, some students continue to struggle.

As a result, the Colorado Department of Education is seeking $3.3 million in the 2025-26 education budget to create new training for teachers to teach English learners to read. It would be used to help teachers differentiate instruction for those students.

State officials say it’s a common request they’ve heard from the field.

English learners advocates have raised concerns for years about how literacy instruction policies affect students who are simultaneously learning English as a new language. Recently, academic achievement data has raised more concerns about how English learner students are performing. And, a recent national study published last month found that many teachers are unhappy with guidance on how to teach reading to English learners.

“Teachers want to more deeply understand how to support this group of students and we want to provide them with that training,” said Joanna Bruno, CDE chief academic officer.

It’s not about teaching something different from what science of reading research tells teachers is effective, Bruno said. The science of reading is a large body of research on how children learn to read that emphasizes teaching phonics, or the relationships between letters and sounds.

Rather, Bruno said it’s about providing additional support so that students get more practice with the language to develop their vocabulary, learn the meaning of the words they are decoding, and also get more opportunities to write, and hear the pronunciation of words and sentences.

“It needs to be an active classroom,” Bruno said.

In the current school year, about 12% of Colorado’s public school students, or more than 105,000 students, are identified as either having limited or no English proficiency, an increase from previous years.

Report says teachers face challenges in the classroom

Similar teacher needs are represented in the new nationwide survey of 77 teachers published last month by the National Committee for Effective Literacy. Co-authors Kathy Escamilla and Kim Strong, both researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, said they wanted to get an idea by asking teachers how science of reading polices and statutes were being implemented in classrooms with English learners.

Researchers found that, in many places, phonics literacy requirements are encroaching or replacing the required time for English language development, and that materials are not culturally inclusive or relevant.

But, Claude Goldenberg, another English learner researcher who wasn’t involved in the study, said that the published report was concerning, unclear, and that it appeared biased, in part because teachers were recruited for interviews at the conferences hosted by the same English learner advocacy groups that criticize new phonics-based reading instruction policies.

Goldenberg said he agrees that reading policies are inadequate in addressing the needs of English learners, but that the report doesn’t allow for a clear takeaway on the problem at the root of teacher experiences.

“The issues they identify, is that the fault of the science of reading, or the science, the knowledge, what we know? Or is it the fault of superficial and inadequate understanding of that knowledge base and how it’s being implemented?” Goldenberg said. “We don’t know what to do with it.”

Escamilla said the report isn’t meant to be critical of the science.

Instead she believes there is likely a gap between theory and practice. She said advocates in Colorado have asked lawmakers to reconsider reworking the state’s statute directing reading instruction.

She said if lawmakers can agree, “this isn’t what we had in mind, the kids aren’t getting what they need, they’re spending too much time doing this and not enough time doing that,” then, “help us craft a statewide policy that is more friendly and more equitable to what kids need.”

The state has responded to feedback

Bruno said the department hears similar feedback from Colorado teachers. She said the department is trying to help districts understand that literacy instruction should not replace English language development time for students learning English as a new language or other academic courses.

In Colorado, English learner researchers, including some involved in the recent survey report, called on state officials to make changes in 2020, worrying that as the state drilled down on science of reading that it would mean a phonics-only focus that would harm English learners.

Since then, the department responded by creating specific guidance for school districts about how to implement literacy instruction for students learning English as a new language, created a rubric to evaluate Spanish-language literacy materials, and hired a liaison to help the department’s different offices work together to think more about multilingual learners.

The department also created a series of professional development courses to help teachers understand more about biliteracy, and started a new State of the State report that looks at how English learners are performing, as a way to more closely monitor and find best practices.

“It’s baby steps,” Escamilla said. “We fought hard in Colorado, but well, the outcomes speak for themselves. We have some real things we need to work on with regard to how we’re looking at outcomes for kids who are learning English as an additional language.”

Education department budget request documents cite the most recent external evaluation of the program from October 2024, which found bright spots in how the READ Act is working, including that the number of students newly identified as having a significant reading deficiency has decreased to 4.7% of students. The READ Act is a Colorado law, first passed in 2012 updated since, that makes certain requirements of school districts related to reading instruction.

However, English learners continue to be over-represented among students with a significant reading deficiency, according to the budget request. And, students who have a significant reading deficiency identified between kindergarten and third grade, have “extraordinarily low” rates of proficiency on literacy tests.

Those numbers suggest, “a need to emphasize increased training on strategies to support ELLs alongside their English speaking peers,” the budget request stated.

At a hearing last week to discuss the budget request, State Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, a Republican representing Weld and Larimer counties, questioned when to decide that funding reading programs isn’t working.

Amanda Bickel, the budget analyst speaking to the joint budget committee, responded that staff would like to see if more training might have an impact on outcomes before they decide that millions spent on reading initiatives aren’t working.

“You have put in a lot of effort so far,” said Bickel, chief legislative analyst.

The legislative staff recommended that the line item be approved if money remained after using COVID relief funds this year.

The committee approved the recommendation for the $3.3 million request, contingent on money remaining, by a 3 to 2 vote.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Should NYC’s specialized high school test come in other languages? Manhattan parent council says no.

2025-01-28T00:17:01+00:00

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A Manhattan parent council debated — and rejected — a resolution earlier this month urging New York City’s Education Department to translate the admissions test for the city’s eight coveted specialized high schools into languages other than English.

The resolution, which failed by a vote of 5-3 in the Community Education Council for Manhattan’s District 2, was only advisory and would not have shifted the city’s existing policy.

But it sparked a public discussion about an aspect of the exam that’s gotten comparatively little attention, and it raised broader questions about the dearth of English language learners in the specialized high schools, which include Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.

“There’s definitely underrepresentation of [English learners] in these schools,” said Gavin Healy, a council member who co-sponsored the resolution following a story from Chalkbeat highlighting the barriers for newly arrived immigrants seeking admission to specialized high schools. “This has been an ongoing problem.”

Last school year, just four of the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in the eight specialized high schools, or 0.03%, were classified as English learners, according to city data. That’s in a school system where roughly 148,000 students, or 16.3% of the population, are learning English — a share that’s been growing as the city absorbs tens of thousands of migrant families.

The exam, which is enshrined in state law as the sole entry criterion for the specialized high schools, is currently offered only in English, though students still learning the language can get glossaries with translations of key terms and extra time on the test.

The city Education Department didn’t respond to a question about the CEC 2 resolution, but previously told Chalkbeat they believe that translating the test into other languages would violate state law mandating the use of a single, standard exam for admissions to the specialized schools.

Translating the exam would “risk making test questions either easier or more difficult, which would compromise the validity of comparable scores across exams,” a department spokesperson said.

Last year, roughly 900 English learners took the specialized high school test, and fewer than six got in. (The Education Department suppresses data for groups that small, so the precise number isn’t shared.)

It wasn’t immediately clear how many current specialized high school students were considered English Learners at one point in their school career and have now tested out of that designation. About 47% of specialized high school students last year spoke English as a home language, compared to about 52% of all city public high school students, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of city data.

Healy pointed out that the test the city previously used for admissions to elementary gifted and talented programs was offered in multiple languages. Several of the Regents exams required for high school graduation, including Algebra I, Global History, and Living Environment, are offered in multiple languages, though the English Language Arts test is not.

But Leonard Silverman, the vice president of CEC 2, who voted against the resolution, argued that while students entering the gifted program have years to improve their English, students entering the specialized high schools need to have a strong command of the language right away.

“The schools we’re talking about … are some of the most rigorous in the city. And their curriculums are administered in English,” he said.

Manpreet Bopari, another council member who opposed the resolution, added that “if students take the SHSAT in their native languages, even if they pass they’re likely to struggle with the day-to-day realities of English-only curriculum, so this sets them up for frustration and failure rather than success.”

Bopari said she was an English learner in middle school and didn’t take the SHSAT in part because of language barriers but “succeeded in other ways.” She urged the city to focus “not on lowering barriers but in equipping our [English learner] students with the tools they need to overcome them.”

Schools are required under federal law to provide accommodations for students learning English, including by hiring specialized teachers. But the extra funding schools rely on to hire those additional teachers comes from enrolling English learners, making it difficult to build up support without first enrolling the students who need that support.

That dilemma is familiar to students with disabilities, who are also significantly underrepresented at the specialized high schools and have often struggled to access the services to which they’re entitled.

Healy countered that while it might be challenging at first for students still learning English, they should have the option to make that choice themselves.

“It felt to me there’s a lot of kids who are capable of doing this work,” he said, “who probably aren’t getting a chance to do it.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

‘Everyone is scared’: Deportation fears keep immigrant students home from NYC schools

2025-01-24T21:00:49+00:00

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This article is part of an ongoing collaboration between Chalkbeat and THE CITY.

Hallways at the Stewart Hotel, a midtown Manhattan shelter for migrant families, are typically bustling on weekday mornings with kids and parents on their way to school.

They were eerily empty on Thursday morning.

A similar scene played out at the nearby Roosevelt Hotel shelter and intake center, where a line of migrant families waiting to get back inside following school pickup was far shorter than normal Thursday afternoon. The majority of kids stayed home “because of that fear,” said one father in Spanish.

And in Bushwick, Brooklyn, one dad who warily sent his kids to school said he was in the minority of families at the shelter to do so.

“Almost nobody is sending their kids [to school] in case they’re taken,” said Amanda, a Venezuelan mother staying at the Stewart who kept her three children out of school all week and asked to use only her first name out of fear of jeopardizing her immigration case. She estimated that about 100 kids at the shelter stayed out of school this week. “Everyone is scared.”

On high alert after President Donald Trump’s inauguration this week and worried about his promise to fast-track deportations, scores of immigrant families kept their kids home from school, multiple parents said.

Educators are working hard to reassure anxious parents that their kids will be safe in school, according to interviews with eight school leaders, as the New York City’s Education Department prohibits federal law enforcement agents from entering schools except under narrow circumstances. But they’re also grappling with how to quell concerns at a time when federal action seems to be ramping up by the day.

As soon as Trump took office, he rescinded a longstanding internal policy prohibiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, from making arrests at “sensitive locations” like churches and schools, further heightening fears for families. His pledge to begin mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants nationwide hit close to home on Thursday when immigration officers launched a workplace raid across the Hudson River in Newark. Chicago Public Schools officials said Friday that agents showed up at a Chicago elementary school but school staff barred them from entering.

It’s difficult to know how many families across the five boroughs are keeping their kids out of school because of deportation fears. An estimated 48,000 newcomers have enrolled in city schools since summer 2022.

Daily attendance, which averaged 90% last year, dipped to the mid-80s on Tuesday and Wednesday before rebounding to 89% Thursday, according to daily attendance data from the Education Department, though other factors including the frigid temperatures and Regents Exams administration for high schoolers likely played a role.

Some educators are sounding the alarm that fears of immigration enforcement could keep kids out of school in large numbers — and will take a psychological toll on the kids who do show up.

“I cannot tell you how many parents have come to me today … Kids don’t want to come to school,” a parent coordinator at a Corona, Queens, school with a large immigrant population, told Mayor Eric Adams at a town hall this week. “Kids are scared to leave home and not come back to see their parents.”

“We are very clear, children should go to school,” Adams responded. “We are going to continue to stand up for all New Yorkers, documented and undocumented.”

But Adams has also cultivated an increasingly close relationship with Trump, sitting down with his “Border Czar” to discuss shared priorities, visiting Trump in Mar-A-Lago, and attending the inauguration in Washington, D.C., on Monday. Adams, who was indicted on federal corruption charges last year and could theoretically receive a pardon from Trump, has said his efforts to cooperate with the new administration are for the benefit of the city, and that his focus for immigration enforcement is on people who have committed crimes.

The mayor has said he will not criticize Trump publicly, and declined to take a stance on Trump’s decision to open the door to ICE making arrests at schools — a position some educators said undercuts his attempts to reassure educators and immigrant families.

“I didn’t feel like my institution was being protected,” said Lorenzo Chambers, the principal of P.S. 279 in Brooklyn, referring to Adams’ response to a question about immigration enforcement at schools and other sensitive locations. “I think [he’s] playing politics with it — and he’s on both sides.”

Principals struggle to reassure wary families

Principals are preparing guidance counselors to work with students who fear that their families could be deported, hosting information sessions with families about their rights, and reminding school staff of city rules that forbid sharing information with federal immigration officials or providing access to the building without a warrant.

One Manhattan middle school principal fielded an early morning phone call this week from a mother worried about traveling to drop off her daughter. The principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear that his school could be targeted by immigration officials, reassured the mom that despite the end of the federal policy limiting immigration arrests at schools, he would do everything possible to protect students.

“ICE is going to have to arrest me before they arrest your daughter,” he told the mom, adding that they would lock her daughter in his office if needed. The mother ended up bringing her child to school.

Dan Steinberg, co-principal of Harlem Link Charter School, said the school is making sure that it has accurate contact information for families in the event that immigration officials arrive and the school needs to quickly reach caregivers.

“We hope nothing happens but we can’t promise families that no one is going to show up,” Steinberg said.

Several migrant parents at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown the city has used as its migrant arrival center since 2023 said workers at the shelter hadn’t offered much reassurance about potential immigration raids as families tried to piece together information from news reports, social media posts, and panicked conversations in WhatsApp groups.

Even parents who said that their children’s schools had clearly communicated their plans to protect students said that they weren’t convinced.

A group of migrant students wait for a bus across from the Stewart Hotel shelter in Midtown on the way to school, Jan. 24, 2025.

“They tell us to bring them, that they’ll be safe,” said one Venezuelan mother at the Stewart, another midtown hotel being used as a shelter.

“But we’re very scared, so better to wait a couple days to see what happens, continued the mother, who declined to share her name for fear of immigration consequences.

Most school leaders said they felt the guidance from the city Education Department has been helpful and clear. But that doesn’t make it any less bewildering trying to keep up with the fast-changing news at the federal level.

“I don’t know how prepared you can be when every day you’re hearing something else,” said a principal at a Manhattan school that’s enrolled many migrant students, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to talk to the media.

Attendance struggles predate this week

While several principals said it’s too early to tell whether attendance has taken a big hit this week because of immigration concerns, some noted attendance barriers for migrant students that pre-dated Trump. Those include housing instability and the city’s 60-day shelter eviction policy, which often results in families moving around the city and missing days of school at a time as they struggle to settle in and secure transportation, principals said. (City officials recently said they’re amending the policy to give families who have already gotten one 60-day notice a reprieve). Kids are also often pulled out of school for obligations like court dates.

One Manhattan principal said families sometimes depart the city without notice, leaving the school responsible for verifying that they’ve enrolled in a new school before discharging them. The principal added that they worried that more families are “going to go into hiding” now that Trump is in office.

Missing even a few extra days of school can feel like a big setback for kids still trying to settle in and learn a new language.

Samantha, a first-grader staying at the Stewart, said she enjoys reading, writing, and drawing at school, but has resorted to watching her tablet all day this week since her mom has kept her home because of deportation fears.

A mom of a 4-year-old who hasn’t been to school this week said, “It’s very difficult because she’s used to her friends, to playing.”

For the families who did decide to send their kids, the decision often came with intense anxiety.

Gleinjer, a Venezuelan mother of three at the Stewart, decided to send her kids to school Thursday after initially keeping them home. Her oldest, an eighth-grader, made sure to plug in her cellphone fully the night before so she could contact her mom in case immigration officials showed up, Gleinjer said.

“She said, ‘Mommy, I charged my phone. … Anything happens, and I will call you,’” Gleinjer said in Spanish. “She’s scared.” (That underscored recent concerns from State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa about how a looming statewide ban of cell phones in schools could limit communication between migrant caregivers and their children.)

Jehinzo Gonzalez, the father of two school-aged children at a shelter in Bushwick, said he’s continued to take the kids to school even as leaving them there now fills him with dread. He’s photocopied his kids’ asylum paperwork and other immigration documents to keep in their backpacks.

On a recent afternoon they were a few minutes late at dismissal and he panicked.

“I was scared, I was worried. I didn’t know if something had happened,” he said. “So it’s true it’s causing so much anguish, and there’s such fear and uncertainty. But we keep fighting, and hoping that things will turn out OK.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Gwynne Hogan covers Brooklyn for THE CITY.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s student enrollment declines again, but more metro area districts saw growth

2025-01-15T16:00:32+00:00

Enrollment in Colorado public schools declined more slowly than in past years, while several districts in the Denver metro area saw gains.

The October 2024 enrollment count, which the state uses to determine how much money each school district receives, showed Colorado public schools with 881,065 students, down 0.1% from 881,464 a year earlier, according to data released Wednesday by the Colorado Department of Education.

In a sign of longer-term trends, early grades have far smaller numbers of students than the high school grades, the data showed. For example, Colorado has 74,727 students in 12th grade preparing to graduate this spring, and 69,455 students in the class behind them. Meanwhile, this year’s kindergarten class has just 58,604 students.

Preschools run by school districts have 31,861 students this year, down almost 200 students from last year.

The state demographer expects the statewide decline to continue through about 2028, due partly to declines in both birth rates and migration to the state.

Some metro area districts that had been experiencing declining enrollment recorded an increase. Of 15 districts in the Denver metro area, seven had an increase in enrollment, compared with just three that did last year. The new gainers were Cherry Creek, Mapleton, Westminster, and Englewood.

Even so, only one metro area district — the 27J school district based in Brighton — now has more students than it did in 2019, before the start of the pandemic.

Statewide, of 186 districts and BOCES, just 63 had an increase in enrollment from the previous year, while 119 had a decrease, and four had flat enrollment. In 2023-24, 67 districts had an increase over their previous year’s enrollment.

Under the state’s education funding system, fewer students means fewer dollars, but to give districts more predictability and avoid big changes from year to year, Colorado uses averages of districts’ four most recent years of enrollment.

Gov. Jared Polis is proposing to end that averaging and use the single year’s October count instead to calculate funding levels, a change that many district leaders oppose.

Last year, some districts complained that the October numbers deciding their funding didn’t reflect the many new migrant students with higher needs who enrolled in their districts later in the year. Colorado lawmakers made a one-time adjustment to give some districts additional funding for those new students.

This year, districts aren’t seeing the same midyear influx of migrant students.

Chuck Carpenter, chief financial officer for Denver Public Schools, told the school board at a recent meeting that last year’s influx after October was unusual but that keeping those new migrant students this school year allowed DPS to surpass its enrollment projections.

“We are not seeing continued inflows of students,” Carpenter said. “And we think we are in a normal trend with enrollment right now and going into next year.”

Official October enrollment numbers from the state don’t track how many of the students are new to the country.

But overall, the state saw a rise in the number of students who are labeled as English learners, or “multilingual learners” as the state now calls them. These are students who are learning English as a new language, and not all are migrants.

The enrollment data shows the state’s student population becoming more racially diverse, with the number of students identified as Hispanic growing the most.

Other groups of students that saw an increase in counts this year include students who are identified as homeless. This year, there are 14,498 students identified as homeless, 366 more than last year. These students are spread across the state. Last year, four districts each had more than 1,000 students identified as homeless, which was new, whereas this year, it’s back to only one: Adams 12.

Also, more students enrolled in online or homeschooling programs compared with last year.

Statewide, the number of students eligible for free or reduced-price meals under federal guidelines decreased by more than 2%, or 8,000 students, to 394,765.

In some districts, officials saw large declines in at-risk student populations this year, largely based on that free and reduced-price measure, as a result of changes to Medicaid. Qualifying for Medicaid allows students to be automatically counted as at-risk, but many students have now lost that eligibility.

In Colorado, currently all students receive a free school meal regardless of family income, but families are still encouraged to fill out forms to determine their eligibility under federal guidelines, because it helps the state get more federal money to pay for those free meals, and because it’s used as a measure of poverty.

District leaders have said they’ve seen families continue to fill out the forms, though some school leaders have had to do more than before to prompt families.

Look up enrollment changes at your district in the table below:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado top education leaders take a closer look at state of multilingual learners

2025-01-08T23:55:59+00:00

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The number of Colorado students who are learning English as a new language is expected to continue to increase – and State Board members are taking a closer look at their performance.

The Colorado Department of Education on Wednesday presented a State of the State on multilingual learners — the term the state uses to identify students who need services as they learn English as a new language, formerly referred to as English language learners. The presentation signals a greater interest from the State Board in how those students are doing.

In the 2023-24 school year, Colorado identified 114,482 multilingual learners, up from 109,780 in 2022-23, but still lower than 122,976 identified in 2019-20. Those latest numbers mean about 13.4% of all Colorado students are learning English as a new language, similar to 13.9% in 2019-20.

One difference in the population, however, is that a larger portion of those students are considered not-English proficient, meaning they are at the lowest level of fluency, just starting to learn English. In 2023-24, there were 38,036 students identified as not-English proficient, up from 29,147 in 2019.

The update reiterated some previous data that shows that this group of students has struggled to recover academically from disruptions at the beginning of the pandemic compared to other students.

It also showed that statewide, fewer students are reaching English proficiency test levels that allow them to be considered to exit the need for federally-required support services.

But it also showed that students who do reach English proficiency and exit services typically score similarly to native English speakers, although a gap remains on the SAT test high school students take.

When state board members asked about the challenges districts face in educating these students, Education Commissioner Susana Córdova said one of the largest is in finding enough highly qualified staff members who are trained or bilingual for certain models.

State Board members suggested that one of the ways to look at the effectiveness of school programs to educate English learners would be to look at how students move through language proficiency levels.

Students who are learning English as a new language take a test each year that determines their language abilities in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Students are placed in levels one through six depending on how much English they understand.

Staff for the Colorado Department of Education said Wednesday they believe it takes students about five to eight years to reach fluency in English at a level adequate for academic learning. They said the department is taking a closer look at tracking students who get stuck and might take longer than that to learn the language.

The department is also attempting to highlight more good work schools are doing with English learners. Officials started Wednesday by highlighting the Denver Language School, a charter school that focuses on an immersion model and has about 12% of its students identified as English learners. The school has high ratings and has been improving, officials said.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

NYC school board to vote on resolution affirming support for undocumented students

2025-01-08T19:44:44+00:00

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New York City’s school board is set to vote later this month on a resolution reaffirming the school system’s support for undocumented students as President-elect Donald Trump prepares what he says will be a “mass deportation.”

The Panel for Educational Policy’s resolution is advisory and wouldn’t change the Education Department’s policy. But it enumerates many of the existing rights and protections for undocumented students in city schools. Those include guidelines preventing school staff and NYPD safety agents from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in most cases, and rules barring discrimination against students based on their immigration status.

The resolution also urges the city Education Department to advocate for the preservation of federal programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — commonly known as DACA — that provide legal protections for some immigrants. It also opposes the creation of a “Muslim registry system,” a proposal from Trump’s first term to create a database of people from some Muslim-majority countries.

“All of the major school systems across the country…have been making statements on this,” said Naveed Hasan, a Manhattan parent and Panel for Educational Policy member who authored the resolution. “It’s very important for New York City, being the biggest system and probably [having] the most immigrants proportionally, to have a public statement.”

The panel resolution on immigrant students is slated for a vote on Jan. 22 and is expected to pass, Hasan said. It is part of a larger set of efforts in city schools to prepare for stepped up immigration enforcement in Trump’s second term. City officials don’t ask about or keep track of students’ immigration status. But roughly 48,000 new arrivals living in homeless shelters have enrolled in city schools since the summer of 2022, as part of a massive influx of migrants from Latin America, West Africa, and other regions. Shortly after Trump’s election, Chicago Public Schools passed a similar resolution.

The city Education Department is controlled by Mayor Eric Adams, who has signalled his willingness to cooperate with the Trump administration to prioritize the removal of undocumented immigrants who committed violent crimes. But he has urged new arrivals to continue using city services like schools.

The Panel for Educational Policy is made up mostly of mayoral appointees and has the power to approve items like contracts and school closure proposals.

The panel rarely passes resolutions, and they are largely symbolic. Most recently, the panel adopted two resolutions related to transgender students.

Last month, the city Education Department officials reiterated to all principals that they should not let agents from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enter school buildings without a judicial warrant, and should contact city lawyers for support if agents show up.

Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said at a recent panel meeting that “Our schools are safe harbors for our children and they will remain so.”

Several local Community Education Councils have also passed their own versions of resolutions affirming their support for undocumented students and families.

And some schools are working with lawyers and advocacy groups to offer “know your rights” workshops to families or help develop “accompaniment plans” in case a family member gets deported.

In addition to laying out existing city policy for undocumented students, the resolution outlines the legal basis for that policy, including the landmark 1982 Supreme Court decision Plyler v. Doe that guarantees undocumented students the right to a public education. Hasan hopes the document will offer some reassurance to families fearful of the Trump administration.

He’s planning to get it translated in multiple languages “so that families and students who are impacted … can understand and read that we’re looking out for them and have their best interests in mind.”

The resolution also urges school staffers not to “inquire about or record a student’s or a family member’s immigration status,” which Hasan said reflects the Education Department’s privacy policies and helps ensure the information can’t be used for enforcement purposes.

But he acknowledged there are cases when it would be helpful for school staff to know students’ immigration situations in order to help connect them with resources or guide them through processes like applying to college, where immigration status can impact students’ eligibility for financial aid and scholarships.

“This is an unfortunate dance,” he said, “where we can’t have anyone in the system acknowledging any knowledge of students’ immigration status, but people want to help.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

I was tapped to help lead a Spanish immersion school. I didn’t speak Spanish.

2024-12-20T14:16:32+00:00

“I do not speak Spanish.”

These were the first words I muttered to myself when I was told, in July 2023, that I had been tapped to become the interim assistant principal at Forest Glen Elementary, a Spanish immersion school in Indianapolis.

I hadn’t taken a Spanish class since high school.

I am a Black man, and my entire career, I have taught at or led schools where at least 80% of the students looked like me. I got into this profession to serve these students because, growing up, I did not get my first Black male teacher until eighth grade and didn’t have another one until my junior year of high school.

Dr. David McGuire

I graduated from an HBCU, where a professor told our class that education is the civil rights issue of our generation. That shaped my entire teaching philosophy. I realized that, as an educator, I could lean into challenging systemic inequities. In addition, I wanted to be a mirror through which my Black students could see themselves teaching and leading schools.

When I was placed at Forest Glen, I never imagined it would allow me to tap into the things that first inspired me to become an educator. But it did.

Forest Glen Elementary School has almost 1,000 students in pre-K through sixth grade. Many of the students come from Spanish-speaking homes.

I remember the first time I stepped into a Forest Glen classroom, eager to engage in the lesson and offer support and feedback. But I was completely lost within a minute as the teacher spoke to students in Spanish. Desperate to keep up, I tried using a translation app, but the class had already moved on by the time it processed the words. I realized then that I was experiencing what many families face when they arrive in the U.S.

In this setting, I struggled to see how I, the only Black male adult in the building, could have an impact. For the first time in my 14-year career in education, self-doubt kicked in.

But as the school year unfolded, I tapped into the philosophy of being a servant leader — that is, tailoring my leadership to the school and students I was serving. It wasn’t easy. I had to adjust and redefine what my role would look like. By being present in the classrooms, learning alongside the students, spending time with Spanish-speaking parents, and participating in our school’s Hispanic Festival, I learned much more than the basic Spanish phrases I came in with.

The annual Hispanic Festival is one of the school’s biggest events. Each kindergarten through sixth grade class selects a country and creates a performance inspired by it. The event is held over four nights; each night, the school gym is standing room only. I learned a lot about the rich cultures at Forest Glen through the flags and projects displayed throughout the building, as well as the costumes and performances at the main event.

Forest Glen is a school full of rich traditions, but I was able to start new traditions, too. With the talented culture team at the school, we hosted a pumpkin patch in the fall and a “Mom Prom” in the spring. We gave away family gift baskets to students who had perfect attendance. In May, we hosted a school-wide awards program.

I learned about myself as an educator and a leader. I realized that my students cared less about my rudimentary Spanish skills and more about my commitment to them. Through messages, thanks, hugs, fist bumps, and gifts both during my time there and now after, I could see that I was making a difference and that the students appreciated my efforts. I also developed a strong rapport with the teachers in the building. I appreciate Dr. Smith, our superintendent, who saw that I needed a place like Forest Glen at that moment in my career. I am forever grateful for the opportunity he provided for me and for the Forest Glen colleagues who embraced me.

Students need teachers who look like them and share the same experiences. I know I did. Still, my time at Forest Glen showed me that authentic, empathetic leadership can transcend language and cultural differences.

By the end of the year, I had developed a newfound appreciation for the richness of what a Spanish immersion school could offer to students, regardless of their background and home language. My challenging yet rewarding year at Forest Glen made me more resilient and strengthened my skills in cross-cultural communication.

In short, it brought me closer to the leader I have always aspired to become.

Dr. David McGuire is Principal in Residence at Rooted School Indy and serves as treasurer for the Indiana Alliance of Black School Educators. Dr. McGuire hosts The Recess Podcast, where he has real conversations about students and schools.

Music brings learning and hope to Bronx school with dozens of new migrant students

2024-12-19T20:47:13+00:00

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Eleven-year-old Shayla had never taken music classes before she emigrated from the Dominican Republic this year and enrolled at P.S. 103 Hector Fontanez in the Bronx.

The fifth grader is still hesitant to speak in English, which she said she’s learning “little by little.”

But when it comes to music, she has a different tune.

Shayla, who plays trombone in the school band, stood in front of a packed auditorium on Tuesday with her classmates to sing the song “For Good” from the musical Wicked during the school’s annual holiday concert.

“It’s incredible,” she said in Spanish about the school’s music program. “It teaches us how to have a future.” Singing in English is easier than speaking it, she added, “because singing you can repeat the words 100 times.”

After two shelters opened near the school, dozens of newly arrived immigrants, like Shayla, began enrolling at P.S. 103, at the northern edge of the Bronx, Principal Farid Reyes said. They’re part of a larger influx of an estimated 48,000 migrant students who have enrolled in city schools since summer 2022.

Schools across New York City have scrambled to accommodate the newcomers by hiring bilingual teachers and shoring up academic and language supports. P.S. 103 has leaned in part on its unusually robust music program as a source of learning, confidence, and hope for its new arrivals.

“Music has been that support system where the children that you would less expect to shine like stars have done it,” said Reyes, who immigrated to the U.S. at age 20 from Colombia.

“Music in our countries is mostly for well-to-do kids and families,” he added. “Parents [are] so happy and emotional to see the children learning something that we didn’t have the chance to learn.”

Every year, the holiday concert provides a chance for students and staff to showcase their work, and for parents to see their kids under the spotlight. This year’s performance featured wiggly elementary schoolers singing lesser-known holiday tunes about hot chocolate and hip-hop reindeer, along with an English-Spanish lullaby and classics like “My Favorite Things.”

This year’s show took on extra meaning as the school’s immigrant families grapple with fears over how long they’ll be able to remain in the school and in the country because of President-elect Donald Trump’s promised “mass deportation,” Reyes said.

“Having the opportunity to bring this moment of happiness … of seeing their children succeeding in doing something that gives them a sense of hope … for me, that’s very important,” Reyes said.

Music wasn’t always such a central feature of P.S. 103. When Reyes arrived as principal 16 years ago, the school had no dedicated music teachers, relying on academic teachers to provide extra music instruction. That’s not unusual in New York City, where the majority of public schools have no music teacher.

But Reyes was determined to change that, and he got help from Education Through Music, a nonprofit that recruits and helps place and supervise music teachers in city public schools in the hopes that schools will eventually hire them full time. P.S. 103 now has three music teachers for its roughly 800 students, allowing every student to get music instruction and for the school to support both a choir and band.

Antoine Dolberry, music teacher at P.S. 103, center, poses for a portrait with students Shayla, left, and Joseph, right after the annual holiday concert on Tues., Dec. 17, 2024 in Bronx, New York.

Antoine Dolberry started teaching at P.S. 103 eight years ago with Education Through Music. He was officially hired several years later and has led the music program ever since, bringing students to perform at Rockefeller Center and in an annual winter concert sponsored by YouTube.

“It’s evolved tremendously since I’ve been here,” Dolberry said. “[We’re] changing the atmosphere of the building through music.”

Dolberry said he’s taken particular joy in watching many of the school’s newcomers flourish in music class – and seeing their language acquisition take off.

“Learning how to play beat and rhythm and match tone, learning about treble clef and learning about the different letters on the staff, all of that stuff plays a part in how they learn the language,” he said. “Learning songs and lyrics plays a part in how they remember things.”

Music has also provided an opportunity for newcomers to teach their classmates and teachers about their culture and language. Dolberry made sure to include several songs with Spanish lyrics on the holiday concert set list, giving native Spanish speakers a chance to shine and correct their classmates’ pronunciation.

While teaching the lyrics to “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music, Dolberry realized he had to explain the meaning of schnitzel and strudels – opening up an opportunity for kids to talk about their own favorite foods from their home countries.

“To see them smiling every day, to see them wanting to learn the music, trying their hardest to learn the English so they can fit in,” he said, “is not only important for the teachers, but it’s also encouraging.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

NYC has a network of schools serving new immigrants. Here’s how they’re preparing for Trump.

2024-12-13T22:35:42+00:00

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Few New York City schools have more at stake in President-elect Donald Trump’s second term than those in the Internationals Network for Public Schools.

The nonprofit network helps operate 17 public schools across the five boroughs that cater exclusively to newly arrived immigrant students, serving as a national model for educating newcomers.

Over two decades, the network has weathered shifting immigration patterns and policies and played a central role in educating many of the estimated 48,000 newcomers who have enrolled in city schools since summer 2022.

Now, as Trump lays the groundwork for a promised “mass deportation,” and state and local officials scramble to respond, the network is watching closely and making its own preparations.

Local law and Education Department regulations prohibit non-city law enforcement from entering school buildings except under specific circumstances, and city officials are training district superintendents, principals, and NYPD school safety agents on those protocols, people familiar with the plans said.

But fears and lingering questions remain pervasive.

Trump is likely to roll back a longstanding internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, policy against making arrests at “sensitive locations” like schools, NBC News recently reported, though it wasn’t immediately clear how that would affect the city’s local provisions restricting federal agents from schools. Mayor Eric Adams, who met Thursday with Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan, told reporters after the meeting he’s looking into increasing the ability of local law enforcement to work with ICE to “go after those individuals who are repeatedly committing crimes in our city.” Adams said “law-abiding” immigrants should continue to use public services including education.

And even if immigration enforcement doesn’t take place at schools, the shockwaves are likely to reach students, who may face deportation cases themselves or see family members expelled from the country. The fear and uncertainty can also have their own corrosive effects by keeping kids and families away from schools and exacerbating attendance and enrollment challenges, educators said.

New York City’s Education Department officials reiterated its commitment in recent weeks to keeping schools safe zones from immigration enforcement.

“Our schools are safe harbors for our children and they will remain so,” Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said at a recent meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy.

Leaders at the Internationals Network are trying to address families’ concerns while reining in some of the waves of fear they see gripping their communities.

“Our job is to keep hope alive for these students,” said Claire Sylvan, the founder and senior strategic director of the Internationals Network and a former teacher. “I’m not saying that things are going to be easy, but I’m saying that these are our children, and we are dedicated to ensuring that they are safe, welcome, and come to school.”

Chalkbeat spoke to Sylvan and Lara Evangelista, the network’s director and a former international school principal and deputy superintendent, about how they’re approaching the coming years, lessons they’ve learned, and what other educators can draw from their experiences.

The interview was edited for length and clarity.

Can you lay out what protections exist and some basics that schools and families should know?

Claire Sylvan: On the national level, there’s Plyler, which is a 1982 [U.S. Supreme Court] decision that says any student who’s eligible for K-12 education has a legal right to attend school at no cost, like any other resident.

There’s also, to date, protections around sensitive areas that Homeland Security issued.

New York City Public Schools has a very strong policy. They have already re-issued it with an incredibly strong email to all 1,600 principals. They followed up with training of superintendents. They’ve been incredibly collaborative with us and other immigrant organizations in terms of thinking through, ‘What do you need to do on the ground?’ They’re not only training the school personnel but the school safety agents, who technically are supervised by the Police Department.

They’ve been open to all of our conversations, and they’re providing contacts to schools in terms of community-based organizations. Our starting point is that schools need to be warm, welcoming, and supportive environments, and that’s still our priority, because that has to come first for students to learn. New York City has provided a framework that we can do that well within.

How do you balance being realistic about real concerns without overly causing fear that would keep people away from schools altogether?

Lara Evangelista: We’re realistic with families. We’re not hiding information. But we’re also sharing with them that there are policies that we will uphold that New York City has put in place to protect you.

Our community-based organizations support families with making sure their documents are in order, if they have something that’s expired, that they update it, that they understand what their rights are, that, if needed, they have accompaniment plans for their children if families are separated for some reason. We want to give them those tools to prepare them.

But we’re balancing, like you said. We don’t want to just feed into fear. We want to be realistic, but also continue to create supportive places for them. Because we want to take care of our young people emotionally. It’s how we’ve been set up from the beginning, so we’re really leaning into that to support our students and our families through this.

How does talking about an ‘accompaniment plan’ go with families?

LE: One of my first cases when I was a principal was I had a young person call us and say, ‘My parents were picked up selling clothes. What do I do? I have siblings.’And so we learned then that we needed to make sure our families were prepared.

We don’t take that on ourselves, but through legal partnerships and so on, we run workshops and let families know that like this is something they should have in place so that if people are separated, if the major earners in the family are gone and the children are left, what happens?

How much of what you’re doing now, or what you’ve done since the election, is standard procedure for you, and how much is different?

LE: We’ve always done this. I was a principal a long time. And we had situations in the Obama administration where families were just deported, and we had to manage that.

We’re lucky in that we have relationships with partners that we can lean into for these kinds of supports. We’ve always had legal screenings for families so that they can understand how to manage their paperwork. A legal organization will come and meet with families and students and, if they choose, can talk to them about their immigration situation.

CS: Some schools choose to do that on an open school night. You talk to your kid’s teacher, but you also go down the hall and have this conversation.

Can you talk about what you both saw during the first Trump administration and any lessons that you are taking from that and applying now?

LE: In the beginning, I remember some parents were afraid to come to a parent workshop, Open School Night, a parent teacher conference, because they were worried something would happen.

We had to really spend a lot of time communicating with families about our role, what the policies were, why they were going to be safe in our buildings, and really build relationships with families so that they did feel safe.

But I think the other thing was just how incredibly resilient our families and students were during that time. While we did have some students who dropped out or were discouraged, the vast majority of them, they just kept going. They were like, ‘Look, I’m here. I have dreams. This is what I want for me and my family.’ They continued to pursue those dreams in spite of all that, so that was really inspiring for us as educators.

At this point, what is your biggest fear? And on the flip side, are there things that you’re doing now that you feel most hopeful about? What would you like to see happen that might ease some of those concerns?

CS: I can’t tell you how many individuals and people have approached us as an organization or our schools or our leaders and said: “How can we help?” There is a community of people who care about our students.

LE: It’s really, really hard to predict what might happen. There’s a lot out there, and we don’t want to be in a situation where we’re just sharing all of this information that may or may not happen. We know what the situation is now, we know how to prepare from our work in the past, and that’s what we operate under. I don’t worry about students disappearing and not coming to school. There’s lots of rhetoric out there about what might happen in terms of deportation, but I try not to live in that space because our students do give us so much hope.

CS: I don’t have a crystal ball, but I know we have to keep our eye on the ball, and it’s going to move around the soccer field an awful lot.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Las Escuelas Públicas de Aurora adoptan un plan de estudios para aprender inglés en high school

2024-12-13T01:31:50+00:00

Read in English.

En Aurora, los estudiantes de high school que están aprendiendo inglés como un nuevo idioma pasan 45 minutos al día en una clase especialmente diseñada para ayudarlos con sus habilidades en el lenguaje.

Pero sus maestros habían tenido que diseñar ellos mismos las lecciones, las cuales son clave para ayudar a los estudiantes a entender el resto de sus clases con compañeros cuya lengua materna es el inglés.

Después de un programa piloto que empezó el año escolar pasado, las Escuelas Públicas de Aurora están pidiéndole al consejo escolar que apruebe este mes un plan de estudios para esas clases.

Casi el 40 por ciento de los casi 40,000 estudiantes en las Escuelas Públicas de Aurora están aprendiendo inglés.

Alice Wilcox, una de las consultoras de educación cultural y lingüísticamente diversa que trabajan con maestros líderes en el desarrollo del idioma inglés, dijo que los maestros han estado pidiendo un plan de estudios. “Querían tiempo para enfocarse en estrategias de enseñanza”, Wilcox dijo. “Toma mucho esfuerzo examinar los estándares, crear evaluaciones, y luego crear unidades. Esto levanta la carga de los maestros”.

Alrededor del estado, estudiantes de high school en Colorado tuvieron grandes reducciones en pruebas estatales tomadas en la primavera de 2024, pero los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés tuvieron disminuciones desproporcionadamente grandes.

Por ejemplo, el porcentaje de estudiantes de 9º grado en o por encima del estándar de preparación universitaria para matemáticas en el estado disminuyó al 40 por ciento, en comparación con el 47 por ciento en 2023. El estado modificó temporalmente los requisitos de graduación para responder a resultados más bajos en todos los niveles de high school.

En Aurora, el distrito señaló los datos específicos a su distrito que demuestran brechas en crecimiento entre los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés y los estudiantes que no están aprendiendo inglés como un nuevo idioma. Los estudiantes de 10º grado en Aurora y que están aprendiendo inglés obtuvieron una calificación promedio en lectura de 320 en la prueba PSAT, una reducción en comparación con 358 en 2022. Mientras tanto, los estudiantes de 10º grado que ya hablan inglés obtuvieron una calificación promedio en lectura de 442 este años, un aumento en comparación con 435 en 2022.

Otros datos de Aurora muestran que los estudiantes de high school que están tomando la prueba ACCESS, la cual evalúa el dominio del inglés de todos los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés, han demostrado una reducción en sus resultados de crecimiento. Los estudiantes multilingües también tienen menos probabilidad de estar en camino a graduarse.

Líderes del distrito dijeron que los datos muestran que sus estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés necesitan más apoyo en high school. Aurora empezó a adoptar materiales de un plan de estudios para clases de desarrollo del idioma inglés en 2019, empezando en el nivel primario, y en 2020 adoptó materiales para escuelas de educación media.

En esas escuelas primarias y de educación media, los estudiantes dominan el inglés por encima del promedio, y en las escuelas primarias, sus aptitudes siguen aumentando.

Líderes del distrito dijeron que esperan que, al proporcionarles a los maestros de high school un plan de estudios, eso ayude a que los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés mejoren su adquisición del idioma y tengan más éxito en otras clases y pruebas.

El distrito empezó un programa piloto el año pasado para evaluar materiales de high school, pero lo extendió a este año para reunir más datos. Este otoño, las siete high schools integrales del distrito aceptaron participar y probar los materiales.

Al consejo le están pidiendo que apruebe los materiales de Vista Higher Learning para high school. Los materiales incluyen un programa llamado Get Ready! (“¡Prepárate!”) para estudiantes recién llegados que están empezando a aprender el idioma, y Engage (“Participa”), otra serie de materiales para estudiantes más avanzados.

El distrito encuestó a los maestros y estudiantes que probaron los materiales durante los últimos meses. Según datos del distrito, el 85 por ciento de los 746 estudiantes que respondieron dijeron que los materiales los apoyaron en sus otras clases.

Los materiales para estudiantes recién llegados recibieron el respaldo del 91 por ciento de los maestros, mientras que el 67 por ciento de los maestros estuvieron a favor de adoptar el plan de estudios Engage.

Los líderes del distrito dijeron que a algunos maestros les preocupa que los materiales de Engage sean demasiado avanzados y obliguen a los estudiantes a dar un gran salto en su transición de las lecciones para recién llegados. Pero los líderes también dijeron que la editorial estaba trabajando con el distrito para realizar algunas modificaciones y diseñar cursos de capacitación para que los maestros apoyen a los estudiantes en esa transición.

Missy Winternitz, otra de las consultoras de high school en el distrito, dijo que a los maestros les gustó que los materiales del plan de estudios incluyan contenido que corresponda con otras materias que los estudiantes están aprendiendo. También ayudó a los maestros para que planearan y colaboraran entre ellos.

Y los líderes dijeron que, al visitar los salones de clase durante el programa piloto, notaron que los estudiantes estaban participando y practicando sus habilidades de escritura, las cuales a veces se ignoran como parte del aprendizaje de un idioma, dijeron. Prácticas para hablar, escuchar y leer también están incorporadas.

El plan de estudios para recién llegados empieza con un lenguaje inicial que los estudiantes necesitan enseguida, e incluye un montón de práctica para hablar.

Conforme los maestros siguen recibiendo grandes cantidades de estudiantes recién llegados al país, Renna Martinez, una consultora de recién llegados en el distrito, dijo que los maestros que estaban probando los materiales encontraron que son útiles hasta cuando los estudiantes empiezan a medio año escolar.

“No importa cuándo entre un estudiante durante este año, el plan de estudios realmente proporciona un buen punto de entrada para iniciar o continuar su adquisición del inglés”, Martinez dijo.

Los líderes del distrito dijeron que también es importante que los estudiantes se sientan apreciados y representados en el plan de estudios. Más del 56 por ciento de los estudiantes que respondieron a la encuesta dijeron que las lecciones incluyeron experiencias de su cultura.

“Queremos que nuestros estudiantes se sientan realmente orgullosos de ser bilingües y de tener un origen abundante y diverso”, dijo Annalee McBee, la directora de educación cultural y lingüísticamente diversa en el distrito. “Estamos en una mejor situación en este mundo porque tenemos una forma diversa de pensar”.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado que cubre los distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

In Aurora high schools, students learning English as a new language might get new materials

2024-12-11T19:24:21+00:00

Leer en español.

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In Aurora, high school students who are learning English as a new language spend 45 minutes per day in a class specifically designed to help them improve their language skills.

But their teachers have been on their own to design the lessons that are key to helping students understand the rest of their classes with native English speakers.

After a pilot program that began last school year, Aurora Public Schools is asking the school board to approve a curriculum this month for those classes.

Almost 40% of the almost 40,000 students in Aurora Public Schools are English learners.

Alice Wilcox, one of the culturally and linguistically diverse education consultants who work with English language development teacher leaders, said teachers had been requesting a curriculum. “They wanted time to focus on instructional strategies,” Wilcox said. “It takes a lot of effort to look at the standards, create assessments and then create units. This takes the lift off of teachers.”

Statewide, Colorado high school students saw large decreases in scores from state tests taken in the spring of 2024, but students learning English had disproportionately larger decreases.

For instance, the percentage of ninth graders at or above the state’s college readiness benchmark in math fell to 40% from 47% in 2023. The state temporarily adjusted graduation requirements to account for the lower scores across high school levels.

In Aurora, the district pointed to their district-specific data showing widening gaps for English learners compared to students not learning English as a new language. Tenth graders in Aurora who are English learners had an average reading score of 320 on the PSAT test, down from 358 in 2022, while 10th graders who aren’t English learners had an average reading score of 442 this year, up from 435 in 2022.

Other Aurora data shows that high school students taking the ACCESS test, which measures English proficiency for all English learners, have shown declining growth scores. Multilingual learners are also less likely to be on track to graduate.

District leaders said the data show their English learners need more support at the high school level. Aurora started adopting curriculum materials for English language development classes in 2019, starting at the elementary level, and in 2020 adopted materials for middle schools.

In those elementary and middle schools, growth in English proficiency is above average, and at the elementary schools, proficiency is still increasing.

District leaders said they expect that providing curriculum for high school teachers should help English learners improve their language acquisition and be more successful in other classes and on tests.

The district started a pilot last year to evaluate high school materials but extended it this year to gather more data. This fall, all seven of the district’s comprehensive high schools opted in and tried the materials.

The board is being asked to approve the materials for high school from Vista Higher Learning. The materials include a program called Get Ready! for newcomers who are just starting to learn the language, and Engage, another set of materials for students who are farther along.

The district surveyed the teachers and students who tested the materials for the last few months. According to district data, 85% of 746 students who responded said the materials supported them in their other classes.

The materials for newcomers had support from 91% of teachers, while 67% of teachers were in favor of adopting the Engage curriculum.

District leaders said some teachers worried that the Engage materials were too advanced and required a big jump for students transitioning from the newcomer lessons. But leaders also said the publisher was working with the district on making some adjustments and designing training for teachers to support students in making those jumps.

Missy Winternitz, another of the district’s high school consultants, said teachers liked that the curriculum materials include content that applies to other subjects students are learning. It also helped teachers plan and collaborate with each other.

And leaders said they noticed when visiting classrooms during the pilot that students were engaged and practicing writing skills, which they said sometimes are overlooked as part of learning a language. Speaking, listening, and reading practice are also incorporated.

The curriculum for newcomers starts off with introductory language that students need right away and includes a lot of speaking practice.

As teachers continue to see large numbers of new-to-country students, Renna Martinez, a district newcomer consultant, said that teachers piloting the materials found them to be helpful even when students start mid-year.

“No matter when a student enters within this year, the curriculum really provides a good entry point to start or continue their English acquisition,” Martinez said.

District leaders said it’s also important that students feel valued and represented in the curriculum. More than 56% of the students who responded to the survey said the lessons included experiences from their culture.

“We want our students to feel really proud about being bilingual and having a rich diverse background,” said Annalee McBee, the district’s director of culturally and linguistically diverse education. “We’re a better place in this world because we have diverse thinking.”

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that Aurora elementary and middle school students using new English language development curriculum made above average growth in English proficiency. A previous version of the story said their English proficiency was above average.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

California prohibió la educación bilingüe durante casi 20 años y aún no se ha recuperado del daño

2024-12-11T15:35:00+00:00

Esta historia fue publicada originalmente por CalMatters.

Read in English.

En 1953, Bárbara Flores entró al kínder en la Escuela Primaria Washington en Madera, California, una pequeña ciudad en el Valle Central rodeada de campos agrícolas. Su madre y su abuela le habían dicho que iba “a aprender mucho” y que le “iba a gustar”. Flores, una niña que algún día se convertiría en maestra, estaba emocionada y les creyó.

Pero esa emoción duró sólo hasta que llegó a la escuela.

“Salí caminando”, recordó Flores recientemente contando que llegó a la casa de su abuela a unas cuadras de distancia, furiosa diciendo: “Son mentirosas”. “No entiendo nada. Y nunca más voy a regresar”.

Flores sólo hablaba español. Como nieta de inmigrantes mexicanos, no encontró ni su lengua ni su cultura reflejadas en la escuela. Pero la pequeña Bárbara no se salió con la suya. Y, después de dejar a su hija nuevamente en el aula, la madre de Flores le hizo una pregunta a la maestra: “¿No estás prestando atención?”. Mi hija salió caminando [del salón]. La respuesta de la profesora fue como una bofetada y se convirtió en parte de la tradición familiar. “Todas estas niñas mexicanas se parecen. Yo no me di cuenta”.

Flores regresó a su antigua escuela este otoño; el edificio del que salió sigue en pie, pero casi todo lo demás ha cambiado. Ahora los estudiantes hablan español porque sus maestros se lo exigen. Las niñas mexicanas ven su cultura celebrada en las paredes de cada aula.

Los estudiantes de la Escuela Primaria Washington se graduarán sabiendo hablar, leer y escribir tanto en español como en inglés, uniéndose a un número cada vez mayor de escuelas de “inmersión en dos idiomas” en California. Flores abre los ojos asombrada cuando describe el cambio radical que ha dado su alma mater.

“Nos castigaban por hablar español”, dijo. “Nos golpeaban con reglas, nos pellizcaban, nos tiraban de las trenzas. Ahora toda la escuela es bilingüe”.

Estudiantes hablan sobre héroes estadounidenses en su clase de español en la escuela primaria Washington en Madera el 29 de octubre de 2024. Toda la escuela es bilingüe.

El camino no ha sido fácil. Cuando Flores era niña, California todavía tenía una ley de solo inglés vigente desde el siglo XIX. Como gobernador, Ronald Reagan firmó una ley que la eliminaba. Luego, el Movimiento por los Derechos Civiles marcó el comienzo de una nueva era de educación bilingüe, y la Legislatura de California fue más allá, al exigir el modelo para los estudiantes que todavía estaban aprendiendo inglés desde 1976 hasta la reacción antiinmigrante de los años 1990. Los votantes lo prohibieron nuevamente en 1998, y recién revirtieron la última prohibición en 2016.

Los investigadores han descubierto que la educación bilingüe ayuda a los estudiantes a aprender inglés más rápido y puede mejorar sus puntajes en las pruebas estandarizadas, aumentar las tasas de graduación, prepararlos mejor para la universidad y mucho más. California ha eliminado las barreras oficiales para ofrecer este tipo de instrucción desde 2016, y el estado ahora defiende el bilingüismo y la alfabetización bilingüe, alentando a todos los estudiantes a esforzarse por lograr ambos. Pero ocho años después de la derogación, las escuelas de California aún no se han recuperado. Una caída de décadas en la matrícula de los programas de preparación de maestros bilingües ha llevado a una diezmada cantera de maestros. Y la falta de inversión por parte de la Legislatura, junto con un Departamento de Educación estatal paralizado, ha limitado el ritmo de la recuperación de la educación bilingüe.

¿El resultado? Un caso poco común en el que los californianos pueden decir que Texas es inspirador. Ambos estados tienen más de un millón de estudiantes matriculados que todavía están aprendiendo inglés, pero el año pasado, el estado de la estrella solitaria colocó al 40% de ellos en aulas bilingües. California hizo lo mismo pero con solo el 10%.

En 1987, Flores no pensó que la política estatal iría por ese camino. En ese momento, ambos estados exigían educación bilingüe. Ella era profesora y ayudaba a crear un programa de preparación de maestros de educación bilingüe en Cal State San Bernardino. Su estado natal pudo haber seguido el ritmo de Texas.

Pero no lo hizo.

Los años de ‘solo se habla inglés’: de 1998 a 2016

En 1998, el programa de preparación de maestros bilingües estaba en pleno auge. Flores ayudó a los aspirantes a maestros a entender cómo aprenden los estudiantes a leer y escribir en dos idiomas, enviándolos a las aulas con carpetas llenas de consejos didácticos. Su hija, que ahora tiene 10 años, estaba aprendiendo inglés y español a través de clases bilingües en el Distrito Escolar Unificado de la Ciudad de San Bernardino (SBCUSD, por sus siglas en inglés). Flores formaba parte de un comité de padres que organizaba un apoyo más amplio para esos programas ante una campaña estatal para deshacerse de ellos, financiada por el empresario de Silicon Valley, Ron Unz.

Libros infantiles en español e inglés adornan la pared de un aula en la escuela primaria Washington.

La Propuesta 227, que se aprobó con el 61% de los votos, exigía que las escuelas enseñaran sólo en inglés a los estudiantes que todavía estaban aprendiendo el idioma, algo que puede parecer una buena idea pero que termina poniendo innecesariamente en pausa el aprendizaje de otras materias de los estudiantes a nivel de grado mientras dominan el inglés. Flores vio el impacto de inmediato. El personal docente del campus pidió la eliminación de su programa, un esfuerzo que finalmente fracasó, pero que mostró, dijo, “la intensidad de la discriminación y el racismo lingüístico que prevalecía”. La inscripción en programas de preparación para maestros bilingües en todo el estado se desplomó.

Flores también vio la respuesta de los distritos escolares locales. “Me sorprendieron los superintendentes de la zona”, dijo. “Simplemente hicieron que todos tiraran sus libros de español. Fue horrible”. Como recuerda, todos los distritos escolares del Inland Empire se deshicieron de sus programas bilingües, excepto el SBCUSD donde el activismo de los padres ayudó a garantizar que el distrito aprovechara una excepción a la nueva ley.

En ese momento, los datos de rendimiento estudiantil del SBCUSD habían demostrado que los programas bilingües estaban ayudando a los niños a tener éxito. Y durante las siguientes dos décadas, los investigadores que estudiaban programas en todo Estados Unidos publicaron un flujo constante de evidencia sobre los beneficios de la educación bilingüe, especialmente una versión llamada “lenguaje dual”. La educación bilingüe tradicional esencialmente permite a los estudiantes usar su primera lengua mientras aprenden inglés. Una vez que los estudiantes manejan bien el nuevo idioma, sus escuelas cambian por completo a la instrucción en inglés, que era el objetivo desde el principio. Los programas de lenguaje dual, por el contrario, establecen el bilingüismo como objetivo. Los estudiantes continúan tomando cursos en español u otro idioma durante aproximadamente la mitad de la jornada escolar hasta que abandonan el programa.

Los estudiantes caminan por el campus de la escuela primaria Madison en Madera, California, el 30 de octubre de 2024. La escuela abrió un programa de lenguaje dual en 2017.

Si bien los programas de lenguaje dual suelen terminar después de la escuela primaria, la “ventaja bilingüe” se extiende a lo largo de los años del kínder al grado 12 (K-12) de los estudiantes y hasta su vida laboral. Se ha descubierto que los estudiantes de lenguaje dual obtienen mejores calificaciones que sus compañeros en los exámenes de matemáticas y en las artes del idioma inglés en la escuela secundaria. También obtienen mejores calificaciones en el examen de ACT en la escuela secundaria, lo que los prepara para ser más competitivos en las admisiones universitarias. Y, lo que es más importante, un equipo de Stanford descubrió que los hablantes nativos de español tenían más probabilidades de no aprobar los servicios para estudiantes de inglés si tomaban clases bilingües, un objetivo codiciado debido a lo bien que les va a los “ex estudiantes de inglés”. Los investigadores de la Universidad de Chicago acaban de publicar datos que muestran que los estudiantes de secundaria de Chicago en este grupo tenían promedios de calificaciones y puntajes en el SAT, tasas de graduación de la escuela secundaria y tasas de inscripción y persistencia en colegios comunitarios más altos que el promedio.

Patricia Gándara codirige el Proyecto de Derechos Civiles de la UCLA, que ha publicado hallazgos similares, y ha pasado décadas de su carrera catalogando la ventaja bilingüe. Lamenta el valor limitado que se le da a la educación bilingüe en los EE.UU., donde históricamente se ha buscado como una forma de ayudar a los niños que no hablan inglés a aprender el idioma más rápidamente y luego tener éxito en clases que sólo hablan inglés.

“Es una visión muy miope”, dijo Gándara, “en particular a partir de la investigación que hemos realizado que muestra que los niños que reciben una educación bilingüe sólida tienen más probabilidades de ir a la universidad, tienen más probabilidades de completar la universidad, tienen más probabilidades de tener mejores trabajos y mejores oportunidades”.

El trabajo de un estudiante cuelga de una cuerda en un salón de clases de la escuela primaria Washington. Su trabajo refleja la celebración de la comida y las tradiciones mexicanas.

Sin embargo, aunque los responsables políticos no se dieron cuenta de inmediato, los padres blancos adinerados y bien educados sí lo hicieron, al ver muy claramente los beneficios económicos del bilingüismo para sus hijos.

El Distrito Escolar Unificado de Glendale lanzó su primer programa de lenguaje dual español-inglés en 2003, y luego agregó programas en otros seis idiomas mientras que la política estatal oficial era prohibirlos. El año pasado, el 85% de los estudiantes matriculados hablaban inglés con fluidez, según la directora del programa Nancy Hong.

Las familias inmigrantes, agobiadas por la presión de hablar inglés y asegurarse de que sus hijos también lo hagan, han sido difíciles de reclutar. Hong dijo que los padres inmigrantes han estado preocupados durante mucho tiempo de que dejar que sus hijos pasen la mitad del día escolar o más escuchando su lengua materna se interponga en el camino del aprendizaje del inglés, a pesar de que las investigaciones han demostrado que puede hacer que todo el proceso sea más rápido. “El objetivo es desmantelar esos mitos y percepciones erróneas”, dijo. Pero a pesar de que alrededor del 20% de los estudiantes de todo el distrito son estudiantes de inglés, solo alrededor del 10% de ellos participan en programas de lenguaje dual.

Sin embargo, muchas familias inmigrantes se han convertido en fuertes defensores de los programas. José Sanjas, un padre en el Distrito Escolar Unificado de Madera, nacido en México, lleva a su hija de 6 años todos los días por la escuela de su barrio en camino a uno de los programas de lenguaje dual del distrito. Él y su esposa quieren preservar su lengua materna a medida que su hija crece aquí, pero el atractivo no es solo personal; Sanjas también ve cómo el bilingüismo beneficiará a su hija en sus futuros trabajos.

“Ella puede ayudar a más personas en el futuro”, dijo Sanjas. “Profesionalmente, podrá poner su servicio al 100 por ciento”.

Alentada por un apoyo como el suyo, una coalición diversa de líderes escolares en Madera Unified, en 2016, llegó a ver la educación bilingüe como clave para revertir el desempeño crónicamente bajo del distrito, especialmente entre los hijos de inmigrantes. Flores había ayudado a presentar el caso, invitando a los miembros de la junta escolar a la conferencia anual de la Asociación de Educación Bilingüe de California. Y en la ciudad natal de Flores, las familias blancas nacidas en Estados Unidos estaban entre quienes se manifestaban a favor de los programas, sabiendo que incluso si los puntajes de los exámenes de los estudiantes inmigrantes tenían más margen de mejora, sus hijos también podrían beneficiarse.

Un hablante nativo de farsi trabaja en una tarea de español en la escuela primaria Washington en Madera.

A nivel estatal, la opinión pública había oscilado en la otra dirección; ese noviembre, aproximadamente el 74% de los votantes de California dijeron sí a la Proposición 58, permitiendo oficialmente el regreso de la educación bilingüe a las aulas de California.

“Fue un alivio que finalmente [pudiéramos] avanzar para nuestros hijos”, dijo Flores. “Hemos perdido una generación entera de niños —unas cuantas generaciones, en realidad— por culpa de la enseñanza exclusivamente en inglés”.

La próxima generación, sin embargo, todavía está esperando.

Una recuperación lenta: 2016 a 2024

Flores pasó 40 años capacitando a futuros maestros antes de jubilarse en 2019. En tres instituciones y 32 años en Cal State San Bernardino, probablemente enseñó a 10,000 estudiantes, muchos de los cuales siguen dispersos por todo el sistema de educación bilingüe del estado. Pero si algo define el legado de la Propuesta 227, es la destrozada cadena de maestros que dejó a su paso.

Gándara, del Proyecto de Derechos Civiles de la UCLA, dijo que la situación actual es “una de esas historias de ‘te lo dije’. “Podía ver cuál iba a ser el problema: que cuando la gente volviera a la normalidad y se diera cuenta del error que había sido, la gran consecuencia sería que no teníamos maestros”.

Las universidades de California no están produciendo suficientes maestros para cumplir con los objetivos de educación bilingüe del estado. Durante el año escolar 2022-23, la comisión estatal de acreditación de maestros solo autorizó a 1,011 nuevos maestros bilingües, en todos los idiomas. Sólo siete de esas becas se otorgaron a profesores que hablaban vietnamita, el segundo idioma más común en las escuelas de California ese año. Y, de hecho, ese año se otorgaron menos credenciales a profesores hispanohablantes que en los tres años anteriores.

La Legislatura no ha ignorado este problema por completo. En 2017, financió seis subvenciones, por un total de 20 millones de dólares, para ayudar a los distritos a capacitar a su personal bilingüe y prepararlos para dirigir aulas bilingües. Pero Edgar Lampkin, director ejecutivo de la Asociación de Educación Bilingüe de California, dijo que la creación de este tipo de programas de “cultivar lo propio” está muy lejos de abordar la necesidad estatal. “Eso no es sistémico”, dijo.

Los estudiantes prestan atención durante una clase de español en la escuela primaria Madison en Madera.

En 2022, el Centro Nacional de Recursos para Idiomas Asiáticos, con sede en Cal State Fullerton, recibió dinero estatal para capacitar a 200 maestros en cinco años. Van por buen camino, y la directora del centro, Natalie Tran, está orgullosa de que sus programas no solo estén aumentando el número de maestros certificados para enseñar en idiomas asiáticos, sino que también están diversificando los idiomas que hablan. Espera certificar a maestros que hablen Tagalo, Hmong y Khmer este año escolar. Aun así, dijo, el estado debe hacer más para capacitar a más maestros de idiomas asiáticos, incluidos los menos comunes. “Vamos a necesitar la ayuda de los responsables políticos para que esto suceda”, dijo Tran.

Ella no es la única que pide a los legisladores que sean parte de la solución. Anya Hurwitz es directora ejecutiva de SEAL, una organización sin fines de lucro que comenzó como una iniciativa de la Fundación de la Familia Sobrato para abordar las brechas de logros entre los niños inmigrantes y los nacidos en Silicon Valley. Ella dice que el estado no financia adecuadamente la educación, lo que impide hacer lo mejor para los niños que no hablan inglés.

En 2022, el último año para el que hay datos del censo federal disponibles, Nueva York gastó casi $30,000 por estudiante. California gastó alrededor de $17,000. Y además de su apoyo a la capacitación de maestros, la Legislatura solo ha otorgado a los distritos $10 millones adicionales para iniciar o expandir programas de lenguaje dual. En Massachusetts, hogar de aproximadamente una décima parte del número de niños que todavía aprenden inglés, la Legislatura desembolsó $11.8 millones para el mismo trabajo, iniciando su propia recuperación de una ley de solo inglés.

“La financiación no es la solución a todo en sí misma”, dijo Hurwitz, “pero al mismo tiempo, no podemos desarrollar la capacidad sin financiación y recursos”.

En la ciudad natal de Flores, los administradores de Madera han podido utilizar el dinero estatal y federal destinado a su considerable número de familias inmigrantes y a quienes viven en la pobreza para lograr sus objetivos de lenguaje dual. Pero los costos iniciales de los programas de lenguaje dual son altos. Los programas de preparación de maestros, dijo el superintendente Todd Lile, no están produciendo graduados que estén listos para hacer este trabajo, lo que deja a distritos como el suyo con altos costos de desarrollo profesional.

Una fotografía familiar de Bárbara Flores y su hermana en el patio trasero de su casa en 1953.

Bárbara Flores se sienta junto a un árbol en la escuela primaria Washington en Madera el 29 de octubre de 2024. Cuando era niña, en la década de 1950, Flores jugaba aquí ‘Ring Around the Rosie’.

Un programa de residencia con Cal State Fresno le ha dado a Madera una sólida línea de maestros, pero los graduados recientes tienen que superar todos los obstáculos habituales de ser nuevos en la profesión y al mismo tiempo adaptarse al uso del español en el aula. Si bien estos nuevos empleados en la Escuela Primaria Washington crecieron bilingües, fueron a la escuela durante los años de la Propuesta 227, lo que significa que la mayoría de ellos no desarrollaron un vocabulario académico en español.

Viviana Valerio, maestra de kínder, dijo que la historia hizo que la educación bilingüe fuera una propuesta intimidante. “Generalmente hablo español en casa, pero luego, cuando pensaba en enseñar, pensaba: ‘Bueno, términos académicos, no sé cómo traducir eso’ o ‘Los padres me hacen una pregunta y no se me ocurre, voy a querer hacer la transición al inglés’”, dijo. “Para mí, esa fue la parte aterradora”.

Texas también carece de maestros de educación bilingüe, lo que refleja una escasez presente en gran parte del país, pero el estado está muy por delante de California; muchos distritos pueden reclutar a sus propios exalumnos porque sus programas han existido durante mucho tiempo. Texas también continúa invirtiendo en educación bilingüe, ayudando a los distritos a cumplir con los mandatos estatales de ofrecerla. Al igual que California, Texas les da a los distritos más fondos por alumno por cada estudiante que todavía está aprendiendo inglés; a diferencia de California, Texas ofrece una prima adicional por cada uno de ellos inscrito en un programa de lenguaje dual.

Como incentivo adicional para iniciar y mantener estos programas, Texas ha comenzado a aumentar la financiación para los hablantes nativos de inglés inscritos. Las investigaciones muestran que los programas funcionan mejor cuando las clases se dividen de manera uniforme entre hablantes nativos de inglés y hablantes del segundo idioma del programa. Entonces, los estudiantes no solo aprenden su segundo idioma del maestro, sino también de sus compañeros. Convenientemente, esto también hace que las aulas sean más integradas, algo que Gándara dijo que California necesita.

“No hemos podido aprovechar eso, en gran parte porque la gente no le presta atención como un problema importante y también porque no tenemos los maestros para llevarlo a cabo”, dijo Gándara.

De hecho, los distritos de todo el estado citan la falta de personal como una barrera importante para iniciar o expandir sus programas. Algunos han ido al extranjero para reclutar. Otros se han visto obligados a descartar sus planes por completo. El Distrito Escolar Unificado de Newark, en el Área de la Bahía, se deshizo de su programa de lenguaje dual este año porque no pudo encontrar maestros para el personal. “Probamos todo”, dijo Karen Allard, superintendente asistente de servicios educativos.

Los estudiantes completan tareas en español juntos en la escuela primaria Washington en Madera el 29 de octubre de 2024.

Desde hace más de una década, el Departamento de Educación del estado ha intentado defender los programas bilingües. Los estudiantes que pueden demostrar su fluidez en dos idiomas antes de graduarse obtienen un sello especial en sus diplomas. El departamento también implora a las escuelas que ayuden a los hijos de inmigrantes a mantener su lengua materna mientras aprenden inglés, y ha incorporado esa recomendación en su Hoja de Ruta para Estudiantes de Inglés de 2017. Para 2030, quiere que la mitad de los estudiantes de California estén en vías de convertirse en bilingües.

Sin embargo, todo esto se reduce en gran medida a una actitud de apoyo. El departamento cuenta con fondos y personal mínimos, como resultado del compromiso del estado de enviar casi todos los fondos para la educación primaria y secundaria directamente a los distritos escolares, y su apoyo a la educación bilingüe no ha venido acompañado de ninguna exigencia firme.

Conor Williams, miembro senior de The Century Foundation, un grupo de expertos progresista con sede en Washington, D.C., se encontró recientemente –como él mismo se describe como un “izquierdista profesional”– en la sorprendente posición de celebrar la política de Texas por sobre la de California. Además de seguir el ejemplo de Texas en materia de financiación, dijo, California debería repensar la concesión de licencias a los maestros. El estado exige que los graduados universitarios aprueben una serie de pruebas para convertirse en maestros, pero Williams señala que las pruebas no conducen a una mejor enseñanza y pueden impedir que los buenos maestros ocupen las aulas. Eliminar el requisito podría atraer a más adultos bilingües a la profesión y ampliar la oferta de docentes.

Sin embargo, es difícil superar el cambio de California hacia un mayor control local sobre la educación. Williams no siempre está de acuerdo con lo que hace el departamento de educación de Texas con su poder, pero el enfoque centralizado del estado significa que tiene “suficiente poder, fuerza y voluntad para establecer reglas y hacer que los distritos las cumplan”, dijo. La Fórmula de Financiamiento de Control Local de California es muy popular y ha garantizado que los distritos obtengan más dinero estatal para atender a los estudiantes que aún están aprendiendo inglés, así como a los que están en hogares de acogida y de bajos ingresos. Pero, señala Williams, el control local tiene sus límites.

“No se ganan las batallas por los derechos civiles dejándolo en manos de las juntas escolares locales”, dijo.

Aun así, distritos como Madera están avanzando por sí solos. En 2020, la escuela primaria Washington Elementary, el alma mater de Flores, se convirtió en la segunda escuela bilingüe del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Madera (MUSD, por sus siglas en inglés), dando la bienvenida a su primera clase de kínder que se espera que salgan competentes tanto en inglés como en español.

Mateo Díaz Zanjas fue uno de ellos. Ahora está en cuarto grado y habla en un español sencillo sobre la escuela y su sueño a largo plazo de ir a Harvard. Al escuchar que él y sus compañeros hablan muy bien español, responde con entusiasmo: “También hablamos bien inglés”. Y lo demuestra, respondiendo preguntas en inglés sobre sus materias favoritas y los idiomas que habla con ciertos amigos.

Sin embargo, los administradores todavía están esperando que los datos muestren que su apuesta por la educación bilingüe dará sus frutos en forma de mejoras en el rendimiento estudiantil. La pandemia interrumpió sus primeros años y los retrasó, y los estudiantes más grandes no están obteniendo tan buenos resultados como los líderes del distrito hubieran esperado. Sin embargo, el compromiso con los programas no ha flaqueado. Los puntajes generales de los exámenes de los estudiantes siguen siendo bajos, pero sus puntajes de crecimiento, o cuánto aprenden a lo largo del año, son altos.

El distrito también está ayudando a los estudiantes a aprender inglés más rápidamente, lo que significa que se están convirtiendo en “ex-estudiantes de inglés” más rápido con los nuevos apoyos y se están uniendo al grupo de estudiantes de mayor rendimiento del distrito.

Mientras tanto, los maestros de Madera están utilizando la educación bilingüe para dar a los hispanohablantes material de nivel de grado, sabiendo que una vez que agudicen sus habilidades en inglés, toda esa información se transferirá.

“Los niños pueden aprender matemáticas en español; sigue siendo matemática”, dijo Lile. “Pueden aprender estudios sociales en español; sigue siendo historia y geografía. Estas materias no existen solo en inglés”.

Durante la reciente visita de Flores al MUSD, escuchó a Lile describir sus objetivos a largo plazo para el distrito, incluyendo tasas de graduación más altas y una mejor preparación universitaria para los hijos de inmigrantes. Ella miró con orgullo, segura de que su alma mater finalmente estaba haciendo lo correcto.

Un futuro incierto: 2024 y más allá

Hace unos años, Flores presentó a Lile a Margarita Machado-Casas, profesora del Departamento de Lenguaje Dual y Educación para Aprendices de Inglés de la Universidad Estatal de San Diego, que durante mucho tiempo ha sido una de las principales productoras de maestros bilingües del estado. Machado-Casas está ayudando al distrito a determinar qué pasos concretos deben tomar los maestros y administradores para seguir las recomendaciones de alto nivel de la Hoja de Ruta para Aprendices de Inglés del estado. Comenzaron con el “Principio 1″, que pide al personal de la escuela y del distrito que vean el idioma y la cultura de los estudiantes inmigrantes como activos en lugar de ver su falta de dominio del inglés como un déficit. Señalando la larga y dolorosa historia de Madera de discriminación contra los estudiantes inmigrantes, incluida Flores, Machado-Casas dijo que este principio tomó inesperadamente todo el primer año, requiriendo “conversaciones valientes”, incluyendo pedirle al personal que pensara profundamente sobre si creían en el trabajo lo suficiente como para quedarse en el distrito.

Los estudiantes trabajan en problemas de multiplicación durante una clase de matemáticas en español en la escuela primaria Madison.

Machado-Casas está ayudando a los educadores de Madera a comprender cómo ayudar a los estudiantes inmigrantes a abordar el material del nivel de grado y convencerlos de que los estudiantes pueden manejarlo.

Flores espera que el trabajo termine siendo un manual para todo el estado, que pronto podría necesitar uno. El gobernador Gavin Newsom firmó un proyecto de ley este año que requiere que el Departamento de Educación elabore un plan estatal para ayudar a los distritos a adoptar las pautas de la hoja de ruta e informar sobre su progreso.

Este proceso de planificación garantiza que California estará más de una década en su recuperación de los años de solo inglés antes de que el estado considere responsabilizar a las escuelas por cambiar sus prácticas. Cuando Nueva York aprobó un plan para atender a los estudiantes de inglés en 2014, lo siguió con nuevas regulaciones estatales ese mismo año, creando políticas más estrictas para atender a los estudiantes que todavía estaban aprendiendo inglés, incluido un mandato más amplio para la educación bilingüe, que ya se había requerido durante décadas.

Alesha Moreno-Ramírez lidera la división de apoyo multilingüe del Departamento de Educación de California. Ella dice que las limitaciones del presupuesto estatal han obstaculizado la implementación de la Hoja de Ruta para Estudiantes de Inglés y dijo que cualquier llamado para exigir educación bilingüe como Texas o Nueva York tendría que venir de la Legislatura, no del departamento. “Dicho esto, apoyaríamos con entusiasmo el movimiento hacia la exigencia de una educación bilingüe”, añadió.

Los defensores advierten que un mandato de este tipo tendría que venir acompañado de fondos suficientes para ayudar a los distritos a crear programas de alta calidad, pero muchos coinciden en que sería una victoria para los estudiantes de California. Los niños de familias inmigrantes hablan 108 idiomas diferentes, según el Departamento de Educación, pero el 93% de ellos habla uno de 10. Para exigir programas bilingües, la Legislatura probablemente modificaría la ley actual, que dice que si los padres de 30 o más estudiantes en una sola escuela solicitan un programa de adquisición de idiomas, la escuela tiene que ofrecerlo “en la medida de lo posible”. Texas, Illinois y Nueva York tienen leyes similares, pero en lugar de exigir programas bilingües en respuesta a la defensa de los padres, lo hacen basándose únicamente en la inscripción.

Flores cree que el estado al menos se está moviendo en la dirección correcta. Y el MUSD le da esperanza. Durante su reciente visita, se vio inundada de recuerdos: vio el árbol que ella y sus amigos solían rodear mientras jugaban a “Ring Around the Rosie”. Visitó el aula de la que salió cuando tenía 5 años, donde las paredes ahora están decoradas con vocabulario en español y en inglés. Ella sufrió en esa sala hace 70 años. Ahora, las niñas mexicanas no tienen que pasar por eso.

“No nos detenemos”, dijo. “Seguimos adelante. Esa es nuestra tenacidad. Ese es nuestro coraje. Y nuestra motivación, por supuesto, son nuestros hijos”.

California banned bilingual education for almost 20 years. It still hasn’t recovered.

2024-12-11T15:34:00+00:00

This story was originally published by CalMatters and is republished here with permission. Sign up for their newsletters.

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In 1953, Bárbara Flores entered kindergarten at Washington Elementary School in Madera, California, a small city in the Central Valley surrounded by farm fields. Her mother and grandmother had talked it up: You’re going to learn a lot. You’re going to like it. She believed them. A little girl who would one day become a teacher, Flores was excited.

But only until she got there.

“I walked out,” Flores recalled recently. She got to her grandmother’s house a few blocks away, furious. “Son mentirosas,” she said. “No entiendo nada. Y jamas voy a regresar.” You’re liars. I don’t understand anything. And I’m never going back.

Flores only spoke Spanish. As the grandchild of Mexican immigrants, she didn’t find her language or culture welcome in the school. But little Bárbara didn’t get her way. And, after depositing her daughter back in the classroom, Flores’ mother asked the teacher a question: Aren’t you paying attention? My daughter walked out. The answer felt like a slap and became a part of family lore. All these little Mexican girls look alike. I didn’t notice.

Flores returned to her old school this fall; the building she walked out of still stands, but almost everything else has changed. Now students speak Spanish because their teachers require them to. Little Mexican girls see their culture celebrated on the walls of every classroom.

Washington students will graduate knowing how to speak, read, and write in both Spanish and English, joining a growing number of “dual-language immersion” schools in California. Flores’ eyes open wide as she describes the about-face her alma mater has taken.

“We were punished for speaking Spanish,” she said. “We were hit with rulers, pinched, our braids were pulled. Now the whole school is dual-language.”

A family photograph of Bárbara Flores and her sister in their backyard in 1953.

Bárbara Flores stands inside her old kindergarten classroom at Washington Elementary School in Madera on Oct. 29, 2024. Flores was punished for speaking Spanish in this classroom in 1953.

The path has not been linear. When Flores was a child, California still had an English-only law on the books from the 1800s. As governor, Ronald Reagan signed a bill eliminating it. Then the Civil Rights Movement ushered in a new era of bilingual education, and the California Legislature went further, requiring the model for students still learning English from 1976 until the anti-immigrant backlash of the 1990s. Voters banned it again in 1998, only reversing the latest prohibition in 2016.

Researchers have found bilingual education helps students learn English faster and can boost their standardized test scores, increase graduation rates, better prepare them for college and much more. California has removed the official barriers to offering this type of instruction since 2016, and the state now champions bilingualism and biliteracy, encouraging all students to strive for both. But eight years after repeal, California schools have yet to recover. A decades-long enrollment slump in bilingual-teacher prep programs has led to a decimated teacher pipeline. And underinvestment by the Legislature, paired with a hamstrung state Education Department, has limited the pace of bilingual education’s comeback.

The result? A rare case in which Californians can say Texas is inspiring. Both states enroll more than 1 million students still learning English — but last year, the Lone Star State put 40% of them in bilingual classrooms. California managed that for just 10%.

In 1987, Flores didn’t think state policy would go this way. At the time, both states required bilingual education. She was a professor, helping build a bilingual-education teacher prep program at Cal State San Bernardino. Her home state could have kept pace with Texas.

But it didn’t.

The English-only years: 1998 to 2016

By 1998, the bilingual-teacher prep program was flourishing. Flores helped aspiring teachers understand how students learn to read and write in two languages, sending them off into classrooms with binders full of instructional tips. Her daughter, then 10, was learning both English and Spanish through bilingual classes in the San Bernardino City Unified School District. Flores was on a parent committee organizing broader support for such programs in the face of a statewide campaign to get rid of them, bankrolled by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ron Unz.

Children’s books in Spanish and English line the wall of a classroom at Washington Elementary School in Madera.

Proposition 227, which passed with 61% of the vote, required schools to teach only in English with students who were still learning the language, something that may sound like a good idea but often ends up unnecessarily putting students’ grade-level learning of other subjects on pause while they master English. Flores saw the impact immediately. Faculty on campus called for the elimination of her program, an effort that ultimately failed but showed, she said, “the intensity of the discrimination and language racism that was prevalent.” Enrollment in bilingual teacher prep programs across the state plummeted.

Flores also watched local school districts respond. “I was shocked at superintendents in the area,” she said. “They just made everybody throw away their Spanish books. It was horrendous.” As she recalls, every single school district in the Inland Empire got rid of its bilingual programs except San Bernardino City Unified, where parent activism helped ensure the district took advantage of an exception to the new law.

At the time, student achievement data from San Bernardino City Unified had shown that bilingual programs were helping kids succeed. And over the next two decades, researchers studying programs across the United States released a steady stream of evidence about the benefits of bilingual education, especially a version called “dual language.” Traditional bilingual education essentially lets students use their first language while they learn English. Once students become fluent, their schools shift entirely to English instruction, which was the goal all along. Dual-language programs, by contrast, set bilingualism as the goal. Students continue to take courses in Spanish or another language for about half of the school day until they leave the program.

While dual-language programs often stop after elementary school, the “bilingual advantage” stretches through students’ K-12 years and into their working lives. Dual-language students have been found to score higher than their peers on both math and English language arts exams by middle school. They also get higher scores on the ACT in high school, setting them up to be more competitive in college admissions. And importantly, a team at Stanford found that native Spanish speakers were more likely to test out of English-learner services if they took bilingual classes, a coveted goal because of how well “former English learners” do. University of Chicago researchers just released data showing that Chicago high schoolers in this group had higher-than-average GPAs and SAT scores, high school graduation rates, and community college enrollment and persistence rates.

Patricia Gándara co-directs the UCLA Civil Rights Project, which has published similar findings, and has spent decades of her career cataloging the bilingual advantage. She laments the narrow value placed on bilingual education in the U.S., where it has historically been pursued as a way to help kids who don’t speak English learn the language more quickly and then succeed in English-only classes.

“That’s a very shortsighted view,” Gándara said, “particularly from the research that we’ve done that shows kids who get a strong bilingual education are more likely to go to college, they’re more likely to complete college, they’re more likely to have better jobs and better opportunities.”

Student work hung up in a classroom at Washington Elementary School celebrates Mexican food and traditions.

Yet while policymakers didn’t catch on right away, well-off and well-educated white parents did, seeing the economic benefits of bilingualism for their children very clearly.

Glendale Unified School District launched its first Spanish-English dual-language program in 2003, going on to add programs in six other languages while official state policy was to ban them. Last year, 85% of the students enrolled were fluent English speakers, according to program director Nancy Hong.

Immigrant families, weighed down by the pressure to speak English and make sure their children do too, have been hard to recruit. Hong said immigrant parents have long been concerned that letting their children spend half the school day or more hearing their home language will get in the way of learning English, even though research has shown it can make the whole process go faster. “The goal is to dismantle those myths and misperceptions,” she said. But even though about 20% of students districtwide are English learners, only about 10% of them are in dual-language programs.

Many immigrant families, however, have become strong advocates for the programs. José Sanjas, a Mexican-born father in Madera Unified School District, takes his 6-year-old daughter past her neighborhood school every day en route to one of the district’s dual-language programs. He and his wife want to preserve their native language as their daughter grows up here, but the draw isn’t only personal; Sanjas also sees how bilingualism will benefit his daughter in the workplace.

“She can help more people in the future,” Sanjas said. “Professionally, she’ll be able to serve everyone.”

Spurred on by support like his, a diverse coalition of school leaders in Madera Unified had, by 2016, come to see dual-language education as key to turning around the district’s chronically low performance, especially among the children of immigrants. Flores had helped make the case, inviting school board members to the annual conference of the California Association for Bilingual Education. And in Flores’ hometown, U.S.-born white families were among those speaking up in support of the programs, knowing even if the immigrant students’ test scores had the most room to grow, their children could benefit too.

A native Farsi speaker works on a Spanish language assignment at Washington Elementary School in Madera.

Statewide, public opinion had swung in the other direction; that November, about 74% of California voters said yes to Proposition 58, officially allowing bilingual education back in California classrooms.

“It was a relief we [could] finally move forward for our children,” Flores said. “We lost a whole generation of kids — quite a few generations, really — because of English-only.”

The next generation, however, is still waiting.

A limping recovery: 2016 to 2024

Flores spent 40 years training future teachers before retiring in 2019. Across three institutions and 32 years at Cal State San Bernardino, she likely taught 10,000 students, many of whom remain sprinkled throughout the state’s bilingual education system. But if anything defines the legacy of Prop. 227, it is the shattered teacher pipeline it left in its wake.

Gándara, of the UCLA Civil Rights Project, said the current state of affairs is “one of those stories of ‘I told you so.’ … I could see what the problem was going to be: that when people came back to their senses and realized what a mistake this was, the big fallout was going to be that we didn’t have the teachers.”

California colleges are not producing nearly enough teachers to meet the state’s bilingual education goals. During the 2022-23 school year, the state commission on teacher credentialing only authorized 1,011 new bilingual teachers — across all languages. Only seven went to teachers who speak Vietnamese, the second-most-common language in California schools that year. And it actually gave out fewer credentials to Spanish-speaking teachers that year than in the three years prior.

The Legislature has not ignored this problem entirely. In 2017, it funded six grants, totaling $20 million, to help districts coach up bilingual staffers and prepare them to lead bilingual classrooms. But Edgar Lampkin, CEO of the California Association for Bilingual Education, said seeding such “grow your own” programs falls far short of addressing the statewide need. “That’s not systemic,” he said.

In 2022, the National Resource Center for Asian Languages, based at Cal State Fullerton, got state money to train 200 teachers over five years. They’re on track, and the center’s director, Natalie Tran, is proud that their programs are not only increasing the number of teachers certified to teach in Asian languages, but also diversifying the languages they speak. She expects to certify teachers who speak Tagalog, Hmong, and Khmer this school year. Still, she said, the state needs to do more to train additional teachers of Asian languages, including the less common ones. “We’re going to need help from policymakers to make this happen,” Tran said.

She isn’t the only one calling on lawmakers to be part of the solution. Anya Hurwitz is executive director of SEAL, a nonprofit that got its start as an initiative of the Sobrato Family Foundation to address achievement gaps between immigrant and native-born children in Silicon Valley. She says the state underfunds education, which gets in the way of doing what’s best for kids who don’t speak English.

In 2022, the last year for which federal census data is available, New York spent almost $30,000 per student. California spent about $17,000. And besides its support for teacher training, the Legislature has only given districts $10 million extra to start or expand dual-language programs. In Massachusetts, home to about one-tenth the number of kids still learning English, the Legislature disbursed $11.8 million for the same work, kicking off its own recovery from an English-only law.

“Funding is not the solution to everything in and of itself,” Hurwitz said, “but at the same time, we can’t build capacity without funding and resources.”

Students pay attention during a class in Spanish at Madison Elementary School in Madera.

Back in Flores’ hometown, Madera administrators have been able to use state and federal money earmarked for their sizable number of immigrant families and those living in poverty to achieve their dual-language goals. But startup costs for dual-language programs are expensive. Teacher preparation programs, Superintendent Todd Lile said, are not producing graduates who are ready to do this work, leaving districts like his with steep professional development costs.

A residency program with Cal State Fresno has given Madera a solid pipeline of teachers, but the recent grads have to clear all the usual hurdles of being new to the profession while also adapting to using Spanish in the classroom. While these new hires at Washington Elementary School grew up bilingual, they went to school through the Prop. 227 years, meaning most of them didn’t develop an academic vocabulary in Spanish.

Viviana Valerio, a kindergarten teacher, said that history made bilingual education an intimidating proposition. “I commonly speak Spanish at home, but then when I was thinking about teaching, I was thinking, ‘OK, academic terms, I don’t know how to translate that,’ or ‘Parents ask me a question and I can’t think of it, I’m going to want to transition into English,’” she said. “For me, that was the scary part.”

Texas, too, lacks bilingual education teachers, echoing a shortage present in much of the country, but the state is far ahead of California; many districts are able to recruit their own alumni because their programs have been around so long. Texas also continues to invest in bilingual education, helping districts comply with state mandates to offer it. Like California, Texas gives districts more per-pupil funding for every student still learning English; unlike California, Texas offers an additional premium for each of them enrolled in a dual-language program.

As an extra incentive to start and maintain these programs, Texas has started bumping up funding for the native English speakers enrolled, too. Research shows the programs work better when classes are evenly split between native English speakers and speakers of the program’s second language. Then, not only are students learning their second language from the teacher but from their peers as well. Conveniently, this also makes for more integrated classrooms, something Gándara said California needs.

“We haven’t been able to take advantage of that, in large part because people don’t pay attention to that as a major issue and also because we don’t have the teachers to pull it off,” Gándara said.

Students work on multiplication problems during a Spanish language math class at Madison Elementary School.

Indeed, districts across the state cite staffing as a major barrier to starting or expanding their programs. Some have gone abroad to recruit. Others have been forced to scrap their plans entirely. Newark Unified School District, in the Bay Area, got rid of its dual-language program this year because it couldn’t find teachers to staff it. “We tried everything,” said Karen Allard, assistant superintendent of education services.

For more than a decade now, the state’s Education Department has tried to champion bilingual programs. Students who can prove their fluency in two languages before graduation get a special seal on their diplomas. The department also implores schools to help the children of immigrants maintain their home language while learning English, building that recommendation into its 2017 English Learner Roadmap. By 2030, it wants half of California students on a path to becoming bilingual.

Yet all of this largely amounts to cheerleading. The department is minimally funded and staffed, a result of the state’s commitment to sending almost all K-12 funding directly to school districts, and its support for bilingual education has not come with any firm demands.

Conor Williams, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank based in Washington, D.C., recently found himself — a self-described “professional lefty” — in the surprising position of celebrating Texas’ policy over California’s. Besides following Texas’ lead on funding, he said, California should rethink teacher licensing. The state requires college graduates to pass a suite of tests to become teachers, but Williams points out the tests don’t lead to better instruction and can keep good teachers from classrooms. Getting rid of the requirement could bring more bilingual adults into the profession and expand the teacher pipeline.

Hard to overcome, however, is California’s shift toward more local control over schooling. Williams doesn’t always agree with what the Texas education department does with its power, but the state’s centralized approach means it has “enough power and muscle and will to set rules and hold districts to them,” he said. California’s Local Control Funding Formula is widely popular and has ensured districts get more state money to serve students still learning English as well as those in foster care and low-income households. But, Williams points out, local control has its limits.

“You don’t win civil rights battles by leaving it up to local school boards,” he said.

Still, districts like Madera are moving ahead on their own. In 2020, Flores’ alma mater, Washington Elementary, became Madera Unified’s second dual-language school, welcoming its first class of kindergartners who are expected to leave proficient in both English and Spanish.

Mateo Diaz Zanjas was one of them. He’s now a fourth grader and speaks in easy Spanish about the school and his long-term dream of going to Harvard. Upon hearing that he and his peers speak very good Spanish, he eagerly replies: “We also speak good English.” And he proves it, going on to answer questions in English about his favorite subjects and the languages he speaks with certain friends.

Administrators, however, are still waiting for the data to show that their bet on bilingual education will pay off in student achievement gains. The pandemic interrupted their early years and set them back, and the oldest students aren’t doing as well as district leaders would have hoped. Commitment to the programs, however, has not waivered. Students’ overall test scores remain low, but their growth scores — or how much they learn over the course of the year — are high.

The district is helping students learn English more quickly, too, meaning they are becoming “former English learners” faster with the newer supports and joining the district’s highest-performing student group.

In the meantime, Madera teachers are using bilingual education to give Spanish speakers grade-level material, knowing that once they sharpen their English skills, all that information will transfer.

“Kids can learn math in Spanish; it’s still math,” Lile said. “They can learn social studies in Spanish; it’s still history and geography. These subject matters don’t exist only in English.”

During Flores’ recent visit to Madera Unified, she heard Lile describe his long-term goals for the district, including higher graduation rates and better college readiness for the children of immigrants. She looked on proudly, sure her hometown district was finally getting it right.

An uncertain future: 2024 and beyond

A few years ago, Flores introduced Lile to Margarita Machado-Casas, a professor at San Diego State’s Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education, which has long been a top producer of the state’s bilingual teachers. Machado-Casas is helping the district figure out what concrete steps teachers and administrators should take to follow the high-level recommendations of the state’s English Learner Roadmap. They started out with “Principle 1,” which asks school and district staffers to see immigrant students’ language and culture as assets rather than seeing their lack of English proficiency as a deficit. Pointing to Madera’s long and painful history of discriminating against immigrant students, including Flores, Machado-Casas said this principle unexpectedly took the entire first year, requiring “courageous conversations” — including asking staffers to think deeply about whether they believed in the work enough to stay in the district.

Machado-Casas is helping educators in Madera understand both how to help immigrant students tackle grade-level material and convince them that the students can handle it.

Flores hopes the work ends up being a playbook for the entire state — which could soon need one. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill this year requiring the Education Department to come up with a statewide plan for helping districts adopt the road map’s guidelines and report on their progress.

This planning process guarantees California will be over a decade into its recovery from the English-only years before the state even considers holding schools accountable for changing their practices. When New York passed a blueprint for how to serve English learners in 2014, it followed it up with new state regulations that same year, creating stricter policies for serving students who were still learning English, including a broader mandate for bilingual education, which had already been required for decades.

Alesha Moreno-Ramirez leads the California Education Department’s multilingual support division. She said state budget limitations have gotten in the way of implementing the English Learner Roadmap and said any call to require bilingual education like Texas or New York would have to come from the Legislature, not the department. “That said, we would enthusiastically support the movement toward requiring bilingual education,” she added.

Bárbara Flores sits by a tree at Washington Elementary School in Madera. As a child in the 1950s, Flores played Ring Around the Rosie here.

Advocates caution such a mandate would have to come with enough funding to help districts create high-quality programs, but many agree it would be a win for California students. Children from immigrant families speak 108 different languages, according to the Education Department, but 93% of them speak one of 10. To require bilingual programs, the Legislature would likely tweak the current law, which says if the parents of 30 or more students in a single school request a language acquisition program, the school has to offer it “to the extent possible.” Texas, Illinois, and New York have similar laws, but instead of requiring bilingual programs in response to parent advocacy, they do so based solely on enrollment.

Flores thinks the state is at least moving in the right direction. And Madera Unified gives her hope. During her recent visit, she was flooded with memories: She saw the tree she and her friends used to circle while playing “Ring Around the Rosie.” She visited the classroom she walked out of as a 5-year-old, where the walls are now decorated with vocabulary in Spanish as well as English. She suffered in that room 70 years ago. Now, little Mexican girls do not.

“We don’t stop,” she said. “We keep plugging away. That’s our tenacity. That’s our grit. And our motivation, of course, is for our children.”

Los puntajes de las pruebas en las escuelas preparatorias de Colorado cayeron, pero los estudiantes que aprenden inglés como nuevo idioma tuvieron caídas más grandes

2024-12-05T23:57:29+00:00

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Los estudiantes de inglés en Colorado experimentaron las mayores caídas en los puntajes del PSAT y SAT la primavera pasada, incluso más grandes que las caídas de puntajes experimentadas por todos los estudiantes de la preparatoria en el estado.

Las caídas generales han llevado a discusiones entre los funcionarios del estado sobre sí ajustar los requisitos de graduación de la preparatoria y si los puntajes de la primavera pasada pueden compararse con los puntajes de años anteriores. Ahora, una superintendente de Colorado está planeando preocupaciones sobre si los puntajes del PSAT y SAT en los distritos escolares que sirven a un gran número de estudiantes de inglés deberían incluso usarse para calificar el rendimiento académico de un distrito.

“La tasa de puntos perdidos en los puntajes no es equitativa y no es comparable”, dijo Karla Loría, superintendente de las escuelas Adams 14. “Afecta a los estudiantes multilingües y a los estudiantes con discapacidades a una tasa mayor que a cualquier otro grupo de estudiantes”.

Una de las brechas más grandes en todo el estado, por ejemplo: los estudiantes de 10o grado que no están identificados para recibir servicios de idioma ingles tuvieron una caída promedio de 5 puntos en sus puntajes del PSAT, mientras que los estudiantes de 10o grado que están aprendiendo inglés como nuevo idioma tuvieron una caída promedio de 83 puntos, lo que equivale al 11.6%, o más de 16 veces la de sus compañeros.

Al observar solo los puntajes de matemáticas, los estudiantes de 10o grado que aprenden inglés tuvieron una caída del 13.6% en los puntajes, en comparación con una caída del 1.3% entre los estudiantes de 10o grado que no son aprendices de inglés.

Los estudiantes con discapacidades también experimentaron grandes caídas, aunque no tan grandes como los estudiantes de inglés.

En discusiones previas sobre las caídas generales de 2024, los funcionarios estatales dijeron que es difícil saber cuánto representan una disminución en el rendimiento y cuánto se debe a los cambios en el formato del examen.

El PSAT y SAT digitales que los estudiantes tomaron en la primavera de 2024 fueron adaptativos, lo que significa que las preguntas que los estudiantes veían dependían de cómo respondían a las preguntas anteriores.

Los funcionarios estatales también le dijeron a la Junta Estatal de Educación que es posible que estos resultados más bajos sean una representación más precisa del aprendizaje de los estudiantes que ya se desempeñaban en el rango más bajo de los puntos posibles.

Eso se debe a que, según dicen, antes se les daba a los estudiantes el consejo de adivinar las preguntas que no sabían o cuando se les acababa el tiempo. Y algunas de esas adivinaciones probablemente eran correctas, lo que les ganaba algunos puntos extra. Pero la nueva prueba digital del PSAT y SAT en línea está diseñada para saber cuándo los estudiantes probablemente están adivinando, por lo que, aunque sea correcta, el examen no les otorgará esos puntos.

“Los estudiantes estaban obteniendo crédito por contenido que no sabían”, dijo Christina Wirth-Hawkins, directora de evaluación del Departamento de Educación de Colorado.

Aún así, agregó, el departamento no está diciendo a las escuelas que cambien cómo preparan a los estudiantes para las pruebas, sino que les está diciendo que lo importante es ayudar a los estudiantes a aprender contenido.

Las caídas en las calificaciones de los estudiantes de inglés siguen las preocupaciones planteadas el año pasado

En el Distrito 11 de Colorado Springs, donde aproximadamente el 6% de los 22,700 estudiantes del distrito están identificados como que tienen una habilidad limitada o nula en inglés, los estudiantes de 10o grado que aún no son componentes en inglés experimentaron una caída de 127 puntos en sus calificaciones, en comparación con una caída de 27 puntos para los demás estudiantes.

En Westminster, donde más del 24% de los 7,600 estudiantes del distrito están aprendiendo inglés como un nuevo idioma, los estudiantes de 10o grado que están aprendiendo inglés tuvieron una caída promedio de 121 puntos en sus calificaciones, en comparación con una caída de 28 puntos para los que no reciben apoyo en inglés.

En los distritos escolares de Harrison y Fort Morgan, los estudiantes de 10o grado que están aprendiendo inglés experimentaron caídas de 120 puntos en su calificación promedio.

Debido a las grandes brechas, Loría pidió el mes pasado al consejo considerar los exámenes PSAT y SAT que los estudiantes tomaron en la primavera como un examen nuevo y no usarlos en contra de los distritos o escuelas en las evaluaciones por al menos un año.

Le preocupaba que las calificaciones para los distritos que sirven a grandes cantidades de estudiantes en esos subgrupos fueran significativamente más bajas que para otros distritos.

“El impacto es demasiado serio para tomarlo a la ligera”, dijo Loría.

Este otoño ya se han calculado las calificaciones preliminares para las escuelas y los distritos. El estado está revisando las apelaciones antes de que las calificaciones se finalicen. El Departamento de Educación del estado primero realizó un análisis para asegurar que las calificaciones siguieran siendo comparables con el año anterior y fueran justas para ser usadas en las evaluaciones. Basado en el análisis, el estado ajustó los puntajes de corte para las secciones de matemáticas del PSAT y SAT, pero dijo que aún era apropiado usarlas como un factor para evaluar el desempeño de las escuelas y distritos.

El miércoles, después de recibir algunos datos adicionales, la Junta Estatal votó nuevamente para ajustar los puntajes de corte para las calificaciones del próximo año, en particular para los distritos que utilizan un promedio de tres años de los puntajes. Sin embargo, la Junta Estatal no optó por seguir la sugerencia de Loría de excluir los puntajes de consideración.

Un portavoz de College Board, los creadores de los exámenes PSAT y SAT, dijo que en general han encontrado que “los puntajes del SAT de la primavera y el otoño de 2024 son generalmente comparables a los de años anteriores”. Según los informes de datos del sitio web de College Board, los estudiantes cuyo primer idioma no era el inglés experimentaron grandes caídas en los puntajes del PSAT de 10o grado, pero no en los puntajes del SAT de 11o grado.

A nivel nacional, según los datos de College Board, los estudiantes cuyo idioma era algo distinto al inglés experimentaron una caída de 57 puntos en sus puntajes promedio en comparación con el año pasado, mientras que los estudiantes de 10o grado cuyo primer idioma era el inglés tuvieron una caída de 44 puntos.

El voto de la Junta Estatal tiene como objetivo ajustar las expectativas para que las escuelas de Colorado no sean penalizadas por algunas de las caídas en los puntajes, ya que algunas podrían ser debido al cambio en el formato del examen, pero Loría no pensó que fuera suficiente para tener en cuenta las disparidades entre los subgrupos.

Otros distritos no plantearon las mismas preocupaciones.

Estos estudiantes tuvieron más retrasos académicos durante COVID. ¿Cómo están respondiendo las escuelas en Colorado?

Un portavoz de las escuelas del Distrito 11 dijo que el distrito está “abordando factores complejos y contribuyentes en el corazón de nuestros puntajes. No compartimos las mismas preocupaciones que Adams 14 en este momento”.

El año pasado, cuando los funcionarios estatales comenzaron a alertar que los datos mostraban que los estudiantes de inglés podrían haber sido más afectados por las pérdidas de la pandemia y tener más dificultades para recuperarse en comparación con otros grupos de estudiantes, muchos líderes de distritos en Colorado no identificaron el problema, incluso cuando sus datos también coincidían con las preocupaciones del estado. Algunos dijeron que no estaban haciendo nada diferente para ayudar a estos estudiantes.

Adams 14 puede tener una motivación mayor que otros distritos para pedirle al estado que cambie su sistema de calificación para las escuelas y distritos. Ha sido el único distrito que ha seguido recibiendo calificaciones bajas durante más de 10 años y enfrentando sanciones estatales por ellas, incluyendo la pérdida de acreditación en algún momento. Los miembros de la Junta Estatal recientemente han dado un paso atrás y han puesto más confianza en los esfuerzos de mejora del distrito, pero hasta ahora, no han producido una calificación más alta para el distrito.

Los líderes de Adams 14 también pidieron a la junta estatal que considere el impacto de la contaminación ambiental en el desempeño escolar cuando califiquen a las escuelas y distritos.

Las caídas de 2024 significan que algunas brechas se han duplicado

Ya existían brechas entre los estudiantes aprendices de inglés y aquellos que no necesitan servicios de inglés, pero estas han crecido con los resultados de 2024 que se publicaron hace unos meses. En algunos distritos, incluyendo Adams 14, se han duplicado.

En Adams 14, los estudiantes aprendices de inglés de 10.º grado tuvieron una caída de 108 puntos, en comparación con una caída de 30 puntos para otros estudiantes. En Adams 14, en comparación con 2023, la brecha en el rendimiento de los estudiantes aprendices de inglés y los estudiantes que ya hablan inglés en 10.º grado creció de 70 puntos a 148. Esto representa un aumento del 111 % en la brecha.

La brecha entre la puntuación promedio de los estudiantes aprendices de inglés y los estudiantes que no están identificados para servicios de inglés en el Distrito 11 es una de las más grandes del estado, más grande que las brechas estatales y está creciendo rápidamente.

La brecha más grande en ese distrito, por ejemplo, se da entre los estudiantes de 11.º grado que tomaron el SAT. Los aprendices de inglés de 11.º grado tuvieron una puntuación promedio de 625, en comparación con una puntuación promedio de 910 para los estudiantes que no están aprendiendo inglés como un nuevo idioma. Esa es una brecha de 285 puntos, frente a una brecha de 225 el año pasado.

De los 25 distritos que tenían datos que no tuvieron que ser suprimidos por razones de privacidad tanto en 2023 como en 2024, solo el distrito escolar de Boulder Valley vio mejorar las puntuaciones promedio de los estudiantes de 10.º grado que no son aún proficientes en inglés.

Al observar las puntuaciones sin desglosar, muchos distritos tuvieron a otros estudiantes que lo hicieron lo suficientemente bien como para promediar una caída más moderada en las poblaciones totales. En promedio, combinando a todos los estudiantes, los estudiantes de 10.º grado en el Distrito 11 solo tuvieron una caída promedio de 31 puntos. En Westminster, la caída general para 10.º grado fue de 49 puntos.

Jorge García, un defensor de los estudiantes multilingües a través de la Asociación Colorado de Educación Bilingüe, dijo que aunque no ha revisado los datos de 2024 detenidamente, los problemas no son nuevos.

Y si el estado está seguro de que este nuevo formato de examen está evaluando con precisión el aprendizaje de todos los estudiantes, dijo que debería haber un plan para ayudar a los estudiantes que aún no son proficientes en inglés.

“Si el sistema educativo y el estado están haciendo peor de lo que pensábamos, entonces, ¿qué están haciendo al respecto?” dijo Garcia. “No me sorprendería que tal vez tengamos algunos líderes a cargo, algunos, que no saben qué hacer. Deberían comenzar a echar un vistazo largo y profundo a cómo están fallando a estos estudiantes para que puedan comenzar a cambiar las cosas. Si siguen ignorándolo, no va a mejorar”.

Traducción por Jackie Ramirez

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado que cubre distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

La traducción de este articulo se publico primero en La Ciudad, un boletín digital bilingüe de Colorado Community Media. Regístrate para recibirlo en coloradocommunitymedia.com/newsletters.

Few English learners get into NYC’s specialized high schools. This student came achingly close.

2024-12-05T10:00:00+00:00

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Derek Sandoval seemed like a good candidate for Discovery, a program created to boost the numbers of disadvantaged kids in New York City’s elite public high schools.

Derek and his parents arrived from Venezuela in the summer of 2022 with little English and no housing. They moved into a homeless shelter in midtown Manhattan, and the city assigned Derek, then a seventh grader, to a public middle school in Greenwich Village while his parents found work as a cleaner and in a car repair shop.

In his eighth grade year, Derek, then 13, set his sights on the city’s coveted specialized high schools, which admit students on the basis of a single test offered only in English. With dreams of becoming a doctor one day, he decided those schools could help secure his future.

“I saw if you were in the specialized high schools, you would have more readiness … to go to college and get a scholarship,” said Derek, who’s now 14.

Derek Sandoval poses for a portrait at Project Rousseau in June, 2024 in New York.

With weeks to prepare and no access to paid tutors, Derek took the test. His score, a 457, was below that year’s threshold of 491 for an automatic offer but high enough to qualify for Discovery, which provides spots in specialized high schools for disadvantaged students who score close enough to the cutoff and complete summer coursework. The city determines whether kids are disadvantaged in three different ways, and Derek met all three criteria: He lived in a homeless shelter, was learning English, and his family was economically disadvantaged.

But a change made to the program six years ago rendered Derek ineligible for Discovery. Under the 2018 eligibility change, students must attend a school where at least 60% of their classmates are economically disadvantaged.

At Derek’s school, 59% of students fell into that category last year.

The change – part of a broader effort under former Mayor Bill de Blasio to boost the notoriously tiny share of Black and Latino students at the specialized high schools – was designed to ensure Discovery offers go to the “most disadvantaged” applicants, city officials have said. But cases like Derek’s raise questions about whether, in some instances, the eligibility rules may be excluding those very students.

Fewer than 55 of the nearly 16,000 students enrolled across the eight specialized high schools, or under 0.3%, lived in a homeless shelter in 2022-23, according to city data.

Just four students attending specialized high schools last year were English learners.

Derek, who learned about the Discovery program and school criteria only after he received his test results, felt frustrated and confused.

“They should qualify the conditions of the kid who’s applying for the program, not the zone where he lives, or the school where he studies,” Derek said.

Discovery changes have drawn controversy

The city’s eight specialized high schools, including Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, and Bronx Science, enroll about 16,000 students, or 5% of the city’s high school population. But they command outsize attention because of their long track record of vaulting students into elite colleges and careers, their powerful alumni bases, and their considerable resources.

The same 1971 state law that mandated the schools admit students based on their score on a single exam also established the Discovery program. Each specialized school administers its own Discovery program and has a different test score cutoff. Students who qualify must complete a summer academy before enrolling.

For years, city officials left Discovery open to any student citywide who qualified as economically disadvantaged and scored high enough on the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT. But that system led to a Discovery program with racial demographics similar to the specialized high schools overall, which are a combined 84% white and Asian American. In 2017, Discovery reached about 200 students, and fewer than 20% of offers went to Black and Latino students, though those students make up more than 60% of the school system.

In 2018, as part of a broader effort to diversify the specialized high schools, de Blasio and schools Chancellor Richard Carranza significantly expanded the size of Discovery and added the school-level poverty criteria. The program now serves nearly 800 students.

While the school poverty criteria measure has excluded some students like Derek, it has significantly increased the overall share of Discovery offers going to Black and Latino students, who are more likely than white and Asian American students to attend higher-poverty schools in the city’s segregated system. Since city officials added the school-level criteria, the share of Discovery offers to Black and Latino students rose from under 20% to 33% last year, according to city data. In addition to improving racial diversity, the changes to Discovery were designed to boost geographic and socioeconomic diversity, officials said.

Students applying to specialized schools from private and parochial middle schools, which don’t use the same school-level poverty measurements as public schools, must live in a neighborhood where at least 60% of families are below the poverty line in order to qualify for Discovery.

City officials say the school-level poverty criteria helps ensure Discovery reaches the “most disadvantaged” students. And there’s evidence that attending a high-poverty school is indeed a disadvantage in its own right, independent of a student’s individual circumstances. A 2022 Independent Budget Office analysis found that city students attending the highest-poverty schools performed worse on math and English tests than those in wealthier schools, even when they came from neighborhoods with similar poverty levels.

But the school-level poverty criteria has also drawn significant pushback, particularly from Asian American families.

Some of those families worked with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative legal group, to file a lawsuit in 2019 arguing that the school-level poverty rule discriminates against Asian American students from low-income households.

A judge initially dismissed the suit, ruling that the plaintiffs had failed to show that the Discovery policy led to an overall decrease in Asian American enrollment at the specialized high schools. But last month, an appeals court reversed that decision, allowing the case to proceed.

The city isn’t currently considering any changes to the Discovery program criteria, said Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for the Education Department. Lyle said there are hundreds of schools throughout the city “with dedicated educators and enriching programming.”

Under Mayor Eric Adams, the city hasn’t made any major efforts to reform admissions requirements at the city’s selective public schools, instead adding more screened schools in neighborhoods that historically lacked them.

Bethany Thorne, the chief of staff at Project Rousseau, an organization that supports immigrant students applying to high school, said she understands the rationale for using school poverty as a criteria for Discovery.

But Thorne argued there should be exceptions for students from groups that are severely underrepresented in the specialized high schools — including homeless students, those in foster care, and English learners — who attend schools that don’t meet the poverty criteria. She believes that the number of such students has likely grown in recent years due to an influx of migrant students placed in homeless shelters in neighborhoods like midtown Manhattan and assigned to nearby schools.

“Discovery has been game changing in so many ways,” Thorne said. “However there will always be some exceptions of students with extreme situations, whether it’s students in temporary housing or foster care who, through no choice of their own, may end up in a different environment.”

A determined student faces long odds

Derek knew nothing about the specialized high schools or the admissions test when he began school in New York City in seventh grade. In early conversations about his high school options, he said school staffers steered him toward international schools, which specialize in supporting older students still learning English.

Instead, Derek found out about the specialized schools in the fall of his eighth grade year after he overheard classmates talking about their test prep.

He was immediately captivated. But he knew he faced long odds.

Some of his classmates had been preparing for the test for years, often with the aid of private tutors, a system Derek described as “pay to win.”

But Derek’s biggest disadvantage was that he was still learning English.

The SHSAT, unlike many of the state-mandated Regents exams that students must pass to graduate high school, is offered only in English, though English learners get glossaries with translations of key terms and extra time on the test.

A city Education Department spokesperson said translating the SHSAT to other languages would likely put the city out of compliance with the state law governing admission to the specialized high schools.

With weeks to prepare, Derek threw himself into studying, asking his school librarian for past copies of the SHSAT and looking up tutorials on YouTube. He also asked for help from Project Rousseau, which was helping his mom with pro bono legal support on her immigration case.

When his score arrived in March, he was disappointed he didn’t make the cut but proud of his effort. Thorne said it was the highest score she’d ever seen from such a recently arrived immigrant student.

“I didn’t pass, but I tried my best,” Derek said. “I was happy at the end also because I had like one week, and I wasn’t too low in score.”

Derek got into the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in East Harlem, but when his parents saw a chance to move into stable housing in New Jersey over the summer, they jumped on it. Derek started his school year in New Jersey.

And while Derek understands his family’s decision, he thinks they might have made another choice if things had turned out differently in his high school application process.

“I think if I got into a specialized high school, we would have stayed in New York,” Derek said. “My mom, she cares more about my education, my future.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado high school test scores dropped across the board, but students learning English as a new language had bigger declines

2024-11-15T22:32:03+00:00

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English learners in Colorado saw the largest drops in PSAT and SAT scores this past spring, bigger even than the score declines experienced by all high school students in the state.

The overall declines have led to discussions among state officials about adjusting high school graduation requirements and whether last spring’s scores can be compared to scores from previous years. Now, one Colorado superintendent is raising concerns about whether the PSAT and SAT scores in school districts that serve large numbers of English learners should even be used to rate a district’s academic performance.

“The rate of lost points in the scores is not equitable and it is not comparable,” said Karla Loría, superintendent of Adams 14 schools. “It hurts multilingual students and students with disabilities at a greater rate than any other student groups.”

One of the largest gaps statewide, for instance: 10th graders who aren’t identified to receive English language services had an average 5-point drop in their PSAT scores, while 10th graders who are learning English as a new language had an average drop of 83 points, which is 11.6%, or more than 16 times that of their counterparts.

When looking at just math scores, 10th grade English learners had a 13.6% drop in scores compared to a 1.3% drop among 10th graders who aren’t English learners.

Students with disabilities also saw large drops, though not as large as English learners.

In previous discussions about the overall declines of 2024, state officials said it’s difficult to know how much they represent a drop in performance and how much is due to the changes in the test format.

The digital PSAT and SAT students took in the spring of 2024 was adaptive, meaning that the questions students saw were dependent on how they were answering questions.

State officials also told the State Board of Education that it’s possible these lower results are a more accurate representation of learning for students who already performed at the lower range of the possible points.

That’s because, they say, students used to get advice to guess at questions they didn’t know or when they ran out of time. And some of those guesses were bound to be correct, earning them some extra points. But the new digital PSAT and SAT test online is designed to know when students are likely to be guessing, and so even if the guess is correct, the test won’t give students those points.

“Students were earning credit for content they didn’t know,” said Christina Wirth-Hawkins, chief assessment officer for the Colorado Department of Education.

Still, she said, the department isn’t telling schools to change how they do test prep with students, but rather telling them that the important thing is to help students learn content.

Drops in scores for English learners follows concerns raised last year

In Colorado Springs District 11, where about 6% of the district’s 22,700 students are identified as having limited or no English proficiency, 10th graders who aren’t yet English proficient had a 127-point drop in their scores, compared to a 27-point drop for other students.

In Westminster, where more than 24% of the district’s 7,600 students are learning English as a new language, 10th graders learning English had their average score drop by 121 points, compared to a 28-point drop for those who aren’t receiving English support.

In both the Harrison and Fort Morgan school districts, 10th graders learning English experienced drops of 120 points in their average score.

Because of the large gaps, Loria asked the board last month to consider the PSAT and SAT tests students took in the spring as a new test and not to use them against districts or schools in evaluations for at least one year.

She worried that the ratings for the districts serving large numbers of students in those subgroups would be significantly lower than for other districts.

“The impact is too serious to take it lightly,” Loría said.

This fall, preliminary ratings have already been calculated for schools and districts. The state is reviewing appeals before the ratings are finalized. The state Department of Education had first run an analysis to ensure the scores were still comparable to the previous year and fair to use in the ratings. Based on the analysis, the state tweaked the cut scores for the PSAT and SAT math sections of the test, but said it was still appropriate to use them as a factor for evaluating school and district performance.

On Wednesday, having received some additional data, the State Board voted again to tweak the cut scores for ratings next year, in particular for districts that use a three-year average of the scores. But the State Board did not opt to follow Loria’s suggestion of taking the scores out of consideration.

A spokesperson for College Board, the makers of the PSAT and SAT tests, said they’ve found in general “SAT scores from spring and fall 2024 are generally comparable to previous years.” According to data reports from the College Board website, students whose first language was something other than English had large drops in 10th grade PSAT scores, but not in 11th grade SAT scores.

At that national level, according to College Board data, students whose language was something other than English had a 57-point drop in their average scores compared to last year, while 10th graders whose first language was English had a 44-point drop.

The State Board’s vote is meant to adjust the expectations so that Colorado schools aren’t penalized for some of the score drops, since some could be due to the change in the test format, but Loría didn’t think it went far enough to account for the subgroup disparities.

Other districts did not raise the same concerns.

Test scores say COVID was especially rough on English learners. Not all school districts agree.

A spokesperson for the District 11 schools said the district is “addressing complex and contributing factors at the heart of our scores. We do not share the same concerns as Adams 14 at this time.”

Last year, when state officials first raised an alarm that data showed English learners might have been more impacted by the pandemic losses and having a harder time recovering compared to other student groups, many district leaders in Colorado did not identify the issue, even when their data also matched state concerns. Some said they weren’t doing anything different to help these students.

Adams 14 may have a bigger motivation than other districts to ask the state to change its rating system for schools and districts. It has been the only district to continue to receive low ratings for more than 10 years and face state sanctions for it, including a loss of accreditation at one point. State Board members more recently have backed off and put more trust in the district’s own improvement efforts, but so far, they have not yet produced a higher rating for the district.

Adams 14 leaders earlier this fall also asked the state board to consider environmental polluiton’s impact on school performance when they rate schools and districts.

The 2024 drops mean some gaps have doubled

Gaps already existed among English learners and those who don’t need English services, but they’ve grown with the 2024 results released a few months ago. In some districts, including Adams 14, they’ve doubled.

In Adams 14, English learners in 10th grade had a drop of 108 points, compared to a drop of 30 points for other students. For Adams 14, compared to 2023, the gap in the performance of English learners and students who already speak English in 10th grade grew from 70 points to 148. That’s a 111% increase in the gap.

The gap between the average score for English learners and students not identified for English services in District 11 are some of the largest in the state – larger than statewide gaps and growing fast.

The largest gap in that district, for instance, is among 11th graders who took the SAT. English learners in 11th grade had an average score of 625, compared to an average score of 910 for students not learning English as a new language. That’s a 285-point gap, up from a gap of 225 last year.

Of 25 districts that had data that didn’t have to be suppressed for privacy in both 2023 and 2024, only the Boulder Valley school district had 10th graders who are not yet English proficient improve their average scores.

When looking at scores without disaggregating, many districts had other students do well enough to average out a more moderate drop for their total populations. On average, combining all students, 10th graders in District 11 only had an average score drop of 31. In Westminster, the overall drop for 10th grade was 49 points.

Jorge Garcia, an advocate for multilingual students through the Colorado Association of Bilingual Education, said that although he hasn’t looked at the 2024 data closely, the issues aren’t new.

And if the state is confident that this new test format is accurately testing all students’ learning, he said there should be a plan to help students who are not yet proficient in English.

“If the educational system and the state is doing worse than we thought, then what are they doing about it?” Garcia said. “It would not surprise me that perhaps we have some leaders in charge, some, who don’t know what to do. They should begin to take a long hard look at how they’re failing these students so they can start to turn that around. If they continue to ignore it, it’s not going to get better.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Why can’t New York keep up with the demand for bilingual teachers?

2024-10-21T19:57:13+00:00

This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Bilingual education is the fastest-growing department in the Hudson Valley’s Suffern Central School District — but hiring for it is tough.

It took three years for the district to find a bilingual math teacher, and a job opening for a Spanish-speaking psychologist posted last month hasn’t elicited a single application, district officials said. The need for the psychologist emerged after nearly 100 multilingual students enrolled this summer.

“When we sat down as a district in the spring planning for this, our numbers were completely different than our prediction,” said Patricia Balbuena-Rivera, Suffern’s multilingual education director.

School districts across New York state have long struggled to find qualified bilingual education teachers, and the problem has worsened over the past two years, as hundreds of thousands of new immigrants and asylum seekers arrive.

Federal and state laws require school districts to provide language services to students learning English, but districts say they can’t find educators to fill necessary roles, because teachers aren’t incentivized to pursue specialized programs. In some cases, new students speak languages for which teaching certification exams don’t even exist.

Not including New York City or charter schools, more than 110,000 English language learners from about 200 language backgrounds were enrolled in the state’s public schools in the 2021–22 school year, a recent audit by the state comptroller’s office found. In some districts — like Kiryas Joel, East Ramapo, Hempstead, Wainscott, and Port Chester — more than 1 in 3 students are learning English.

The numbers have likely swelled since then: More than 200,000 asylum seekers have entered the state since 2022, and multilingual student enrollment outside New York City increased 8% between the 2019–20 and 2022–23 school years.

New York is struggling to keep up. The audit, which focused on the State Education Department’s lack of oversight of bilingual education programs, found that seven out of nine districts visited didn’t have adequate programs.

“It’s not new. It’s years and years and years of shortages,” said Tamara Alsace, a co-chair of the New York State Association for Bilingual Education’s advocacy team and the former director of multilingual education for Buffalo Public Schools. “It’s even more critical now, after the pandemic.”

The scarcity of bilingual teachers goes back more than 20 years, when bilingual programs came under political attack amid broader anti-immigrant rhetoric, said Kate Menken, a linguistics professor at Queens College.

While New York fought to keep these programs, backlash across the country contributed to a shortage of training programs throughout the United States.

A 2014 change to New York’s regulations for bilingual instruction sparked a sudden surge in demand for educators. Previously, multilingual students were taken out of a classroom to work in small groups across grade levels. The change, which is still in effect today, required schools to provide language support to multilingual learners within the classroom. As a result, bilingual teachers started working in general education classrooms.

There’s a well-documented achievement gap between multilingual students and the overall student population. New York’s English language learners have among the lowest graduation rates nationwide. During the 2022–23 school year, multilingual learners had a graduation rate of 57%, while the state’s overall graduation rate was 86%. That’s likely because there aren’t enough bilingual education programs and the state has high-stakes testing requirements, Menken said.

Research shows that English-learning students who have access to bilingual education programs tend to outperform other multilingual students who learn only in English, Menken said.

They also experience academic and socioemotional benefits. It may seem counterintuitive, but using a child’s home language can help them learn English, she said.

In New York, any school district that has more than 20 students with the same language background in a grade must provide a bilingual education program in both English and the students’ home language.

“It’s largely understood that bilingual education programs are the best possible approach for multilingual learners,” Menken said. “Why would we not want to ensure that these programs are being provided?”

Suffern

The number of new arrivals caught the Suffern Central School District by surprise a few years ago, said P. Erik Gundersen, the district’s superintendent.

With a student population of about 4,000, Suffern was one of the districts tagged in the comptroller’s report for not being fully compliant, because it didn’t have a Spanish program at every grade level.

Suffern now has about 900 English language learners, up from 349 during the 2019–20 school year.

The district has come into compliance now that there’s a bilingual education program in kindergarten through 12th grade, Gundersen said.

Schenectady

In the Schenectady City School District, which has 465 multilingual students among nearly 9,000 overall, students speak more than 20 languages, including Spanish, Arabic, Urdu, Pashto, and French.

The audit also found Schenectady noncompliant, but the district is working toward opening a dual language program for the 2025–26 school year in which all students learn both English and Spanish. Still, hiring poses an obstacle: Two job openings have so far received one applicant between them, district officials said — and that applicant wasn’t certified in bilingual education in New York.

District Superintendent Carlos Cotto said the bilingual education program is part of a broader effort to serve immigrant families.

“We want to make sure that we welcome all of our families as they come into our community, and we embrace them and provide them with, not just the academic end, but all aspects of how we can support them,” he said.

Mineola

Unlike in Schenectady and Suffern, the audit found that Mineola Public Schools, on Long Island, has a full Spanish dual language program and is in compliance with legal mandates. But even there, staffing is a challenge, according to Sara Ortiz, the director of curriculum, instruction, and learning.

Educators need bilingual certification as well as certifications in any specialty subject areas they teach.

“The pool just gets smaller and smaller the more boxes that need to get checked,” Ortiz said.

The district also has smaller numbers of students who speak Portuguese, Bengali, Mandarin, Malayalam, Turkish, Hindi, Ukrainian, and French. More than 30 teachers work to support the dual language program, Ortiz said.

New York City

The teacher shortage is affecting the five boroughs, as well.

New York City’s Project Open Arms, a program meant to support the arrival of asylum seekers, has distributed nearly $27 million across 600 public schools as of April 2023, according to a report last year by the city’s Independent Budget Office.

About half the schools that received funding had no bilingual teacher, according to the IBO report. But the city opened an additional 57 bilingual programs during the 2023–24 school year and has plans for more, according to the city Department of Education.

A New York State Association for Bilingual Education member survey this spring found that more than 70% of respondents said that the shortage of bilingual educators is the main challenge they’ve encountered when trying to serve newly arrived multilingual learners.

The shortage of other bilingual staff — counselors, school psychologists, and teaching assistants, among others — was the second most commonly cited challenge.

“We need multilingual social workers, psychologists, speech therapists, special educators,” said Alsace, the former multilingual education director in Buffalo. “Then those create a pipeline for administrators who understand and know how to meet the needs of multilingual learners.”

But teaching certifications for some languages simply don’t exist: There are no such exams available in Burmese, Karen, Kinyarwanda, Nepali, Somali, and Swahili, and therefore no teachers certified to teach in those languages, according to the state audit.

Five school districts — Buffalo, Rochester, Rush-Henrietta, Syracuse, and Utica — met the threshold for requiring a bilingual education program in at least one of those languages.

State education officials said they lack the resources to establish programs for some languages because there is not enough demand for them, according to the comptroller’s report, although the state will create a new exam if a district superintendent submits a statement of need.

In a response to the audit, State Education Department officials said they pushed for a regulatory change, which was approved for two years by the Board of Regents, that would help currently certified teachers earn supplementary teaching certificates.

The Education Department also said its Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages subsidizes the tuition for college students to incentivize them to enroll in a graduate-level language instruction program. In the 2023–24 school year, the department partnered with 16 institutions of higher education.

Over the last 10 years, those programs have enrolled more than 1,400 students working toward certification to teach English language learners, the department said.

In a statement to New York Focus, the Education Department said it continually seeks to implement policies and programs that will increase the number of teachers qualified to teach English Language Learners.

In 2022, Gov. Kathy Hochul launched the Empire State Residency Program to help address teacher shortages, including for bilingual education. Her administration has also given $4.3 billion to help local governments support asylum seekers, according to a statement from her office.

NY-AFFIRMs, a statewide coalition of groups that advocates on behalf of multilingual learners, is proposing that the state create a $6.8 million pilot program to increase access to certification for bilingual education programs. The funds would be used to offer free undergraduate degree programs at higher education institutions.

“While bilingual education isn’t the only issue, it’s one that’s been neglected for so long,” Alsace said. “Most people will not disagree that multilingualism is valuable, and knowing another language is a benefit to people.”

Indiana’s Teacher of the Year creates community, diversity, and comfort at Pike High School

2024-10-17T11:00:00+00:00

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This article was originally published by Mirror Indy.

Graciela Miranda’s corner of Pike High School feels more like a cozy coffee shop than it does a classroom.

Blankets are draped across the worn leather chairs that students gravitate to between classes. Reading recommendations fill in the back whiteboard, and boxes of books — new selections to fill the shelves of Miranda’s classroom library — line the back wall.

It’s a space the 23-year educator has purposefully created to appeal to her students. She knows from her time volunteering in schools in South America the value of readily available books and a space that helps students find their joy in learning.

But for Leandra Rodríguez, a senior at Pike High School, it’s more than just the books and bean bag chairs that keep her visiting Room H115. It’s the connections that Mrs. Miranda makes with students.

“She is always helping,” Rodríguez said. “She’s like our mom.”

Earning the trust of teenagers is hard enough. But Miranda, who teaches English language learners, has created a space that’s safe for students whether or not they’re on her class roster. She’s also created an environment where students look out for each other — no matter if they’re new to the country, still learning how to speak English or simply needing another adult to lean on who feels like family.

Miranda uses her own experiences as the daughter of Mexican immigrants to inform her teaching and was recently named Indiana’s Teacher of the Year. In addition to teaching, Miranda is also a department chair at Pike and advises the school’s LatinX Student Association.

Her voice stands out among Indiana teachers at a time when the Hispanic and Latino student population in Indiana largely outnumbers the educators in schools available to work with them. One in four Marion County students identify as Hispanic, according to state data provided to the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, compared to just 3% of teachers.

Miranda, who contributes to a Teach Indy group looking to grow diversity in the county’s teacher ranks, understands the importance of representation in schools.

“Diversity brings different ideas, different angles, the background knowledge that maybe we just don’t know,” Miranda said. “It just builds a better community.”

And part of building that community means showing up for students like Rodríguez, who is an English language learner. Though Rodríguez doesn’t have Miranda as a teacher this year, she still finds herself returning to those worn leather seats in the back of Mrs. Miranda’s room.

Miranda helps newcomers navigate school

At Pike High School, Miranda works with newcomers — immigrant or refugee children who come to the school with limited English language skills. Miranda’s classroom is made up of kids from six different countries with first languages ranging from Spanish to Haitian Creole to Gujarati, a language native to western India.

Graciela Miranda receives a hug in the hallway outside of her classroom Oct. 1, 2024 at Pike High School in Indianapolis.

Miranda doesn’t speak all of those languages, but she does know the importance of building support systems for her students. After all, they’re not just learning a new school or new language. They’re also learning how to live in an entirely new country.

In her “sheltered” English classes, students get to know Miranda as well as their fellow classmates.

The sheltered class is one of several English, math, and science courses offered by Pike to expose newcomers to grade-appropriate lessons in a supportive learning environment.

In sheltered English, for example, students study literary works similar to other classes, but Miranda slows down her lessons to ensure students have the time they need to understand the meaning behind what’s being asked of them. She also helps her kids learn technology new to them and navigate the customs of a new school — things students in Pike’s other English classes already know well.

In a recent lesson about Mexican American author Sandra Cisneros’ novel “The House on Mango Street,” Miranda guided students through a discussion of the book’s themes. She asked students to research Cisneros’ motivations for writing her book, but also gave gentle reminders.

“You probably have to go to Google and do your research,” Miranda told her students. “Who is Sandra Cisneros? You have to use your resources.”

She tries to pick books that teach her students how to be better thinkers and that connect with their life goals. Many of her students see themselves opening a small business, so Miranda sought out the book “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones” by James Clear to teach students the characteristics of leadership.

She also encourages reading for fun — allowing students to pick their own books for the first 10 minutes of class, including graphic novels, twisted fairytales and a recent addition to the class library, Trevor Noah’s autobiography, “Born a Crime.”

“A lot of our students haven’t had access to books,” Miranda said. “I want them to become comfortable with books. I want them just to enjoy reading a book. Nothing on the computer, just having something physical and tangible to be like, ‘Here’s a book. I like it. I can get lost in it.’”

Teaching from experience as a first-generation college student

Miranda is well suited to work with these students, because she’s walked a similar path. She was raised in a predominantly Latino community in a northwest Chicago suburb. Though her parents moved to Illinois in their teens, English was Miranda’s second language.

She still remembers riding a bus across town to attend a school that didn’t resemble her in “any way, shape or form.” She said she only encountered one Latino teacher and one Latino counselor in her high school. Miranda learned to code switch, presenting herself differently based on who she was around at school.

Self-doubt crept in. She said she didn’t fully grasp what it meant to be Latina until she reached college, and wonders whether she would’ve experienced the same self-doubt had she encountered more Latino teachers earlier in her education.

“I wonder if my thought process would’ve been different, if I would have felt validated in a different way,” Miranda said.

She now sees the opportunity to be that teacher for her students. She teaches a credit retrieval class, knowing transcripts or class completions from students’ home countries may not directly translate to what’s required of them in an Indiana school. And, she encourages her students to think early about college — something that once felt out of her own reach as a first-generation college student. It’s something she hears from her students, too.

Graciela Miranda engages with students in her classroom on Oct. 1, 2024 at Pike High School in Indianapolis.

“It’s a financial thing. It’s a language thing. It’s a ‘that fate is not for me, I’m not a citizen’ thing,” Miranda said. “There’s just a lot of, ‘I can’t see myself there. It’s such a far away dream.’”

Miranda hopes that she can be an example for those students. She found her way to college and shows students how they can, too.

Teacher shows students ‘mirror image’ of themselves in college

The teacher throws a cookout every year for her seniors to celebrate graduation, and takes students to events like Somos Ivy Tech, which features a diverse panel of students enrolled at the school to help her high schoolers envision themselves on campus.

Living in dorms, for example, is something not all newcomers and their families might be comfortable with. But, talking to students firsthand about their experiences can alleviate some of their worries.

“I want them to go to campus and walk,” Miranda said. “I want them to go and hear from maybe the Latino or Asian or Indian or Haitian groups — whoever they can identify with. I want them to see a mirror image of who they can be.”

And Miranda wants to be that example for her students, using lessons she’s learned through her career of teaching for 10 years in Illinois before spending the last 14 in Pike Township as an elementary teacher, an instructional coach, a reading specialist, and now high school department chair.

Last year, she helped students launch Pike’s own LatinX Student Association, which plans events for Hispanic Heritage Month and organizes a schoolwide futsal tournament so popular the club had to close registration early its first year.

It quickly became one of senior Ayomide Fapese’s favorite activities.

Fapese isn’t a newcomer, but he sought Miranda’s help with his English studies. He’s also on the soccer team and was excited for his recent senior night — a time for families to walk with their students across Pike’s home field during their last season on the team.

But ahead of the celebration, Fapese opened up to Miranda. He wasn’t sure if his family could make it.

“I told her my parents were going to be busy,” Fapese said. “She was just like ‘I got you!’”

Fapese was all smiles as Miranda and a teammate walked with him.

The senior is now applying for scholarships and hopes to study business at Marian University or IU Bloomington. He said he appreciates that Miranda takes time to really listen to students like him.

“She understands,” Fapese said. “Whatever you need, she’s the right person to go to.”

Teach Indy aims to increase diversity

Miranda’s recent accolade, being named Indiana’s Teacher of the Year, speaks to something greater, Teach Indy executive director Sara Marshall said.

“It actually almost makes me cry every time I think about it,” said Marshall, who is Mexican American. “It signals to our students and our families and those that share the Latino identity that we are seen and we are respected.”

As an education nonprofit that seeks to build diversity in Marion County’s teaching ranks, Teach Indy wants to help close the gap between the city’s growing Latino student population and its teachers.

Graciela Miranda gets a hug from a fellow educator on Oct. 1, 2024 at Pike High School.

Teach Indy is partnering with Kansas City-based nonprofit, Latinx Educators Collaborative, to explore how best to support Latino teachers to grow educator retention and recruitment. Marshall says there’s a need for more mentorship opportunities for early career Latino teachers, and a greater willingness for universities and scholarship organizations to support prospective teachers, regardless of documentation status.

More Latino educators in classrooms benefits all students, Marshall said. Studies show that kids with exposure to more diverse voices ultimately feel more respected and perform better academically, which can have a lasting impact on a person’s salary and life expectancy.

Beyond that, Marshall said, it’s just good for kids to see themselves reflected in the people around them.

“What I hope people will see from this story,” Marshall said, “is the power of one educator and the ripple effect that that has across a school, across a community.”

In Pike High School, Miranda’s influence spills out into the hallway. During the passing period, students who stop into Miranda’s room first cross in front of three clipboards, each with advice and affirmations written across pull tabs in three different languages.

Messages like “Be strong enough to let go and wise enough to wait for what you deserve” were written by students and meant to take and share. Most of the time, Miranda says, students don’t take them for themselves. They give them to friends, spreading positivity through the school.

“Sometimes you forget you’re amazing,” Miranda said. “So, this is their reminder.”

Mirror Indy reporter Carley Lanich covers early childhood and K-12 education. Contact her at carley.lanich@mirrorindy.org or follow her on X @carleylanich.

How the NYC high school admissions process sorts kids by race, poverty, disability

2024-10-16T21:16:15+00:00

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In New York City’s cutthroat high school application process, a student’s seventh grade GPA in core classes is the single most important factor for whether they get into a highly competitive screened school.

The district puts students into “tiers” based on that GPA. But these tiers also frequently overlap with students’ race, family income, disability status, housing situation, and fluency with English, according to new Education Department data obtained by Chalkbeat. In fact, this system was more than twice as likely to place many groups — Black and Latino students, English learners, and students from low-income families — into its lowest tier, compared with their counterparts, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

Advocates said the data highlights the role of the city’s selective admissions rules in driving the segregation that has plagued city high schools for years.

“It makes me incredibly angry,” said Nyah Berg, the executive director of Appleseed New York, a group that advocates for school integration and admissions reforms. “We’re limiting opportunities to students because of factors outside of their control … over systemic inequities compounding over years and years.”

Eighth grade applicants are divided into five tiers based on their seventh grade grades in core classes. This year, Tier 1 covers kids who landed in the top 15% citywide, with at least a 94.25% average, or in the top 15% of their school, with at least a 90% average. Tier 5, on the end of the spectrum, comprises the bottom 30% of GPAs, with students who averaged below 76%.

Generally, to have a shot at getting into a highly selective school, students must land in Tier 1. Options for students in the lower tiers grow more constrained, with Tier 5 students losing out to everyone else.

At the top, in Tier 1, only 33% of students were Black and Latino last year, according to the city data, which was first obtained by Bronx parent Tim Smith through a public records request. At the bottom, in Tier 5, 80% of students were Black and Latino. Overall, the eighth-grade applicant pool was 64% Black and Latino.

That pattern persisted across demographic categories, with English language learners, homeless students, kids from low-income families, and students with disabilities generally appearing in higher numbers in the lower tiers.

The disparities were most stark for English learners, who made up just 1% of Tier 1, despite comprising 13% of last year’s eighth grade applicants. English learners made up 27% of Tier 5.

Homeless students and kids with disabilities are also underrepresented in Tier 1 and overrepresented in the lowest tiers.

Specialized high schools, including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, use a separate admissions exam that is enshrined in state law. But the city’s Education Department controls admission rules for the dozens of screened schools like Townsend Harris, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Millennium, which receive many more applicants than they have seats.

Many selective schools have opted to set aside a portion of seats for students from underrepresented groups. That’s almost certainly boosted the enrollment of those students. But it isn’t enough to fully counteract the segregation baked into the tier system, advocates said.

Some screened schools also give preference to applicants who live in their borough or neighborhood. And roughly two dozen screened schools have permission from the city to use their own admissions criteria, which can include a mix of grades, interviews, and essays.

High school admissions changes again and again

Prior to the pandemic, screened schools had wide discretion to use their own combination of grades, test scores, and other factors, including attendance, to determine admissions. But after the COVID pandemic shuttered schools and upended grades and testing, former Mayor Bill de Blasio centralized the admissions process for screened schools.

He introduced the tier system based on grades, but initially opened Tier 1 to any student with an 85% or higher.

That change put a far greater number of students on equal footing in applying to competitive schools. It helped push the percentage of Black and Latino teens accepted at the city’s 27 most selective screened schools from 28% in 2020 to 40% in 2022.

But when former schools Chancellor David Banks took office in 2022, he opted to tighten access to the top tier, arguing that students with the very highest marks “should not be thrown in a lottery with just everybody.” (Banks did, however, continue the pandemic policy of not including state test scores in high school admissions.)

Following Banks’ changes, 35% of offers to the most selective high schools went to Black and Latino students — down from 2022 but higher than in 2020, according to city data.

Rather than overhauling selective admissions, Banks focused on opening more selective schools in communities with higher concentrations of students who are Black, Latino, and from low-income backgrounds. That effort led to two new Bard Early College High Schools in the Bronx and Brooklyn, and another early college school set to open next year in southeast Queens.

Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle said Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos will continue that approach, along with a push to reform literacy and math instruction to increase the share of historically underrepresented students who qualify for the top tiers.

“Tackling these inequities and under-representations has been a top priority for this administration and will continue to be a priority,” Lyle said in a statement.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of screened high schools have opted to participate in the “diversity in admissions” program, where they can set aside a portion of seats for students from underrepresented groups, including those from low-income families, English learners, and homeless students. If there aren’t enough applicants from Tier 1 who are members of those priority groups, schools grant offers to applicants who are members of those groups from Tier 2.

All screened high schools also set aside a portion of their seats for students with disabilities, a process that works similarly to the diversity in admissions program. Some screened schools have significantly boosted their numbers of students with disabilities, including Queens’ Townsend Harris, which roughly doubled its share of such students from 7% in 2019 to 15% last year.

Berg, the integration advocate, said the growth of the diversity admissions programs has been a positive development but isn’t enough to outweigh the tier system.

Using the analogy of a balance scale, Berg said, “One of those scales is essentially bolted to the ground, and we’re putting two-pound weights on the other side.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org .

Kae Petrin is data and graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org

Muchos estudiantes inmigrantes encuentran en la escuela un refugio, su único lugar seguro

2024-10-09T20:26:22+00:00

Read in English.

Cuando escuché sobre la decisión del presidente Joe Biden de detener las solicitudes de asilo en la frontera sur, pensé en los jóvenes que he conocido a lo largo de mi carrera. Muchos de ellos son indocumentados o vienen de familias con estatus migratorio mixto. También me vino a la mente cuando se intenta negarles a los estudiantes indocumentados el derecho a una educación pública gratuita, así como los discursos negativos contra los inmigrantes, muy presentes en las campañas del expresidente Donald Trump.

En los últimos 15 años, he trabajado como profesora, entrenadora, y luego como etnógrafa e investigadora en políticas educativas. Mi objetivo ha sido comprender las experiencias de los estudiantes recién llegados en las escuelas y las comunidades. He hablado con cientos de jóvenes inmigrantes, aprendiendo sobre sus luchas diarias, su esperanza y sus intentos de encontrar un lugar donde pertenecer en los Estados Unidos.

Empecé mi carrera enseñando inglés como segundo idioma en escuelas públicas de Nueva York trabajando tanto con estudiantes inmigrantes como con hijos de inmigrantes. En 2009, me mudé a Chicago para enseñar a estudiantes multilingües y comenzar mis estudios de doctorado de Políticas Educativas.

En Chicago, como en muchas otras escuelas públicas, recibíamos docenas de nuevos estudiantes cada semana, muchos de ellos con un nivel limitado de inglés o que habían vivido experiencias traumáticas, como la separación familiar, o que habían pasado tiempo en centros de detención. Recuerdo que una estudiante me contó cómo su familia fue detenida al cruzar a EE. UU. y cómo vivió los tres días que pasaron en prisión. “Mi mamá pasó los días con mucha hambre “, me dijo. “Yo también, pero me acostumbré a comer las manzanas que nos daban.”

Sophia Rodriguez, profesora asociada en la Universidad de Nueva York

Como muchos educadores, me enfoqué en cubrir las necesidades básicas de mis estudiantes. Llevaba comida a la escuela, acompañaba a los niños al supermercado y les enseñaba frases introductorias para que practiquen su inglés. Recuerdo que un estudiante me dijo: “Tú nos das voz y nos sostienes con tus palabras”, en referencia a mis esfuerzos por traducir para ellos. A pesar de los desafíos, logramos crear un hogar en nuestra aula de ESL (el programa de enseñanza del inglés como segunda lengua para estudiantes inmigrantes). Fui testigo de cómo mis estudiantes adoptaron el sentido de pertenencia, incluso cuando sus vidas estaban llenas de violencia, pobreza y dificultades políticas.

Las escuelas son, para muchos estudiantes inmigrantes y sus familias, el único lugar seguro que tienen. Sin embargo, a lo largo de los años, se han hecho esfuerzos para debilitar el derecho a la educación de estos jóvenes.

La sentencia de 1982, Plyler v. Doe, establece que es inconstitucional negarles la educación debido a su estatus migratorio, según ha dictaminado la Corte Suprema de EE. UU. Sin embargo, a lo largo de los años, este fallo ha sido cuestionado y manipulado por estados, políticos y grupos de expertos en intentos de debilitar la red de seguridad que ofrece la educación. Amenazar estas protecciones pone en riesgo a millones de niños.

Con mi transición de profesora a investigadora y una década de investigación, logré distintos niveles de comprensión y una mayor cercanía al tema. A raíz de esto, considero que debemos redirigir el discurso para poner en el centro las experiencias de los jóvenes, en lugar de poner el foco en la supuesta “crisis” migratoria y la “fuga” de recursos.

En un estudio sobre la discriminación racial y el sentido de pertenencia de los jóvenes indocumentados, observé cómo enfrentaban el discurso hostil de la campaña de 2016. Estos jóvenes lidiaban con el racismo, las amenazas físicas, la separación familiar, la deportación de amigos y familiares, la violencia legal y las desigualdades en cuanto al acceso a la educación. Algunos me compartieron que vivían con miedo de que en cualquier momento los agentes de inmigración podrían “llamar a su puerta”. Me explicaron que sentían que la comunidad y los políticos “no saben qué hacer con ellos” y como “les quitan sus derechos”. Mientras reclutan mano de obra indocumentada para “trabajos que los blancos poderosos no quieren hacer”.

Mientras los medios de comunicación y los candidatos presidenciales hablaban de una “crisis” en la frontera que estaba llena de “hombres malos”, yo escuchaba las historias de migración de algunos jóvenes. Los nombres de los estudiantes en este texto han sido cambiados para proteger su privacidad.

Juan, un estudiante de secundaria, me contó que “sentía el peso del mundo sobre sus hombros por el miedo y la incertidumbre que le generaba su estatus migratorio. Aunque cruzar la frontera fue difícil, Juan soñaba con tener “una educación y una vida mejor” en EE.UU.

Otro caso es el de Pablo, quien intentó llegar a Estados Unidos en cuatro ocasiones, de las cuales tres fracasaron. Pablo, un estudiante de high school que formó parte de mi investigación, fue testigo de cómo un hombre “cayó en un agujero” para escapar de la patrulla fronteriza. Durante su travesía, cruzó el Río Grande a pie, presenció la muerte de un hombre y finalmente fue detenido por oficiales de ICE (Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas de Estados Unidos). Describió una escena particularmente traumática de cuando las autoridades lo encontraron: “Solo miré y no hice nada, no importaba... Permanecí sentado hasta que llegaron los agentes de inmigración. Me arrojaron al suelo y me ataron las piernas y las manos. Después llegué a lo que llamamos las ‘hieleras’, donde inmigración tiene celdas que mantienen frías”.

Serena, otra joven con quien interactué durante un estudio de investigación realizado de 2016 a 2021, migró de Brasil a EE. UU. con su madre, viajando en autobús y a pie. Antes de ser liberada, estuvo en un centro de detención sin comida ni agua. Muchos estudiantes me comentaron que compartir sus historias los hacía sentir mejor. Por eso, comparto los casos y conclusiones de mi investigación, de modo que sirvan de herramienta para educar a los responsables de políticas y a los profesionales, y que puedan brindar un mejor apoyo a estos jóvenes.

Los datos de mi investigación de campo indican que niños de tan solo 11 o 12 años están atravesando difíciles travesías migratorias. Al cruzar la frontera, se encuentran con condiciones extremas en los centros de detención, con largas esperas, mala educación y una gran incertidumbre.

Alejandro, un estudiante de 12 años, compartió conmigo que su familia intentó cruzar la frontera de EE. UU. en múltiples ocasiones sin lograrlo, a menudo yendo a dormir “en algún lugar” y “con hambre.” Ahora que están en los Estados Unidos, él y su familia viven bajo el temor constante de ser deportados. La precariedad de la situación afecta profundamente a estos jóvenes.

La retórica política y los cambios recientes en cuanto a las políticas de asilo parecen ser intentos a calmar a los votantes. Mientras tanto, nuestro sistema de inmigración ha estado roto durante mucho tiempo, y ha habido poca voluntad política para repararlo. Revocar Plyler agravaría la situación al deshacer décadas de jurisprudencia y amenazaría la seguridad de los niños inmigrantes y sus familias.

En mi investigación actual, he realizado encuestas a más de 1.300 estudiantes latinos en dos distritos escolares públicos del Atlántico Medio. Muchos de ellos tienen al menos un padre nacido en el extranjero y otros son recién llegados que hablan idiomas distintos al inglés. He estudiado las diferencias entre estudiantes de high school y middle school, así como las experiencias de pertenencia de aquellos que son blancos y no blancos. Los estudiantes latinos y multirraciales de high school manifestaron una falta de conexión con actividades sociales y relaciones fuera del entorno escolar. Además, descubrí que los estudiantes que hablaban inglés como segundo idioma enfrentaban dificultades para integrarse tanto en la escuela como en actividades extracurriculares.

Los jóvenes inmigrantes siguen sintiéndose ignorados y menospreciados en sus comunidades locales, y lidian con la incertidumbre sobre su estatus migratorio o el de sus padres. En mi investigación, los educadores, incluidos maestros y trabajadores sociales, explicaron que para comprender el impacto de las políticas migratorias es necesario “escuchar sus historias”.

A medida que continúo resaltando los factores que contribuyen al sentido de pertenencia de los estudiantes, me mantengo a la expectativa de que los legisladores, así como también, los distritos escolares incorporen las voces de los jóvenes en sus planes para crear y mantener entornos escolares positivos y seguros. Depende de los educadores desarrollar climas escolares inclusivos que validen culturas, identidades y lenguas; fomentar relaciones de confianza y apoyo entre maestros y estudiantes; proporcionar capacitaciones para todo el personal y educadores que informen acerca del trauma; y promover el liderazgo colectivo para que todos en la escuela colaboren para el beneficio de los estudiantes. Este trabajo es muy importante si se tiene en cuenta que el sentido de pertenencia es esencial para el bienestar de los jóvenes inmigrantes y su movilidad educativa y social.

Traducido por Flavia Melisa Franco

Sophia Rodriguez, Ph.D. (@SoRoPhD), es profesora asociada de estudios de políticas educativas en la Escuela Steinhardt de Cultura, Educación y Desarrollo Humano de la Universidad de Nueva York. Como estudiante universitaria de primera generación e hija de un inmigrante latinoamericano, su experiencia impulsa su trabajo de defensa y su búsqueda de políticas justas para la juventud inmigrante y sus familias. Su investigación explora cómo las asociaciones entre comunidades y escuelas, así como el papel de los educadores, promueven la equidad racial para los jóvenes inmigrantes. Su trabajo ha sido publicado en revistas académicas y en medios como el Washington Post, Education Week y The Conversation.

Las Escuelas Públicas de Newark se preparan para una mayor cantidad de estudiantes de inglés

2024-09-19T18:42:21+00:00

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Los estudiantes de inglés conformarán más de un cuarto de las matrículas en el sistema de las Escuelas Públicas de Newark en este año escolar, un incremento con respecto al año pasado que indica una creciente necesidad de más profesores y servicios.

Los líderes del distrito escolar dijeron que anticipan un aumento de los alumnos de inglés para este año y en febrero, anunciaron el lanzamiento de un nuevo programa bilingüe en el South Ward (área sur de la ciudad) para hacer frente a esta creciente necesidad. Más de 100 estudiantes bilingües comenzarán sus clases en la preparatoria Malcolm X Shabazz High School en este otoño, una cantidad mayor de matrícula a la que era esperada.

Desde que comenzó la pandemia de COVID-19 en 2020, la cantidad de estudiantes de inglés en el distrito ha crecido, siendo una tendencia similar a la de las escuelas de todo el país. Este año, 11,072 estudiantes de inglés se han matriculado en las escuelas públicas de Newark, 822 más que el año pasado.

Se calcula que más de 39,000 estudiantes regresaron a las aulas de clase en Newark el 3 de septiembre.

A medida que crece el número de estudiantes de inglés en el distrito, los funcionarios escolares luchan contra la escasez de maestros bilingües que puedan comunicarse en diferentes idiomas. Los directivos del distrito escolar informan que están trabajando para cubrir puestos difíciles de encontrar, como los de profesores bilingües y de educación especial en todas las escuelas.

Los alumnos de inglés del distrito incluyen una mezcla de estudiantes nacidos en el país y en el extranjero. La mayoría habla español o portugués, aunque algunos hablan árabe, francés, creole haitiano u otros idiomas. Para el año 2025, 1 de cada 4 niños en las aulas de todo el país aprenderá inglés, según la Asociación Nacional de Educación.

El año pasado, 10,250 estudiantes de inglés se matricularon en el distrito, según los datos del otoño de 2023-24. Desde el año escolar 2020-21, los estudiantes de inglés en el distrito han crecido un 7%, del 17.1% al 24.2% el año pasado, según el informe de desempeño escolar de 2023-24 de Nueva Jersey. Los líderes de distrito han asignado $4.2 millones adicionales en el presupuesto del presente año escolar para apoyar la expansión de programas bilingües en todas las escuelas.

En Shabazz, el programa bilingüe ofrecerá a los estudiantes en los grados 9 y 10 que aprenden inglés la opción de recibir los servicios más cerca de casa en este otoño. El distrito planeó inscribir a 48 estudiantes en los grados noveno y décimo en el programa bilingüe, pero ha inscrito a 92 alumnos de grado 9 y 35 del grado 10 hasta el 20 de agosto, según dijo el Superintendente Roger León el martes. Cuatro maestros impartirán educación bilingüe en la preparatoria, según Paul Brubaker, director de la oficina de comunicaciones del distrito.

“Sabemos que en este momento hay un exceso de alumnos matriculados, el número real de estudiantes bilingües que estábamos planeando, dado el estatus de los estudiantes bilingües en todo el distrito, es más alto”, afirmó León sobre el programa bilingüe en Shabazz durante la reunión de la junta escolar el martes.

Los miembros de la junta escolar también han expresado su preocupación por la integración de nuevos estudiantes y culturas en Shabazz.

Durante la reunión del martes, la integrante de la junta escolar, Dawn Haynes, preguntó si hubo un plan para integrar a los nuevos estudiantes en Shabazz y asegurar que todos los alumnos tengan acceso a los recursos, tanto para los nuevos como para los que retornan. Específicamente, Haynes preguntó cómo se incorporarían las recomendaciones del informe Creed Strategies, una revisión de la dinámica cultural en los Estudios Globales de Newark que también incluía recomendaciones para evaluar los efectos de la anti negritud en las escuelas.

León dijo que la directora de educación bilingüe del distrito, Marisol Díaz, está liderando ese trabajo y se ha reunido con los directores y el equipo administrativo de Shabazz para “discutir diferencias culturales muy importantes” mientras se preparan para los estudiantes el próximo mes. Las expectativas para todos los estudiantes se fijarán durante la orientación de los estudiantes la próxima semana, agregó León.

León también mencionó el martes que el distrito recibió solicitudes de transferencia de estudiantes de los grados 11 y 12 en programas bilingües en las escuelas de preparatoria Barringer y East Side “para que puedan estar más cerca de casa”.

“Tenemos estudiantes que tienen que tomar múltiples autobuses para llegar a la escuela y ahora los estudiantes bilingües del área South Ward ya no tienen que hacer eso”, dijo León durante la reunión del martes.

En el área North Ward de Newark, 14 escuelas primarias y dos secundarias ofrecen programas de educación bilingüe en el distrito, los más altos de cualquier vecindario, según datos del distrito. El año escolar pasado, cinco escuelas primarias en el South Ward ofrecieron programas bilingües.

El año escolar pasado, las escuelas de secundaria Eastside y Barringer vieron la mayor matrícula de estudiantes bilingües en sus escuelas, con “el mayor número de vacantes bilingües y ESL” entre los maestros de Barringer, según explicó Vereliz Santana, integrante de la junta, durante la reunión de la junta escolar en enero. Durante esa reunión, Vereliz también dijo que el nuevo programa en Shabazz aliviaría algunas de las presiones de personal en Barringer y East Side, ambas escuelas en el North Ward.

En los grados de primaria, estudiantes bilingües como Angie, una alumna del tercer grado que habla español y está en ascenso en la escuela Dr. William H. Horton del North Ward, dijo que le gusta el aprendizaje en dos idiomas. Explicó que su maestra del año pasado, a quien llamó Sra. F. porque no podía pronunciar su nombre, se comunicaba con ella usando una aplicación de traductor en su teléfono.

“Ella le hablaba al teléfono y luego el teléfono decía cosas en español”, dijo Angie en español durante el evento de regreso a la escuela del distrito en la escuela Hawkins Street Elementary School.

Imelda García, madre de Angie, dijo que su hija está aprendiendo inglés rápidamente y está orgullosa del progreso que ha logrado hasta ahora. Durante el evento, García y Angie estaban esperando su transporte para viajar a casa, fuera de la escuela Hawkins Street, después de recoger cuadernos, lápices y otros materiales escolares gratuitos en preparación para el nuevo año escolar.

Traducido por Bernardo de la Cruz

Esta traducción fue proporcionada por New Jersey Hispano, en asociación con el Centro de Medios Cooperativos de la Universidad Estatal de Montclair, y cuenta con el apoyo financiero del Consorcio de Información Cívica de NJ. La historia fue escrita originalmente en inglés por Chalkbeat Newark y se vuelve a publicar en virtud de un acuerdo especial para compartir contenido a través del Servicio de noticias de traducción al español de NJ News Commons.

Jessie Gómez es una reportera por Chalkbeat Newark y cubre las escuelas públicas de Newark. Puede ponerse en contacto con ella: jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

How the Durango, Colorado, district supported newcomer students to practice English this year

2024-09-06T20:07:35+00:00

Leer en español.

Sandra Hernandez knows what a struggle it can be for students to learn English while in high school.

She’s been raising four multilingual children, including a 17-year-old niece who just returned from Mexico to live with her in Durango in southwest Colorado.

So every time Hernandez was asked to fill out a survey from school, she suggested the same thing: more support for students learning English.

Finally, after hearing many similar requests, a family liaison at Durango High School pitched the idea to host a summer program focused on helping newly arrived migrant students who need more practice with their English before the school year begins.

This summer, the Durango district enrolled about 10 students in the program for four weeks before the school year started, including Hernandez’s niece, Abril Esmeralda.

Hernandez praised the program, and her district for listening to her request.

“I can already see how she’s developing,” Hernandez said of her niece.

Abril Esmeralda Cigarroa Hernandez working on her art project during a summer program.

Such programs fill a critical need for families and educators across the state. Colorado districts enrolled thousands of newly arrived immigrant students throughout the last school year. Teachers in places like Denver, Aurora, and Jeffco have described feeling overwhelmed at times by the arrival of so many new students, and the experience has prompted changes across schools.

The same has happened in rural Durango, a district of about 5,200 students where about 4% of students identify as English learners. The district received 36 new-to-English students last school year, compared with six in 2021.

Last year, the district welcomed new-to-the-country families enrolling for school with a printed guide containing information about school start times, supply lists, and free lunches, plus pictures of all the key people to know and how to get in contact with them.

But this year’s summer program was the big hit with families and students who participated.

The program went beyond practicing English. Students also worked on art projects about what it means to be home. The idea came from a former Colorado Teacher of the Year, who’s been sharing it for years as a way to get students and their communities to connect.

The students’ projects were presented to families first, then to teachers who were able to use the works to get to know the students they might encounter in their classes. Next week, the projects will be on display at the community library.

Leaders say the work has already helped students feel like they belong.

Kira Cunningham, the Durango district’s newcomer specialist, said she watched students from the summer program walking into their first day of the school year last month. One student, who had arrived in the U.S. just before the last school year ended, caught her attention.

“He was strutting into the building, fist-bumping all the staff members out front,” Cunningham said. “It was just such a delight to see. The confidence was just kind of coming out of their pores.”

The district spent just $3,219 on the program. The goal was to help students practice their English skills in a comfortable environment before the start of the school year, giving them confidence to participate more during the school year.

“Truly, I feel that because of the classes, I have a lot more confidence to be able to explain things,” said 17-year-old Brandon Chame, one of the participants. “I’m less afraid of making a mistake.”

Conquering fear was the idea behind the art project, said Leticia Guzman Ingram, the 2016 Colorado Teacher of the Year, an educator in the Roaring Fork School District, and now also a professor at Colorado Mountain College.

Guzman Ingram said she first thought of the idea of an art project about home when she saw fear between her newcomer students and local community members. Students told her they were afraid that one of her white male friends they encountered was going to call immigration on them. The man told her he was afraid the students were troublemakers.

“Everybody is afraid of each other,” Guzman Ingram said. “But then you realize you’re so much more alike than you think. It doesn’t matter what color skin you have. Mothers all want their kids to be happy and to succeed. Sometimes we forget.”

She thought of an art project, she said, because “art’s easy. It’s something everyone can share.”

The project also incorporates writing. In Durango, students wrote a narrative about their project and themselves. Then they practice speaking English when they get to present it to others.

After doing the project in various ways with different classes of students, Guzman Ingram said she sees how art and having students speak about their life experiences can inspire educators, give students confidence, and change the community’s perspectives.

She also likes to take newcomer students on field trips to put their new English skills to use asking for directions at the airport, or for help at the grocery store. She gets the workers at those places involved ahead of time, so they know that they’re helping her students who want to be fluent in English, and it breaks the fear, she said.

“I’ve seen it as a teacher that when these students feel safe and they feel like their voice is heard, they try harder and work harder,” Guzman Ingram said. “When they feel accepted they flourish. That happens with all of us.”

Abril Esmeralda Cigarroa Hernandez's art project.

For her project, Hernandez’s niece, Abril, drew a river because home made her think of peaceful surroundings.

For Brandon, who was also born in Durango but raised in Mexico, home reminded him of a warrior — a representation of the historical Mexican culture he liked to learn about in his former home. It’s something he carries with him wherever he goes.

Brandon has been back in Durango with his parents for just over a year now. He’s attending school, and working at a local hotel kitchen. He loves his job, and the fact that the money he earns doesn’t feel as crucial to his family’s survival as it did when he was in Mexico.

Brandon Chame next to his art project.

In Mexico, he had to give up school recently to work full time. It’s part of what drove his family to decide they needed to come back to the U.S. Now he’s able to work and study. And he’s thinking ahead to college, and a possible career in culinary arts or criminology.

At his high school in Durango, he said he’s encountered supportive teachers, so when Cunningham asked if Brandon would help present the art projects to teachers, he was nervous, but he agreed.

Now Brandon brags about how he was able to present, mostly in English and unscripted — speaking mostly from his heart, he said.

He hopes other immigrant students get to experience programs like Durango’s. And he has been able to offer advice to teachers encountering more immigrant students.

“I told them the majority of Latino students who arrive here tend to be nervous about speaking,” Brandon said. “We know we’re not very familiar with the language, like to be able to explain things fully. It’s not that we don’t want to participate, it’s that embarrassment, and nerves stop us. Just get close to them and ask them questions. Little by little, it gets better.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Newark Public Schools prepares for a higher number of English language learners as needs grow

2024-08-23T10:30:00+00:00

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Leer en español

English language learners will make up more than a quarter of Newark’s Public School enrollment this school year, an increase over last year that points to a growing need for more teachers and services.

District leaders said they anticipated a higher number of English language learners this year and in February, announced the launch of a new bilingual program in the city’s South Ward to address the rising need. More than 100 bilingual students will begin classes at Malcolm X Shabazz High School this fall – a higher than expected enrollment.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the district’s number of students learning English has grown, a trend on par with schools across the country. This year, 11,072 English learners are enrolled in Newark’s public schools, 822 more students than last year.

More than 39,000 students are expected to return to classes in Newark on Sept. 3.

Even as the number of English learners in the district grows, school officials are wrestling with a shortage of bilingual teachers who can communicate in different languages. District officials have said they are working to fill hard-to-staff positions, such as bilingual and special education teachers, across all schools.

The district’s English learners include a mix of students born in the country and abroad. Most speak Spanish or Portuguese, although some speak Arabic, French, Haitian Creole, or other languages. By 2025, 1 out of 4 children in classrooms across the nation will be an English language learner, according to the National Education Association.

Last year, 10,250 English language learners were enrolled in the district, according to the 2023-24 state fall enrollment data. Since the 2020-21 school year, English language learners in the district have grown by 7% – from 17.1% to 24.2% last year, according to 2023-24 New Jersey school performance report. District leaders have allocated an additional $4.2 million in this school year’s budget to support the expansion of bilingual programs across schools.

At Shabazz, the bilingual program will offer ninth and 10th grade students learning English the option to receive services closer to home this fall. The district planned to enroll 48 students in both ninth and 10th grade in the bilingual program but has enrolled 92 ninth graders and 35 10th graders as of Aug. 20, according to León on Tuesday. Four teachers will teach bilingual education at the high school, according to Paul Brubaker, the district’s communications director.

“We know that right now it’s overenrolled, the actual number of bilingual students we were planning for, given the status of bilingual students across the district, is higher,” said Superintendent Roger León about the bilingual program at Shabazz during Tuesday’s school board business meeting.

Board members have also raised concerns over the integration of new students and cultures into Shabazz.

During Tuesday’s meeting, board member Dawn Haynes asked if there was a plan to integrate new students into Shabazz and ensure resources were available to all students, both new and returning. Specifically, Haynes asked how the recommendations in the Creed Strategies report, a review of the cultural dynamics at the Newark Global Studies that also included recommendations to assess the effects of anti-Blackness in schools, would be incorporated.

León said the district’s bilingual education director, Marisol Diaz, is spearheading that work and has met with principals and Shabazz’s administrative team to “discuss very important cultural differences” as they prepare for students next month. Expectations for all students would be set during orientation for students next week, León added.

León on Tuesday also said the district received transfer requests from 11th and 12th grade students in bilingual programs at Barringer and East Side High Schools “so they can be closer to home.”

“We have students who have to take multiple buses to get to school and now South Ward bilingual students don’t have to do that anymore,” said León during Tuesday’s meeting.

In Newark’s North Ward, 14 elementary schools and two high schools offer bilingual education programs in the district, the highest of any neighborhood, according to district data. Last school year, five elementary schools in the South Ward offered bilingual programs

Last school year, Eastside and Barringer High Schools saw the highest enrollment of bilingual students in their schools, with the “highest number of bilingual and ESL vacancies” among teachers at Barringer, according to board member Vereliz Santana during January’s school board meeting. During that meeting, Vereliz also said the new program at Shabazz would alleviate some of the staffing pressures at Barringer and East Side, both schools in the North Ward.

In the elementary grades, bilingual students such as Angie, a Spanish-speaking rising third grader at Dr. William H. Horton, a North Ward school, said she enjoys learning in two languages. She said her teacher last year, who she called Mrs. F. because she couldn’t pronounce her name, would communicate with her by using a translator app on her phone.

“She would talk to the phone and then the phone would say stuff in Spanish,” said Angie in Spanish on Thursday during the district’s back-to-school event at Hawkins Street Elementary School.

Angie’s mom, Imelda Garcia, said her daughter is learning English quickly and is proud of the progress she’s made so far. On Thursday, Garcia and Angie were waiting for their ride home outside Hawkins Street School after picking up free notebooks, pencils, and other school supplies in preparation of the new school year.

This story was translated by New Jersey Hispano, in partnership with Montclair State University’s Center for Cooperative Media and is supported financially by the NJ Civic Information Consortium. The story was originally written in English by Chalkbeat Newark and was republished under a special content-sharing agreement through NJ News Commons’ Spanish Translation News Service.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Immigrant learners struggle to find English classes as NYC funding lapses

2024-08-22T15:15:04+00:00

This story was originally published on Aug. 19 by THE CITY. Sign up here to get the latest stories from THE CITY delivered to you each morning.

When 28-year-old Lilybet Barcenas first moved to New York City a year and four months ago, she didn’t know many fluent English speakers who could help her master the language. As she attempted to navigate the city, conversations often became complicated and confusing compared to what she had been used to as a furniture salesperson in her native Mexico.

Her English only began to improve, she said, when she started attending free English for Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL, classes near her Woodside apartment at a local nonprofit, where she became quick friends with other newcomers who were also studying English four days a week.

“We all put in a lot of effort in learning English,” Barcenas told THE CITY in Spanish, speaking of her classes at Sunnyside Community Services. Like herself, she said, many of her classmates had hoped that improving their English would help boost their job prospects: “I’ve never met anyone that went to the classes just for the sake of going.”

That ESOL program is now suspended along with those at several other city-funded learning centers, including Queens Community House and CAMBA.

Lilybet Barrens Soto has been working in an Astoria market while studying English as a second language, Aug. 15, 2024.

That’s because the city Department of Youth and Community Development earlier this year adjusted the eligibility criteria for $8.3 million in ESOL contracts to prioritize areas where the U.S. Census shows low English proficiency and high poverty rates — locking some long-time providers out of funding.

DYCD spokesperson Mark Zustovich said this new funding approach reflected Mayor Eric Adams’ commitment to “bringing equity to all New Yorkers.”

But city funding has yet to roll out to the two dozen organizations selected to provide ESOL and adult literacy classes in those priority areas. And because previous contracts with DYCD ended June 30, thousands of students are now left with few places to turn to continue their English studies in the meantime.

Five of DYCD’s new priority areas, moreover, do not currently have eligible contractors to provide ESOL classes. Zustovich, however, said the agency intends to award contracts for all priority areas and that reviews for some proposals are ongoing.

“DYCD continues to make sure communities most in need for literacy programs are getting the services they need,” said Zustovich, who added that the agency will distribute information to students about the new providers to facilitate the transition to new funded programs.

A public hearing was scheduled last week on the new contracts. In the meantime, Barcenas is not sure where to continue her education.

Students study English as a second language at Sunnyside Community Services.

“Right now they’ve told me they don’t know when the next classes are, and I’m still hoping that they call me back,” she said. “It’s been difficult because there’s nothing like learning daily. Even when I was tired after work I always showed up to class. I never had an absence.”

Also in the lurch is Wendy Tapia, 43, an airline customer service representative who emigrated from Ecuador a dozen years ago and had been studying English at Queens Community House to improve her job prospects. She has been looking into ESOL classes at private learning centers — many of which she said can cost about $300 a month.

“It’s so expensive,” said Tapia. “I can’t pay that one.”

‘You start not from zero, but from minus five’

Long-time providers that have lost DYCD dollars told THE CITY the new funding formula had deprived them of the money they need to continue classes. That’s because the agency would only consider their bids if none came from within the priority areas.

DYCD’s official funding rejection notice for Sunnyside came in July — just a month before new sessions of classes were supposed to start in August, said the nonprofit’s Director of Adult and Immigrant Services Johan Lopez.

The Sunnyside program had been serving 660 students in 39 classes, with some 200 additional students on a waitlist hoping to get into a class, Lopez said. Now, just three classes are available for about 40 students, while four of the center’s staff and nine of its instructors have been laid off.

While class providers who spoke to THE CITY supported DYCD’s intention to serve those who are most in need, they said the new approach — based on the 2020 census — failed to account for the needs among migrants who have arrived in the last two years, with more than 200,000 of them staying staying in city shelters over that span.

“We know that populations have significantly shifted, and we know that the closest thing we have to an understanding of that is from the folks who are working in those communities, day in and day out,” said Lena Cohen, senior policy analyst at United Neighborhood Houses, an organization that advocates for a number of nonprofits who has lost ESOL funding from DYCD, including Queens Community Houses.

The Queensbridge-Ravenswood-Dutch Kills area of Long Island City, Queens, for example, was not prioritized for ESOL funding despite being home to 21 migrant shelters — the most of any neighborhood in the city, according to City Council data. Overall, just four of the 10 neighborhoods with the most migrant shelters were listed on DYCD’s geographic priority list for ESOL funding.

Lopez said the demand for ESOL classes among new asylum-seekers had been on a steady climb at the Sunnyside center, which is located just one neighborhood east of Long Island City.

“About a year ago, I would say that, still, the majority of our students were established immigrants,” Lopez said. “Last fiscal year, we saw that about 50% to 60% were recently arrived immigrants.”

An ESOl student wrote a testimonial.

A number of those students began writing letters to their elected representatives in the winter and spring as they became aware that they may lose classes come summertime.

“I think thar [sic] we all need to have acess to education regardless of the migratory and economic status that each one has in this country,” one student pleaded. “I go to school at night, 4 nights a week even when I am very tired, because in the future, I am sure I will be rewarded when I learn English,” another student wrote. A third declared: “I would like to become an American citizen. So as an immigrant, I need to learn English.”

As part of the budget process, the City Council in June approved $10 million in discretionary funding for adult literacy initiatives, including ESOL classes. But those dollars that have yet to reach the nonprofits that lost funding, Cohen said.

The Council will decide how that money will be allocated after DYCD completes its award process, said Rendy Desamours, a spokesperson for Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens), because it is intended to fill in funding gaps for organizations locked out of DYCD dollars.

Meanwhile, Council member Julie Won (D-Queens), whose district includes Sunnyside, said she will “continue to advocate for nonprofits that have provided these classes for decades to receive adequate funding.”

Svetlana Saratchilova, who had been teaching ESOL for two years at Sunnyside before getting laid off this summer, said she’s “heartbroken” for her students, most of whom she said were newcomers from South America and Asia.

“In order for them to get the help they need, they need to speak English, and you understand when you come from another country, you start not from zero, but from minus five,” said Saratchilova, 60, herself a native Bulgarian speaker who moved to the city about 25 years ago. “It’s mind-blowing how hard they work. They work for eight hours — or however many hours they work — and then they come to school, and they stay for three more hours, and they are focused on everything that they do.”

Some of Saratchilova’s students had told her that they dreamed of going to college, while others aspired to pursue a professional career. Several aspire to open up businesses, she said.

“English is actually a way for everyone to not only chase their dreams, but eventually to achieve everything that they want to,” Saratchilova added. “I was kind of hoping for a miracle. That eventually, who knows, maybe at the very last moment, something will turn, something will change and they would not have to cut the classes.”

‘It Really Did Change My Life’

Rosaura Vazquez, 52, moved from Puerto Rico to the city 17 years ago. At the time, she had hoped to continue working as a veterinarian but struggled to find work because she could not express herself well in English.

She now runs a pet grooming business from home serving mostly a Spanish-speaking clientele, but said her 11-year-old son’s education has given her a reason to study English again.

She started taking classes at Sunnyside about a year ago, she said, so she can be more involved in the school’s parent teacher association.

Rosaura Vazquez shows homework from her English as a Second Language class, Aug. 8, 2024.

“I’m now able to understand more of what the teachers are saying and how my son is doing in school,” Vazquez told THE CITY in Spanish as her elder son translated. “I’m also able to understand his homework better and help him if he needs it.”

These days, though, she’s having a hard time finding a new provider that works with her life, schedule, and finances.

The Sunnyside program was the first to allow her to bring her sixth grader to class, she said, so that she didn’t have to choose between child care and her own education. And she loved dancing with and reading stories in English to seniors who frequent the center, too.

“Thanks to the learning center, I was able to explore more things out there and keep myself more active,” Vazquez said. “I’ve learned that English is not only a language, but that there’s more things to it. It really did change my life.”

Baercenas also credited the Sunnyside program for connecting her with people and services that helped her navigate her first months in the city. The center not only helped her troubleshoot issues with her Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, she said, but it also allowed her to meet other immigrants and new migrants whom she now calls her “second family.”

“I’ve had really good classmates,” Barcenas told THE CITY in Spanish. “A lot of them helped me look for a job because I couldn’t find anything myself. They’d say ‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you’ and they’d invite me to breakfast — it’s something that I’ll never forget because they’d offer me a plate of food when I was hungry.”

Barcenas now works at a grocery store in Astoria where she moves and lifts boxes of inventory for about eight hours a day. And conversations with her Italian, Korean, and Arab coworkers have gotten a little easier since she started taking ESOL classes, she said. Though, she also hopes that she’ll soon find a job that feels easier on the body.

“I think I need to learn a bit more English because there are words that I get wrong, but I’m not as lost as I used to be,” she said. “But I’d like to find something that isn’t so strenuous for me, though I have to wait and be patient for it.

“But here I’ll be, in the meantime,” she continued. “In the supermarket.”

Additional reporting by Jonathan Custodio.

Resultados de la prueba CMAS 2024 de Colorado indican una continua recuperación y avances en matemáticas

2024-08-20T15:50:21+00:00

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Chalkbeat Colorado es un noticiero local sin fines de lucro que informa sobre las escuelas públicas en Denver y otros distritos. Suscríbete a nuestro boletín gratis por email en español para recibir lo último en noticias sobre educación dos veces al mes.

Mientras que los estudiantes más jóvenes obtuvieron mejores calificaciones que antes de la pandemia en las pruebas estatales estandarizadas de matemáticas, las calificaciones de matemáticas de los estudiantes en la mayoría de los otros grados siguen sin mejorar, según los resultados publicados el martes de las pruebas realizadas en la primavera de 2024.

En lectoescritura, la mayoría de los estudiantes en el estado siguen sin obtener calificaciones tan altas como antes que se cerraran las escuelas debido a la pandemia, aunque están avanzando.

Sin embargo, como en años anteriores, algunos grupos de estudiantes siguen enfrentando más dificultades que otros, incluyendo los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés como un nuevo idioma.

Los datos publicados el martes reflejan las calificaciones promedio de las pruebas de todos los estudiantes en el estado. Las calificaciones a nivel escuela y distrito no se publicarán hasta la próxima semana.

“Nos empoderamos con la mejora continua de nuestros estudiantes desde que la pandemia interrumpió el aprendizaje”, dijo Susana Córdova, Comisionada de Educación de Colorado. “Sin embargo, seguimos viendo brechas de rendimiento preocupantes y persistentes entre los diferentes grupos de estudiantes. No es suficiente ver crecimiento en algunos estudiantes de Colorado, necesitamos asegurarnos de que cada niño(a) reciba el apoyo necesario para tener éxito”.

En Colorado, los estudiantes de tercero a octavo grado toman la prueba CMAS de matemáticas y artes del idioma inglés, es decir, la prueba de Medidas de Éxito Académico de Colorado (por sus siglas en inglés). En high school, los estudiantes entre el noveno y 11.º grado toman la Prueba Preliminar de Aptitudes Escolásticas o la Prueba de Aptitudes Escolásticas (PSAT/SAT, por sus siglas en inglés) para evaluar sus habilidades de inglés y matemáticas.

Entre los aspectos positivos figuran las calificaciones de CMAS para matemáticas. Los estudiantes de primaria ahora cumplen con o superan las expectativas en mayores porcentajes, en comparación con los estudiantes que tomaron la prueba en 2019, antes de la pandemia.

Entre los estudiantes de high school que han tomado la nueva versión digital de PSAT/SAT, el porcentaje de estudiantes que están cumpliendo con las expectativas de las pruebas de matemáticas disminuyó significativamente. Hubo una reducción de 7 puntos porcentuales entre los estudiantes de noveno grado, con solo el 39.5 por ciento cumpliendo con las expectativas este año, lo cual refleja un porcentaje más bajo en comparación con el 46.5 por ciento el año pasado. La razón en parte podría ser el nuevo formato de la prueba.

Colorado ha invertido en el aprendizaje de las matemáticas en los últimos años usando fondos de asistencia por COVID, incluyendo un programa computarizado gratis para que estudiantes entre kindergarten y octavo grado aprendan matemáticas.

En lo relacionado con las pruebas de artes del idioma, el 42 por ciento de los estudiantes de tercer grado cumplieron con o superaron las expectativas, un aumento en comparación con el 39.9 por ciento el año pasado, y más que el 41.3 por ciento en 2019. Pero la tasa de estudiantes de cuarto grado que están cumpliendo con las expectativas de la prueba CMAS en artes del idioma disminuyó 1.8 puntos porcentuales, la reducción más alta por nivel de grado en comparación con el año pasado.

Los estudiantes de sexto, séptimo y octavo grado todos tuvieron porcentajes ligeramente más altos de estudiantes que cumplieron con las expectativas en las pruebas de artes del idioma, comparado con 2023, y la mejora entre los estudiantes de sexto grado también refleja un aumento en el porcentaje comparado con 2019.

Las brechas aumentan mientras algunos estudiantes enfrentan dificultades para recuperarse

De manera similar a años anteriores, la mayor brecha en los resultados de las pruebas se observó entre los estudiantes de quinto grado que están aprendiendo inglés como un nuevo idioma y los que no.

Este año, solo el 6.3 por ciento de los estudiantes multilingües de quinto grado cumplieron con o superaron las expectativas en la prueba de artes del idioma, comparado con el 52.6 por ciento de los estudiantes que no están aprendiendo inglés—una brecha de 46.3 puntos porcentuales. Esa brecha es aún mayor que el año pasado o que en 2019, antes de la pandemia.

El año pasado, los funcionarios del estado estaban preocupados por la falta de progreso de los estudiantes multilingües. Pero representantes del Departamento de Educación de Colorado también dijeron que la legislatura necesita intervenir para aprobar una ley que ofrezca más apoyo académico, y ese tipo de ley no ha sido aprobada.

Estos estudiantes tuvieron más retrasos académicos durante COVID. ¿Cómo están respondiendo las escuelas en Colorado?

Los legisladores sí aprobaron cambios en la fórmula de financiamiento escolar que les dará más fondos a los distritos para los estudiantes que estén aprendiendo inglés este otoño. Para el año escolar 2023-24, también aprobaron fondos únicos especiales para distritos escolares que estaban recibiendo una gran cantidad de estudiantes nuevos provenientes del exterior para cubrir necesidades básicas como materiales escolares y personal.

Colorado exentó a muchos de los estudiantes recién llegados de las pruebas realizadas en la primavera.

Colorado permite que algunos estudiantes de tercero y cuarto grado tomen la prueba de artes del idioma en español. Entre los estudiantes migrantes solo aquellos que habían estado en la escuela regularmente antes de llegar reunieron requisitos para tomarla.

Esta primavera, el 17.2 de los estudiantes de tercer grado que tomaron la prueba de artes del idioma en español cumplieron con o superaron las expectativas, una reducción en comparación con el 18.7 por ciento el año pasado y menos que el 27.5 por ciento en 2019.

Cynthia Trinidad-Sheahan, una promotora y asesora con la Asociación de Colorado para la Educación Bilingüe, dijo que los administradores y muchos de los educadores que trabajan con estudiantes multilingües siguen sin tener la preparación adecuada para apoyar a los estudiantes y ayudarlos a que avancen.

“Los distritos y el estado siguen sin hacer lo suficiente”, dijo.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado, cubriendo distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado 2024 CMAS test results show continued recovery and math gains

2024-08-20T15:40:05+00:00

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While younger Colorado students have now surpassed pre-pandemic scores on the state’s standardized math tests, the math scores of students in most other grades still lag behind, according to results from spring 2024 tests released Tuesday.

In literacy, most of the state’s students are still not scoring as high as they did before the pandemic shuttered school buildings, though they are catching up.

But as in previous years, some student groups continue to struggle more than others, including students who are still learning English as a new language.

The data released Tuesday were average test scores encompassing all students statewide. School and district level scores won’t be released until next week.

“We are encouraged by the continued improvement of our students since the pandemic disrupted learning,” said Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova. “We continue, however, to see troubling and persistent achievement gaps across student groups. It is not enough to see growth for some Colorado students — we need to ensure that every child is getting the support they need to be successful.”

In Colorado, students in third through eighth grades take the math and English language arts CMAS, or the Colorado Measures of Academic Success test. In high school, students in ninth through 11th grade take a PSAT/SAT test to evaluate English and math. Students also take a science CMAS test in fifth, eighth, and 11th grade.

Among the bright spots are the CMAS scores for math. Students in elementary grades now have higher rates of meeting and exceeding expectations than students did in 2019, before the pandemic. These students were in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade as schools shut down in 2020 for the pandemic.

Among the middle school grades, rates of students who met or exceeded expectations aren’t yet higher than in 2019, but the rates have continued to improve each year at sixth and seventh grade, but not at eighth grade.

For high school students taking the new digital PSAT/SAT, the percentage of students meeting expectations on math tests fell significantly including up to a 7 percentage point drop for ninth grade students where just 39.5% met expectations this year, down from 46.5% just last year.

Part of the reason may be a new digital format for the SAT. The state had to do further analysis to ensure that the tests were still similar enough to previous years so that growth scores could be calculated. Ultimately, the state cautions that this year’s low math SAT scores are likely due at least in part to the new test format, but said it was still fair to calculate growth scores and use the test results in annual school quality ratings later this year.

Colorado has invested in math learning in the last couple of years using COVID relief funding. Among other work, the state offered a free math computer program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade and extended it in 2024-25, saying that 65% of schools were using the program.

When it comes to language arts tests, 42% of third graders met or exceeded state expectations, up from 39.9% last year, higher than the 41.3% who did in 2019. But the rate of fourth grade students meeting expectations on the CMAS language arts test dropped by 1.8 percentage points, the largest drop by grade level compared to last year.

Sixth, seventh and eighth graders all had slightly higher rates of students meeting expectations on language arts tests compared to 2023, and for sixth graders the improvement also now brings the rate to better than it was in 2019. In 2024, 44% of sixth graders met expectations on language arts tests, compared to 43.6% in 2019.

Gaps widen as some students struggle to recover

Similar to previous years, the largest test score gap was between fifth grade students who are learning English as a new language and those who are not.

This year, only 6.3% of multilingual fifth grade students met or exceeded expectations on the language arts test, compared to 52.6% of students who are not English learners — a gap of 46.3 percentage points. That’s a larger gap than the 45.7 percentage point gap in 2023, and in 2019, when 9.5% of multilingual students met or exceeded standards on the same test compared to 53.9% of students who aren’t English learners.

Last year, state officials were concerned about the lack of progress multilingual students and said they need support. But officials with the Colorado Department of Education also said the legislature would need to step in to pass a law to offer more academic support, and no such legislation passed.

In the most recent session, lawmakers did approve changes to the school funding formula that would give districts more money for the English learners they enroll starting this fall. For the 2023-24 school year, they approved special onetime funding for school districts that were receiving an influx of new students from out of the country, because many of students were arriving after the state’s official count day, which is used to calculate how much money schools get.

And although many of those students were English learners, schools said they needed the funds for basics in some cases like new desks in overcrowded classrooms or dedicated staff.

State officials also said in the spring that many of the new immigrant students would be exempt from taking these state tests under broader rules. Students who are identified as new to the country and have no or limited proficiency in English were already exempt from taking standardized English reading and writing tests for at least their first year of school. But this year, the state also exempted some of them from taking the math or science tests.

Colorado allows some third and fourth graders to take the language arts test in Spanish, but migrant students were only eligible to do so if they did not have a record of interrupted schooling.

This spring 17.2% of third graders who took the Spanish language arts test met or exceeded expectations, down from 18.7% who did last year and down from 27.5% in 2019.

Cynthia Trinidad-Sheahan, an advocate and advisor with the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education, said that administrators and many of the educators working with multilingual students continue to be underprepared to support the students and help them make gains.

“Districts and the state are still not doing enough,” she said.

Looking at Colorado’s growth calculations, which compare student test scores to peers with similar test history, almost all students of color had growth scores below 50. Generally, state officials say that students who are behind need a growth score of more than 50 to make progress.

Students with disabilities, migrant students, and Black students taking English language arts tests had some of the lowest growth scores this year of 46 or lower. White students had an average growth score of 52 on math and on language arts.

In many areas, the state now sees growth scores returning to what they were before the pandemic began, but now the key is to maintain or continue improving growth “to rebound fully,” according to the state press release.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Distritos escolares prueban nuevas formas de encontrar estudiantes dotados de diversos orígenes

2024-08-16T16:20:42+00:00

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Puntos clave:

A un estudiante que es dotado o talentoso usualmente lo identifican como que tiene una inteligencia o capacidad entre el 5 por ciento más alto de los estudiantes de su edad, pero los estudiantes dotados quizás no estén adelantados en todas las áreas académicas.
Niños de cualquier origen pueden ser dotados, pero la mayoría de los estudiantes en programas para estudiantes dotados y talentosos son blancos y crecieron en hogares más adinerados.=
Algunos distritos escolares están realizando una mejor tarea para identificar a estudiantes dotados de diversos orígenes, pero siguen existiendo brechas.
Identificar a todos los estudiantes dotados es importante porque los estudiantes necesitan que los desafíen y les den los recursos correctos. Líderes dicen que los estudiantes también se merecen saber sobre sus habilidades.
Los estudiantes multilingües que logran dominar el inglés mucho más rápido que el promedio quizás sean dotados. Más escuelas están usando este estándar para identificar a estudiantes dotados que todavía están aprendiendo inglés.
A veces a las familias les piden que completen un formulario de observación sobre su hijo como parte del proceso de identificar al niño como dotado.
Después de que se identifica a un estudiante como dotado, la ley del estado exige que tenga un plan de aprendizaje avanzado con metas específicas según sus habilidades. Los planes se revisan cada año.

Alrededor de una década después de que las escuelas en Colorado empezaran a usar pruebas universales para identificar a estudiantes que son dotados, los estudiantes blancos y aquellos de clases socioeconómicas más altas constituyen la gran mayoría de los estudiantes en programas para dotados.

Por eso, educadores están dando nuevos pasos para asegurar que aquellos estudiantes que por mucho tiempo se han visto subrepresentados en estos programas, incluyendo estudiantes de color, aquellos que están aprendiendo inglés y de familias con ingresos más bajos, tengan una mayor representacion.

Distritos y organizaciones ahora se están enfocando en nuevos análisis de datos, examinando múltiples pruebas y capacitando a los maestros para identificar comportamientos que quizás indiquen habilidades superiores entre estudiantes de diferentes culturas.

Algunos distritos están cerrando brechas y están identificando a más estudiantes, aunque alrededor del estado siguen existiendo diferencias.

Los estudiantes blancos constituyen el 50 por ciento de la población, pero representan más del 69 por ciento de los participantes en programas para estudiantes dotados en Colorado.

Los estudiantes hispanos constituyen el 35.5 por ciento de todos los estudiantes, pero solo el 16 por ciento de los estudiantes identificados como dotados.

Otros estudiantes de color y aquello de familias con bajos ingresos también están subrepresentados. Otro grupo que en su mayoría está subrepresentado son los estudiantes a quienes los identifican como estudiantes multilingües, que están aprendiendo inglés como un nuevo idioma. Ellos constituyen hasta el 13 por ciento de todos los estudiantes en el estado, pero solo representan el 2.3 por ciento de los estudiantes dotados.

En el pasado, la identificación dependía de un maestro o un padre que pedía que a un niño le hicieran la prueba. Ahora, los obstáculos incluyen prejuicios en las pruebas mismas o en las observaciones de los educadores, quienes también en su mayoría son blancos. La falta de personal en algunos distritos también limita cuánto trabajo pueden realizar los equipos en programas para estudiantes dotados.

Cerrar la brecha e identificar a los estudiantes es importante, líderes dicen, porque los estudiantes necesitan que los desafíen y así los educadores pueden proporcionar mejores recursos. Pero también para que los estudiantes sepan.

Nisia Patalan, la coordinadora del programa para dotados en los distritos de BOCES de San Juan en el sudoeste de Colorado, dijo que la identificación de estudiantes importa en parte para que los estudiantes se puedan entender mejor a sí mismos.

“Entender quiénes son y cómo observan el mundo de forma diferente y luego solo ser aceptados”, Patalan dijo. “Solo pienso en lo aislante que es ser un estudiante dotado. Creo que esos estudiantes no están recibiendo lo que necesitan si no están enfrentando suficientes desafíos para que los noten. Se están ocultando debido a sus [habilidades dotadas]”.

Educadores usan datos para encontrar a más estudiantes

Identificar a estudiantes dotados que son multilingües es una reciente área de enfoque en muchos distritos en el estado. Hace como cinco años, el Departamento de Educación de Colorado empezó a crear pautas guía que ahora permiten que los distritos usen las calificaciones de la prueba ACCESS—un examen que evalúa cada año el dominio del inglés de estudiantes identificados como que están aprendiendo ese idioma—como una forma de identificar a estudiantes dotados.

A los estudiantes que logran dominar el inglés mucho más rápidamente que el promedio los pueden seleccionar para la identificación.

Brad Russell, subdirector de enseñanza y aprendizaje y del programa para estudiantes dotados y talentosos en Mapleton, participó en un grupo con el estado para ayudar a crear las pautas para que los distritos usen la prueba.

Así que en su distrito, justo al norte de Denver, donde el 80 por ciento de los estudiantes son hispanos y alrededor del 40 por ciento están aprendiendo inglés, líderes que estaban trabajando con un socio externo para asegurar que los maestros estuvieran enseñando según los estándares de nivel de grado, también empezaron a pensar sobre la poca cantidad de estudiantes a quienes estaban identificando como dotados.

Hace cuatro años, a solo el 2.5 por ciento de los estudiantes en el distrito los estaban identificando como dotados, y el distrito estableció una meta del 5 por ciento en un año. Ahora, al 8 por ciento de los estudiantes en el distrito los están identificando como dotados. De esos estudiantes dotados, el 70 por ciento son hispanos, lo cual Russell dijo es cerca del 80 por ciento de los estudiantes hispanos en el distrito.

Cada año, Russell busca patrones a largo plazo en lugar de cómo se desempeña un estudiante en una prueba en un momento dado.

Luego, se comunica con los maestros del estudiante en la escuela. A veces también se les pide a las familias que completen un formulario de observación sobre su hijo, y quizás se usen otros trabajos del estudiantes para crear suficiente evidencia e identificarlo formalmente.

Lo que los padres deben saber sobre la educación para dotados y talentosos

Tradicionalmente, a los estudiantes los identificaban como dotados con base en una alta calificación en una prueba de habilidades cognitivas.

Esas son las prueba usadas para la evaluación universal. En Mapleton, a todos los estudiantes de segundo y sexto grado les hacen la prueba. Pero si esas pruebas no identifican a un estudiante como dotado, o si los estudiantes de alguna forma no toman la prueba, la examinación de datos que Russell realiza y otras observaciones de los maestros también pueden usarse para identificar a un estudiante que es avanzado.

Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver empezaron a realizar una examinación similar de datos el año pasado.

En el primer año de examinar los resultados de la prueba ACCESS de los estudiantes durante cinco años, líderes en Denver identificaron a más de 300 estudiantes que podían ser dotados con base en su habilidad acelerada de aprender un idioma.

Alrededor del 26 por ciento de los estudiantes en el distrito están aprendiendo inglés como un nuevo idioma, pero solo el 3 por ciento de los estudiantes dotados eran estudiantes multilingües. Después de ese primer año de examinar datos, el porcentaje aumentó ligeramente al 4 por ciento de los aproximadamente 6,900 estudiantes identificados como dotados. Más estudiantes están en un grupo siendo evaluado y observado para que posiblemente los identifiquen en los próximos dos años.

“Es muy emocionante, nuestros maestros [del programa de] dotados están muy contentos por esto”, dijo Meryl Faulkner, gerenta principal del programa para dotados y talentosos con el distrito escolar de Denver.

El distrito está en proceso de examinar datos nuevamente este año.

Y cuando los maestros completan las calificaciones que observan para identificar a estudiantes, Faulkner dijo, el distrito trata de hacer que un maestro del mismo origen cultural que el estudiante complete la observación. “Las diferencias culturales ocurren, los malentendidos o las interpretaciones equivocadas sobre lo que los comportamientos realmente son”, dijo.

Shalelia Dillard, fundadora del Programa de Enriquecimiento de SCD, una organización sin fines de lucro que está tratando de ayudar a que las escuelas diversifiquen sus programas de estudiantes dotados, señaló que “cuestionar la autoridad es una característica generalizada de muchos estudiantes dotados”, pero los estereotipos de que las mujeres negras discuten quizás permitan que un educador piense: “Esta es solo una pequeña niña negra tratando de tener una mala actitud conmigo”.

Otro ejemplo que le gusta usar para pensar sobre las diferentes formas como se demuestran las habilidades dotadas es cuando los estudiantes jóvenes tienen que traducir para los adultos.

“Los estudiantes que tuvieron que leerles a sus padres los estados de cuenta bancarios a los seis años de edad y tuvieron que guiarse y traducir eso con palabras infantiles respetuosas, se requiere un perfil cognitivo de alto nivel”, Dillar dijo. “Estás usando ambos hemisferios de tu cerebro. Esa es una enorme [señal].”

Funcionarios del estado también señalaron a BOCES de San Juan como una área que está observando mejoras positivas para cerrar brechas en a quién identifican como dotado. BOCES, las siglas en inglés de consejos de servicios educativos cooperativos, son grupos de distritos pequeños que comparten recursos.

Los distritos de BOCES con muchos estudiantes indígenas también han observado mejoras en su representacion. Por ejemplo, en el Distrito Escolar de Mancos, el 6.5 por ciento de los estudiantes inscritos se identifica como indoamericano, y entre los estudiantes dotados el porcentaje es del 6.7.

Patalan, la coordinadora del programa para dotados, capacita a maestros cada año, compartiendo diferentes herramientas para hacer observaciones cada mes. Esta herramientas incluyen algunas diseñadas específicamente para observar cómo ciertos comportamientos tradicionales se pueden expresar de forma diferente entre diversos grupos de estudiantes.

Entre los estudiantes indoamericanos, por ejemplo, muchos de sus atributos no son verbales, mientras que un estudiante que está aprendiendo inglés y tratando de expresarse quizás use un “lenguaje ingenioso” al combinar idiomas.

Los distritos quieren que la identificación sea más que una etiqueta

Cuando los estudiantes ya están en el proceso de que los identifiquen como dotados, los maestros pueden empezar a diferenciar cómo ayudarlos en las clases. Un maestro quizás ponga a dos estudiantes dotados para que hagan tareas juntos, por ejemplo.

Y cuando ya los identifican, la ley estatal exige que los estudiantes tengan un plan de aprendizaje avanzado con metas específicas de acuerdo con sus habilidades, el cual se revisa cada año.

En el puñado de escuelas donde la organización de Dillard trabaja, ella organiza una clase con mayormente estudiantes de color que quizás sean dotados. A algunos estudiantes ya los han identificado, y a algunos no. En la clase, reciben habilidades de preparación universitaria, aprendizaje avanzado para suplementar las áreas centrales de contenido, y hablan sobre cómo el ser dotados puede afectar sus habilidades socioemocionales.

“Esto es lo que significa ser dotado”, Dillard dijo. “Es una neurodiversidad. Con esta neurodivergencia en particular, así es como abogas a tu favor, cómo puedes conectar con otros estudiantes”.

Su programa también organiza un programa de una semana durante el verano para estudiantes en el área metropolitana. El distrito de Mapleton también ha estado organizando un programa en el verano para estudiantes identificados como dotados.

El año pasado, la lista para inscribirse en línea al campamento de verano de Mapleton se llenó en menos de una hora. El distrito había planeado un campamento para 90 estudiantes y lo amplió para recibir a 122. Aún más trataron de inscribirse, líderes dijeron, pero los tuvieron que rechazar.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Colorado school districts are working on new ways to find gifted students from all backgrounds

2024-08-08T01:13:03+00:00

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About a decade after schools in Colorado started using universal testing to identify students who are gifted, white students and those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds still make up the vast majority of students in gifted programs.

So educators are taking new steps to make sure students who have long been underrepresented in gifted programs across the country, including students of color, English language learners, and those from lower income families, are better represented.

Districts and organizations are now focusing on new data analysis, looking at multiple tests, and training teachers to identify behaviors that might signal high abilities among students of different cultures.

Some districts are closing gaps and are identifying more students, although statewide the gaps remain.

White students and those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds make up 50% and 54% of the population respectively, but white students make up more than 69% of students in gifted programs and those from higher economic backgrounds make up 80% of students in gifted programs in Colorado.

Statewide, Black students make up 4.6% of all public school students, but only 2.1% of students identified as gifted. Hispanic students make up 35.5% of all students, but only 16% of students identified as gifted.

By other measures, gaps are more significant. Students who qualify for subsidized meals, a measure of poverty, make up 45.7% of all students in the state, but only account for 19.9% of students who are identified as gifted. And students who are identified as multilingual learners, learning English as a new language, make up 13% of all students in the state, but only account for 2.3% of gifted students.

In the past, identification depended on a teacher or parent advocating for a child to be tested. Now, barriers include biases in tests themselves or in observations from educators, who are also still largely white. Staffing limitations in some districts also limit how much work gifted teams can do.

Closing the gap and identifying students matters, leaders say, because students need to be challenged and so educators can provide better resources. But also for self-knowledge.

Nisia Patalan, the gifted coordinator for the districts of the San Juan BOCES in southwest Colorado, said student identification matters in part so students can understand themselves better.

“Understanding who they are and how they see the world differently and then just being accepted,” Patalan said. “I just think about how isolating it is to be a gifted student. I think those kids aren’t getting what they need if they aren’t struggling if they aren’t struggling enough to get noticed. They’re masking because of their giftedness.”

Educators use data to find more students

Identifying students who are multilingual is a recent area of focus for many districts in the state. About five years ago, the Colorado Department of Education started creating guidance that now allows districts to use the scores of the ACCESS test — an English fluency exam that students identified as English learners already take every year — as a way to identify gifted students.

Students who gain proficiency in English much more rapidly than average can be flagged for identification.

Brad Russell, assistant director of teaching and learning and gifted and talented programming in Mapleton, participated in a group with the state to help create the guidance for districts to use that test.

So in his district, just north of Denver, where 80% of students are Hispanic and about 40% are English learners, leaders who were working with an outside partner on making sure teachers were teaching to grade level standards, also started to think about how few students were being identified as gifted.

Four years ago, just 2.5% of the district’s students were identified as gifted, so they set a goal to get to 5% within one year. Now, 8% of the district’s students are identified as gifted. Of those gifted students, 70% are Hispanic, which Russell said is close to the 80% of Hispanic students in the district.

To get there, every year, Russell creates a spreadsheet with every student and the scores for all tests they may take. He pulls out all the students who have scores in the 80th percentile and starts looking for trends over time. This means he looks for longer term patterns instead of how a student performs on one test at one point in time.

“Having that formal data review annually, that is step one for everyone,” but he added, “we want to make sure we’re going beyond that.”

Next, he reaches out to the student’s school teachers and has them use a formal rating scale to make observations about the student’s behavior. Sometimes families will also be asked to fill out an observation form about their child, and other student work might be used as well to create enough evidence to formally identify the student.

What parents need to know about gifted and talented education

Traditionally, students were identified as gifted based on a high score on a cognitive ability test.

Those are the tests used for universal screening. In Mapleton, all second and sixth graders are tested. But if those tests don’t flag a student as gifted or if students somehow miss that test, Russell’s data review and other teacher observations can also be used to identify a student who is advanced.

Denver Public Schools started a similar data review last year.

In the first year of reviewing about five years worth of student scores on the ACCESS language test, Denver leaders identified more than 300 students who could be gifted based on their accelerated ability to learn a language.

About 26% of the district’s students are learning English as a new language, but only about 3% of gifted students were multilingual learners. After that first year of data review, it inched up to 4% of the approximately 6,900 identified gifted students. More students are in a group being evaluated and observed to possibly be identified within the next year or two.

“It’s really exciting, our gifted teachers are so thrilled about this,” said Meryl Faulkner, senior manager of gifted and talented for the Denver school district.

The district is in the process of reviewing data again this year.

DPS also piloted last year a new cognitive test, the NGAT, for its universal screening at some schools, which Faulkner believes made a difference in identifying more Black and multilingual students, she said.

This fall, all second graders in the district will take the new cognitive test.

And when teachers fill out observational ratings to identify students, Faulkner said, the district tries to have a teacher of the same cultural background as the student fill it out. “Cultural mismatches can occur, misunderstanding, or misinterpreting what their behaviors actually are,” she said.

Shalelia Dillard, founder of SCD Enrichment Program, a nonprofit organization trying to help schools diversify their gifted populations, is also in the process of getting a new teacher observation tool nationally recognized.

For example, she noted that “questioning authority is an across the board characteristic of many gifted students,” but stereotypes of black women being argumentative might allow an educator to think, “This is just a little black girl trying to have an attitude with me.”

Another example she likes to use for thinking about the different ways gifted abilities show up is when young students have to translate for adults.

“Students that had to read their parents bank statements at six years old and having to navigate that and translate that into respectful children language, it takes a high level cognitive profile,” Dillard said. “You’re using both hemispheres of your brain. That’s a huge one.”

State officials also pointed to San Juan BOCES as one area seeing positive improvements in closing gaps in who is identified as gifted. BOCES, which stands for boards of cooperative educational services, are groups of small districts that share resources.

Across the eight districts in the BOCES group, more than half of students qualify for free or reduced price lunches, a measure of poverty. In 2020-21, just 26.5% of gifted students did, but that number has jumped to 32% in 2023-24.

The BOCES districts with large populations of indigenous students have also seen improvements in their representation. For example, in the Mancos School District, 6.5% of enrolled students are identified at Native American, and among gifted students 6.7% are.

Many of the BOCES districts are using an alternative cognitive test, the same one DPS is moving to. And Patalan, the gifted coordinator, trains teachers every year, sharing different observational tools every month, including some geared specifically to look at how traditional behaviors might be expressed differently among different groups of students.

Among Native American students, for example, many of their traits are nonverbal, while an English learner who is trying to be expressive might use “inventive language” combining languages.

Districts want identification to be more than a label

Once students are in the process of being identified, teachers can start to differentiate how they help them in class. A teacher might purposefully pair two possibly gifted students together for assignments, for example.

And once they’re identified, state law requires students to have an advanced learning plan with goals specific to their gifted abilities which are reviewed every year.

In the handful of schools where Dillard’s organization works, she hosts a class with mostly students of color who might be gifted. Some students are already identified, and some are not. In the class, they receive college prep skills, advanced supplemental learning in core content areas, and talk about how being gifted might impact their social and emotional abilities.

“This is what it means to be gifted,” Dillard said. “It is a neurodiversity. With this particular neurodivergence, here’s how you can advocate for yourself, how you can connect with other students.”

Her program also hosts a weeklong summer program for students from across the metro area. The Mapleton district has also been hosting a summer program for students who are identified as gifted.

Last year, the online sign-up for Mapleton’s summer camp filled up in less than an hour. The district had planned for 90 students, and expanded to accommodate 122. Even more tried to enroll, leaders said, but had to be turned away.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Undocumented kids have a right to attend public schools. This coalition wants to keep it that way.

2024-07-31T17:15:28+00:00

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A new coalition is on high alert for violations of a landmark Supreme Court ruling that guarantees children the right to a free public education regardless of their immigration status.

Known as Education for All, the campaign is working to counteract anti-immigrant rhetoric and conservative policy proposals seeking to limit the educational rights of undocumented children, which are protected by the 1982 Supreme Court decision Plyler v. Doe.

The campaign, which launched in May, comes as The Heritage Foundation, a think tank with ties to former President Donald Trump, is pushing states to charge undocumented children tuition to attend public school. Doing so, Heritage says, could lead the Supreme Court to reconsider the Plyler ruling.

Supporters of the idea say the costs of educating undocumented children have grown too high and that migrant students are drawing resources from U.S. citizens. Critics argue these policies would deny hundreds of thousands of kids the fundamental right to an education — and send shockwaves through the nation’s economy, social safety net, and criminal justice system.

Lawmakers in at least four states have tried to pass such measures since 2022. Already, some districts have thrown up barriers that prevent newcomers from enrolling, while some school board members have suggested collecting data on students’ immigration status.

“We want to take everything seriously,” said Will Dempster, the vice president of strategic communications for the National Immigration Law Center, which is leading the coalition. “They’re testing the boundaries of what’s possible.”

Three dozen organizations have joined the coalition, including immigrant rights groups, education and legal advocates, and the nation’s two largest teachers unions. Their work spans border states like Arizona and Texas, and states that have enrolled a large share of migrant students in recent years, such as New York, California, Colorado, and Illinois.

Together they will be watchdogging school board meetings, lobbying state lawmakers, educating families about their rights, and making sure school officials understand the Plyler decision. The goal is to “coordinate when things pop up in different states and be ready to mobilize,” Dempster said.

Amid cost concerns, schools support migrant students

The coalition is also pushing back against claims from Trump and other conservative politicians about newly arrived migrant children.

“They’re taking over our schools,” Trump said last month during the presidential debate. Earlier this year, Trump falsely claimed that migrant children had displaced other students in New York City schools, though the district actually has empty seats it’s trying to fill.

Similarly, in June, U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean, a Florida Republican, held an education hearing titled “The Consequences of Biden’s Border Chaos for K-12 Schools” where he spoke about the “staggering” cost of educating undocumented kids.

“Educating illegal immigrant children requires substantial resources, altering the learning environment for all students,” Bean said. “Overcrowded classrooms, the need for new facilities, and strained student-to-teacher ratios are just some of the challenges.”

He pointed to Colorado giving schools an extra $24 million this year to help offset the costs of educating newcomer students, and a pair of schools in Austin, Texas where teachers taught classes in hallways after a big uptick in refugee students.

Some schools have struggled to meet the needs of newly arrived immigrant students. That’s often because they do not have enough bilingual staff or receive limited funding to educate immigrant students.

In 2022, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the Plyler ruling should be revisited “because the expenses are extraordinary” and he called on the federal government to pay states’ costs. A lawmaker in his state tried to bar undocumented children from enrolling in public schools unless the federal government did just that, but the bill didn’t go anywhere.

Similar proposals were floated in Utah, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, but none passed — suggesting the idea remains controversial, even among conservatives.

Newly arrived students’ needs aren’t unique. Many U.S.-born children also need language support, trauma-informed counseling, or help catching up after interrupted schooling. And some schools have stepped up by training staff to provide additional mental health support or adding summer programs to help kids adjust to life in the U.S.

The coalition plans to highlight the many benefits immigrant students can bring to their classmates and school communities, too.

“Part of what we can do is show that immigrant students can succeed when given the right supports,” said Liza Schwartzwald, the director of economic justice and family empowerment at the New York Immigration Coalition, which belongs to Education for All. “These are not kids that are throwing our education system into turmoil.”

Enrollment barriers, data collection could violate student rights

Still, even without official state restrictions, undocumented children commonly face barriers to school enrollment, including in Democratic-led states.

Last summer, New York’s attorney general said the state had learned of school policies that made it “difficult or impossible” for undocumented students to enroll — likely in violation of state or federal protections. Some districts required students or their parents to provide voter registration cards, which aren’t available to non-citizens, or threatened to make home visits if a student couldn’t establish residency with a lease, which can be difficult for undocumented families to obtain.
Throughout New York City, newly arrived immigrant youth have encountered wait lists or been told there are no spots as they sought to enroll in school, City Limits reported. On the flip side, some newcomer high schoolers have been pressured to leave their school when they needed more support to graduate.
In Massachusetts, some districts said they didn’t plan to enroll migrant children who were housed in temporary shelters, until the state told them they had to.
Hundreds of schools in dozens of states recently told The 74 they wouldn’t admit a 19-year-old Venezuelan student with limited English skills, even though he was legally entitled to enroll.

Coalition members are alert to these and other examples of schools potentially violating the rights laid out in Plyler.

Alejandra Vázquez Baur, who directs the National Newcomer Network, which includes 250 teachers, school leaders, community advocates, and researchers from across the country, said members share possible infringements when they meet every other month.

The National Newcomer Network has led storytelling training to help teachers, school leaders, and others talk about their work with immigrant children.

Her organization has filed federal civil rights complaints on behalf of students or helped families file their own, though she knows that process is often too slow to help a child before they decide to enroll elsewhere or not to enroll in school at all.

Tessa Petit, the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said her organization is urging its 80 member organizations to “be alert” for potential Plyler violations. That includes working with partners that organize high schoolers to see if they’ve heard about any cases of undocumented kids not being able to register for school.

They are keeping their eye on Sarasota County Schools after Bridget Ziegler, a school board member and a co-founder of the conservative political group Moms for Liberty, raised questions about whether the district could collect data on students’ immigration status.

“I’ve heard both from staff and members of the community in general about a concern about being able to respond to the language barriers, but also it kind of becoming more of a burden than usual,” she said at a board meeting in March. “Is that just the perception? Is there a way to evaluate that?”

The Heritage Foundation plan calls on schools to collect data on students’ immigration status as a way to conduct cost analyses. Schools typically do not do this because it can scare families and cause them not to send their children to school, in violation of Plyler.

Undocumented students’ supporters work to convince voters

The Florida Immigrant Coalition is also reaching out to teachers unions and school board members to raise awareness about this issue, and meeting with state lawmakers to try and secure pledges that they would not support legislation that could harm immigrant students.

“We realize that there is a lot of education that needs to be done,” Petit said. “The reaction that we’re getting is ‘No, wow, that wouldn’t happen.’ Some people can’t even imagine the idea of kids not going to school.”

The national coalition is also looking for states or communities that would be willing to pass policies that support the educational rights of immigrant children.

One example is a recent Connecticut law that ensures immigrant families know their kids are entitled to a public education and that they should receive certain translation services.

And the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights has had preliminary conversations about putting the Plyler decision into state law to make it “super clear” that undocumented children are entitled to a public education, said Fred Tsao, the organization’s senior policy counsel.

There are other ways the coalition is being proactive that don’t involve statutes.

Vázquez Baur’s organization has been conducting storytelling training over the last few months to help its members talk about their work with newcomer students. They plan to share those “on-the-ground” experiences in the lead-up to the presidential election.

“That is often what changes minds,” Vázquez Baur said. “For folks who might be making a voting decision that would otherwise harm this community, telling those stories and saying ‘Those are your neighbors’ — that is impactful. That is primarily how we’re going to be pushing back.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Jeffco will pilot new programs, including a welcome center bus, to better serve immigrant students

2024-07-15T23:28:51+00:00

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An influx of immigrant students last year left the Jeffco school district scrambling to meet their needs. So this fall, officials are piloting new programs and support to help newcomer students.

The school district is piloting a series of changes, including new staff, resources, and curriculum materials, as well as a new welcome center bus, after hundreds of immigrant students arrived throughout the past school year. The district is planning for the surge to continue into next school year.

“Our schools have been incredibly autonomous in how they meet the needs of our special populations and especially our multilingual language learners,” Jeffco Superintendent Tracy Dorland told the district’s school board this spring. “Our student achievement data tells us that’s not working.”

Schools across the state and country saw a surge of new students last school year arriving from South American countries, including Venezuela and Colombia. Jeffco reported to state officials that it received more than 300 students from October through the end of February. But district officials told the board in March that they estimated about 600 newcomer students had arrived in the previous 12 months.

Jeffco, the second largest school district in Colorado, enrolled 76,172 students as of last October, of which about 6.2% were identified as English learners.

New programs will focus on four schools at secondary level

Although the newcomer students are spread across the district, some Jeffco areas were more overwhelmed with new enrollments.

Four high schools — Jefferson Jr/Sr, Alameda Jr/Sr, Lakewood High, and Green Mountain High — will have specific newcomer programming where a dedicated teacher with a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education certificate to teach English learners will co-teach core academic classes and help give students two years worth of English credits in one year to help them gain traction toward graduation.

For elementary schools, the district is creating a team of roving teachers to deploy to any school experiencing a surge in students who don’t speak English as a native language. The central team will help screen, enroll, and orient students so English language development teachers at schools can continue their work helping classroom teachers learn strategies to teach any language learners in their classes.

Other large metro-area school districts, including Denver, Aurora, and Adams 12, already have specialized programs to serve refugee and immigrant students who are new to the country. But Jeffco hasn’t historically had such standalone programming.

The district is also retrofitting a short school bus to serve as a mobile welcome center for families. District leaders said they were inspired by the Aurora school district’s comprehensive welcome center that serves diverse immigrant and refugee families. Jeffco initially considered using an empty school building to create one, but worried that families spread throughout Jeffco would find transportation to the center to be a barrier.

“We really reimagined what a welcome center could look like,” said Tara Peña, Jeffco’s chief of family and community partnerships. “The brick and mortar experience of walking through and into an institution could also feel really intimidating and so having something that is colorful and inviting could hopefully take a little bit of that stigma away.”

Much of the cost of the bus is being covered by a state grant. The district has budgeted about $1.2 million for the new staff and other supports.

Adan Gonzales, president of Volition Components, a shop that is retrofitting the bus into a mobile welcome center for Jeffco, describes how the outside of the bus will have an awning and speakers to help the district draw people in.

The bus and three newly hired family ambassadors, as well as additional translators when necessary, will travel to schools, apartment complexes, shelters, and libraries to find families that need help enrolling their children in school, or who need referrals to health or mental health resources. The bus will also be equipped with wi-fi to help families fill out online forms on site. District leaders are taking donations so the bus can be stocked with school supplies, clothes, food, and diapers to help families with other needs.

Peña said the family ambassadors come from some of the same countries as many new Jeffco students and speak their language.

“That immediately disarms our families,” she said.

Peña said the department is also in talks with high school students earning translation certificates at Alameda High School to possibly volunteer on the bus to get more translation work experience.

The students and the family ambassadors would speak Spanish. According to district data, 70% of the past year’s newcomers speak Spanish. The next most common languages are Arabic and Russian.

The inside of Jeffco's welcome center bus will have tables, a fridge, a television screen, and wi-fi so families can get help filling out enrollment forms or getting referrals to services.

At the high school level, the district is planning to track students who enroll in the newcomer program to compare to other newcomer students who don’t to see if, in the long run, students are more successful with that support.

Students would be part of the newcomer programming for no more than a school year, and would be integrated into classes with non-newcomer students for electives, lunch, and other activities.

The district is expecting to serve a total of 150 students in the four schools and has already identified some students who will enroll, but is planning to leave space for students who show up this fall.

For students who aren’t near those four schools, the district will continue and expand an online service it offered last school year. Students who don’t have access to English language development in their own school log onto a multilingual learner online platform where they get live instruction from a trained teacher. The district expects to be able to serve 300 students this way.

The district is also in the process of updating district-wide policies for how high schools enroll students with foreign transcripts or without transcript records.

School board President Mary Parker questioned the process after a 16-year-old newly arrived Ugandan student she was mentoring was counseled to go to college because school officials felt the girl had already met the high school graduation requirements. District leaders said high schools have so far often used their own discretion in making decisions about enrolling and placing students, but will have updated uniform guidance soon.

In elementary schools, district leaders will be tracking whether the central roving team is the right support for school staff to prevent them from feeling overwhelmed.

“Right now the thinking initially is this is really a pilot design before we scale this up,” Peña said.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

It takes a village: A Brooklyn high school and NYC nonprofits team up to enroll older immigrants

2024-07-10T19:26:02+00:00

The prospect of enrolling at a New York City school had begun to seem like a dim possibility for Amadou Sara Barry, an 18-year-old who arrived from Guinea five months ago.

Barry came to the U.S. by himself in February, determined to attend school to learn English and take the first step toward his dream of becoming an actor, he told Chalkbeat through an interpreter speaking Pulaar, an indigenous language of Guinea. But he’d hit a wall. Some schools told him he was too old, and others told him to come back in the fall, he said.

Under state law, students like Barry are allowed to attend public school through age 21. Yet he wasn’t alone in his struggles.

Few older immigrant students like Barry know where to begin the enrollment process. Those who do manage to make their way to schools or enrollment centers often wind up with referrals to schools that are ill-equipped to serve them or have no more room, advocates said. Others are directed to classes outside of traditional high schools that prepare students to take the General Educational Development test, or GED, a high school equivalency exam. In response, some groups are trying to ensure these students aren’t ignored or shunted away from what they want.

That’s how Barry’s situation changed on a recent sweltering Friday afternoon, as he and a group of seven other Guinean immigrant students sat rapt around a conference table at Brooklyn Frontiers High School while Principal Alona Cohen explained the registration process.

Of these eight Guinean immigrants, ages 18-20, only one had managed to secure a spot in a school previously, said Maricruz Badia, a program coordinator with the nonprofit InsideSchools who accompanied the students on the visit.

The Brooklyn Frontiers trip was part of a growing grassroots effort led by organizations like InsideSchools as well as Afrikana, a Harlem nonprofit that supports African migrants, to improve the enrollment process for older immigrant youth and ensure they find appropriate school placements.

“There [is] this large community of unaccompanied older youth who … should be in schools but are having a very hard time finding schools,” said Badia, who’s leading a new initiative to support these young people.

The push relies in large part on schools like Brooklyn Frontiers, a small transfer school with about 110 students that specializes in supporting older students. Brooklyn Frontiers had not historically served many newly arrived immigrants. But Cohen, the principal, was eager to enroll more and had recently hired a new English as a Second Language teacher.

“There was a population shift in terms of the need, it was just as simple as that,” she said of the school’s adjustments to serve more new English learners.

Brooklyn Frontiers High School students Mamadou Balde, 18, left, and Baubacar Diollo, 19, hold t-shirts.

The effort comes as a historic influx of migrant students into New York City enters its third year. So far, an estimated 40,000 immigrant students living in city homeless shelters have enrolled in school. Yet they often struggle to sign up even though there are plenty of open seats citywide.

Badia, a former Bronx middle school counselor who came to InsideSchools last year, was horrified to witness how difficult the basic task of enrolling in school proved for many of the older West African youth, in particular.

During one visit to an enrollment center in the Bronx, only students who brought transcripts from their home countries — documents that can be difficult to access for students who left in a hurry — were able to get school referrals, said Badia.

Anyone 18 and older was referred to the Education Department’s GED programs for 17-21 year-olds, she said.

An Education Department spokesperson said counselors at enrollment centers help older immigrant students choose between traditional high schools, transfer schools, international schools, and high school equivalency programs. The city expanded its GED classes and launched a new program called Young Adult Bridge that offers weeknight English classes to students ages 18-20 in response to surging demand, the spokesperson added.

“Our administration deeply believes that every child deserves the opportunity to succeed, no matter where they came from,” said Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein.

But Badia said the way the system is currently operating, “it’s going to spit these young people right back out.” That frustration is what prompted her to try a new approach: building relationships directly with school leaders like Cohen. That way, Badia can bypass enrollment centers, and she knows she’s connecting kids to schools that have the willingness to serve them.

She was excited when an old friend who teaches at Brooklyn Frontiers mentioned that the school was hoping to enroll more English learners.

For Cohen, the budding collaboration with InsideSchools — an organization known for its school reviews — is a promising way to direct more older newcomers toward her school.

“They understand our capacity, what we specialize in, what we’re maybe not as strong in,” Cohen said.

And for the eight students, the visit was a chance to get their questions answered and connect with other Guinean immigrants who had been in their shoes months earlier. As they munched on pizza, the students asked Cohen, with the help of a Pulaar interpreter, where to send school records from Guinea, when to report for summer school, and how to access their free MetroCards.

Barry, the 18-year-old aspiring actor, was cautiously optimistic. He said he could see himself eventually making friends at Brooklyn Frontiers, but is still worried about getting to summer school in Manhattan.

Mostly, though, he was excited to finally have something to do during the day.

By the end of the two-hour visit, all eight students were enrolled.

Older immigrants struggle to find seats in NYC schools

The challenges for older immigrant students trying to enroll in school are pervasive and long-running.

A recent investigation by the publication The 74 uncovered hundreds of schools across the country unwilling to enroll a fictional 19-year-old Venezuelan immigrant — even in states that allow students to remain in school through age 21.

New York City’s school system, the largest in the country, is better equipped than many to support older newcomer students. The city hosts a network of international schools specifically designed to enroll high schoolers learning English. And after years of pressure from advocates, the Education Department committed $300,000 in fiscal year 2023 to expand support for English language learners at six transfer schools, though that money was not renewed the following year, according to the nonprofit Advocates for Children.

Even with those advantages, the school system has struggled to keep pace with the influx of new arrivals, advocates said.

The problem is especially acute for older West African youth, many of whom are in the country alone, face pressure to earn money right away to repay smugglers, and are less likely than Spanish speakers to find adults in the school system who share their background or speak their language, said Adama Bah, the executive director and founder of Afrikana.

Adama Bah, Afrikana founder, works to help older immigrant students from West Africa enroll in school.

“If InsideSchools is not there, or I’m not there, there’s no success rate in getting people enrolled,” Bah said.

Many of the schools best equipped to work with older newcomers are full, said Badia.

GED programs can be good options for students who need to work long hours right away, Bah said. But those classes can also fill up, and many students crave the social and extracurricular benefits of high school and want to earn a diploma, she added.

For other students without access to advocates like Bah or Badia, it’s difficult to even know where to start.

Boubacar Diollo, 19, and Mamadou Balde, 18, are friends from Guinea who fled the country without their families and reunited in New York City last fall. They didn’t get any help enrolling in school from the Brooklyn shelter where they were staying, the teens recently told Chalkbeat through an interpreter.

Five months after arriving in the U.S., the boys hopped on the subway to Manhattan, and began walking the streets looking for a school. They walked into a school whose name they don’t remember and were told the school didn’t have room, but were handed a list of other schools to call.

One of the names on the list was Brooklyn Frontiers.

A school prepares to enroll more immigrant students

Until recently, the trickle of older immigrant students to Brooklyn Frontiers appeared to be largely random.

It began with one student showing up earlier this year at the school and asking to register. When staffers asked how he’d found it, he told them, “It looked like a school, so I walked in,’” Cohen recalled.

Then, a friend of Cohen’s who’s also a principal and lives near a shelter where some Guinean youth were staying, struck up a conversation in French with teens looking for a school. Cohen’s friend recommended Brooklyn Frontiers.

In February, Cohen managed to hire a second English as a Second Language teacher, Cole Moran, allowing her to enroll more newcomers.

Word began to spread. Soon, the population of English learners at Brooklyn Frontiers had grown to nearly 30, including the eight new signups from InsideSchools — roughly a quarter of the school’s population.

Moran said his new students have made remarkable progress in just a few months. He attributes that in part to classes where students have different home languages. That forces them to communicate with each other in English.

Badia agreed, adding, “If you have a diverse community, they’re going to develop their language skills.”

Administrators are trying to equip the entire staff with techniques to support newcomers, contracting with international schools to offer professional development.

Staffers also learned quickly that their newcomer students have very different needs outside of school than their U.S.-born classmates.

While the school has traditionally invested lots of effort into building relationships with parents and families to improve attendance, many of the newcomers came to the country without their families, but are attending school “very regularly,” Cohen said.

For the older newcomers, the school has focused more on locating students when they’re forced to switch shelters, and even providing home-cooked breakfast and toiletries that students are getting in their shelters.

The idea is to think about the needs of a person who’s living away from home and is unable to earn an income, said Amanda Blair, a director at Good Shepherd Services, a nonprofit that works with Brooklyn Frontiers to offer students additional support.

The rewards of enrolling the newcomers have been immense, staffers said.

“This is a new level and layer that I didn’t realize that I needed at this point in my career,” said Blair, who said she tries to treat the newcomers the way she’d want her own child treated if they were alone in a foreign country. “It’s like, wow, these young people are going to be able to learn. Some of them will get their diploma, some won’t. But I know they will be better for being in this environment.”

Correction: July 11, 2024: This article has been corrected to reflect that the Education Department committed $300,000 in 2022 to transfer schools supporting English Language Learners, not $6 million.

Interviews with Pulaar speakers were conducted with translation help from Amadou Bah, a volunteer interpreter for InsideSchools.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

To help migrant students, Westminster created a summer program for English language learners

2024-06-28T23:38:53+00:00

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During the last week of summer school in Westminster, about 19 kids practiced forming English sentences that described pictures displayed on a smartboard at the front of the class.

“I see kids playing fútbol,” one child, Mathias, said about a photo of a group of older kids playing soccer in the rain.

But teacher Sydney Pollock wanted the class of third through fifth graders to practice starting sentences with the words “This” or “That,” and to use a singular verb in the sentence. She reminded Mathias that “kids” is plural. Writing the word on the board, she asked the class how to make it singular. Drop the “S”, kids said.

Mathias, a student in the mixed grade summer classroom for Westminster Public Schools, works to practice speaking English during class on June 26, 2024.

Mathias tried again. “This kid playing…”

Don’t forget your verb, Pollock reminded him, pointing to examples on the whiteboard.

“This kid is playing fútbol,” Mathias said, excited to get it right.

Westminster Public Schools was one of many districts in Colorado to receive a surge of new immigrant students after the start of the school year. In the four months between October and February alone, the district reported it had enrolled 216 newcomer students. Westminster received $877,000 in one-time state funding to help cover the expenses of educating students who were not counted for this year’s state funding because they started after October.

Students in the summer program get a short recess during their four-hour school day.

With that help, Westminster budgeted $10,000 to create a new summer school program to help Spanish-speaking students keep practicing English, particularly hoping to enroll many of the new immigrant students who had just started to learn.

The summer program enrolled 135 students in kindergarten through 11th grade. Kate Herter, who served this summer as the program’s principal, said she estimated about 85% of the students enrolled were new to the country this year.

Leaders said one of the goals was to ensure new immigrant students feel more comfortable and ready to learn come this fall.

Herter said the goal is for students to have a space where they can feel more comfortable practicing their English skills, so that they might feel more confident participating in their learning next school year.

When kids began the summer program, they started learning how to talk about food. Another week was spent learning about money and how to count U.S. dollars. Next door to Pollock’s class, another group of students was learning how to form sentences in English to describe the different seasons, making observations about the cold, the rain, and the leaves.

“We’re really trying to target language that they can use immediately inside the community,” Herter said.

Susana Zubia López, left, and Kate Herter, pose for a portrait on Wed., June 26, 2024 at Josephine Hodgkins Leadership Academy in Denver, Colorado.

Susana Zubia López was one of the family liaisons who helped the district call all newcomer families to invite them to enroll their children.

She said most families were excited about the opportunity to have their children keep learning English.

Zubia López said that of the new immigrant families she was in touch with, the only ones who didn’t enroll their children were families who were moving or who said they were taking a trip.

The district provided free transportation to the four-hour daily program, as well as breakfast and lunch just before students went home at noon. The students in the program were also able to get vaccinations to be ready for school enrollment this fall.

“We didn’t want a gap,” Zubia López said. “Our goal was to not have that big a gap.”

In 2018, Westminster had signed an agreement with the federal government to make changes to how it identified and served students who were learning English as a new language after the Department of Justice found that the district may have been under-identifying students and not providing them with enough resources. The district started making changes as the pandemic began.

In the summer of 2021, Westminster also used COVID relief funds to extend the school year an extra 12 days to give students more opportunities to learn. But this is the first year, district leaders said, that the district had a targeted summer program for students learning English.

Herter said teachers are regularly collecting data and will be evaluating if students demonstrate improvement in their English development next year.

Students in Westminster's summer program watched an animated video about the seasons and sang and danced along.

For now, teachers also worked on making students feel more comfortable. In Pollock’s class, one girl spelled out a sentence about the picture she observed, but initially pleaded with the teacher who had come around to her table not to make her try to say it out loud.

Next door, when students were learning about the seasons, teacher SanJuanita Carbajal had the students watch an animated video with a catchy song about the seasons. At first, the students were not singing along. But after a few minutes, they joined in.

Sara Gonzalez, who teaches first and second graders in the program, said that students know she speaks Spanish and started the program trying speaking to her mostly in Spanish.

She often tells them she doesn’t understand in an effort to have them practice their English. Now, she said, she is seeing them try to speak more in English.

“We know they’ll feel more confident in their learning later,” Herter said.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

In need of more bilingual teachers, Denver looks to recruit and support international candidates

2024-05-06T17:06:32+00:00

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When Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero was invited to a panel by the government of the Dominican Republic last year to showcase the school district’s approach to bilingual education, he said dozens of teachers there asked him how they could work for him.

Marrero said he came back to Denver excited that he may have helped recruit 30 new teachers to fill bilingual teaching vacancies. But despite their enthusiasm, only a handful of those teachers are now working in Denver Public Schools, he said.

Marrero asked the district’s human resources team to look into why. Many teachers said they felt making the switch was a big risk and they didn’t have enough support, Marrero said.

So this school year, Denver Public Schools launched the International Educators Institute to provide not only professional, but also personal support to new international teachers. The institute will help teachers from other countries figure out where to live, understand finances and credit, and provide other social or emotional support. It will also train teachers to help them earn more credentials and to understand how Denver’s school system works.

Denver Public Schools has enrolled thousands of new students who have recently immigrated from South America. Although the International Educators Institute wasn’t created because of that influx of students, it makes the work more important, Marrero said. In addition, the district is under a court order guiding how it teaches students who aren’t yet fluent in English. Meeting that order requires a large number of bilingual teachers, but there are always vacancies.

Marrero said the work of the institute is to help fill teacher vacancies without replacing existing efforts to fill those jobs.

Denver Public Schools serves 88,200 students, 75% of whom are students of color. But among the more than 6,000 teachers, just about a third are teachers of color. If the institute is successful, he envisions a system where students have more teachers of color, and teachers can expand their careers and better their lives.

If they have to go back to their home countries, they can better help more children around the world too, he said.

“That’s what hasn’t existed ever,” Marrero said of the institute. “Just like we say we have to educate the whole student, it’s the same approach. The parallel is that we have to support the whole educator.”

To get the institute started, Marrero said DPS used $500,000 from federal COVID relief money. But the district will also invest at least $1 million from its general fund.

“We would waste way more in guest teachers, substitute coverage throughout the year, so the way I see it, that’s an investment,” Marrero said.

International teachers struggle without support

Maria Moncada Rodriguez, an international teacher from Honduras, has been in Colorado for four years, but is working in Denver schools for the first time this school year.

She said she has loved the support from her colleagues and from the institute and wished she had more of it when she initially arrived in the U.S. to work in a different school district.

Moncada Rodriguez and her husband were teachers in Honduras who ran a Montessori school for more than 20 years. But as violence in the country increased, she sought a way out. Then she won a contest that allowed her the opportunity to come teach in Colorado.

She and her husband were both supposed to get jobs, and her two children would be able to come along. But at the last minute, a new principal took over the Colorado school where she was supposed to teach and rescinded her husband’s job offer.

Maria Moncada Rodriguez, a teacher from Honduras now teaching in Denver Public Schools, in her classroom.

While her family still joined her in Colorado, it took her husband more than a year and a half to get a work permit. And during that time, Moncada Rodriguez said the family struggled financially with just her income.

“We cried almost every day,” she recalled. But she said she and her husband still gave thanks that their children were in a safe home.

But now that she’s working in Denver Public Schools, she’s been able to connect to other international teachers from various countries, through the institute, and also through the teachers union.

Recently, she said she and the other international teachers she’s met decided to start a guide for newly arrived teachers. Ideally, she said it would include information on clothing drives, financial literacy classes, help with buying a home, immigration lawyers, and more.

“We need all types of information,” she said.

It’s the same kind of help the district’s institute wants to provide.

Denver’s goal: 120 new international teachers next year

As the district has rolled out the supports and launched the institute this year, it’s also hired 64 new visa sponsored teachers for the current school year. That’s brought the total of international teachers with work visas in DPS to 234. For next school year, the district’s goal is to hire 120 new international teachers.

The district plans to use some of the institute’s $1.5 million budget on visits to other countries to help recruit and connect with teachers, but also to help staff to spend time finding resources and helping new teachers.

Finding affordable housing for teachers is a particularly important issue, but Marrero said he’s not interested in being a landlord or managing property.

“There is a healthy way to engage, but there’s also a lot to be said when you have a little bit of separation,” Marrero said. Teachers, he said, “don’t want to be under the DPS thumb.”

Still, the district is exploring relationships with developers, landlords, and city officials. This year, for example, the district was able to negotiate a lower price on a long-term lease for some teachers from the Dominican Republic.

“That’s going to be us leveraging our existing relationships and leveraging also our position,” Marrero said. “Even if it’s just a building. Saying: ‘Can we have X amount of units that we have first dibs on?’ That’s what I’m looking to explore.”

Moncada Rodriguez continues to look for resources on her own. One issue she hasn’t figured out is how to help her oldest child, who’s graduating this year, pay for college. Since her children are her dependents and she is on a sponsored visa, they can’t get work permits, and they don’t qualify for any of the financial assistance for higher education she’s learned about so far.

“Of course we aren’t asking for everything to come easy or handed to us,” Moncada Rodriguez said. “We love to work and study. But coming here and knowing our kids can’t go to university because of a lack of resources is overwhelming.”

Still, she wants other teachers considering coming to the United States to know that things can get better if they can persist. And she hopes local leaders can learn to be more supportive too.

At her school, Academia Ana Marie Sandoval, she loves that she gets to use her experience as a Montessori teacher working with students from low-income families, and that she’s valued for her Spanish language skills.

She said her fellow teachers have been helpful and supportive, and her connection to the institute means there’s always someone to answer her questions.

Moncada Rodriguez said she’s taken many Denver Public Schools training courses, including one that’s taught her how to do home visits with families of newly arriving migrant students.

“Now the only thing missing is how to get a masters degree,” she said. “I’m working on that next.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado approved $24 million for migrant students. Here’s how much each school district will get.

2024-05-03T21:44:21+00:00

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A surge of one-time money will reach 85 Colorado school districts — almost half of all districts in the state — this month to help offset costs of an unprecedented number of new students arriving midyear, mainly from South America.

Between October and Feb. 29, Colorado school districts received 8,085 newcomer students spread throughout the state, according to data submitted by the districts to the state.

Colorado lawmakers last month approved the use of $24 million in state funding to help school districts experiencing an influx of new migrant students this year. Colorado funds schools based on enrollment counts from October. Every year there are some students who leave or enroll in schools after October, and the district’s funding doesn’t get adjusted.

But this school year, district leaders, especially in large districts such as Denver and Aurora, said the number of new students they were receiving after October was much larger than in typical years.

To be eligible for the money, districts had to submit their request, along with a record of their enrollment counts, to the Colorado Department of Education. The department used a formula approved by state lawmakers to figure out how much each district will receive. Nine districts that applied were not eligible for any of the money.

Search for your district’s allocation, net enrollment change, and total new arrivals in the following table:

Districts got money in two ways. First, there was a tiered system that gave certain set amounts of money to districts based on how many new arrivals they’ve enrolled between October and Feb. 29. Then, districts could also qualify for additional money, on a per student basis — if those new arrivals resulted in net increases in district enrollment.

Of the 85 districts getting money, 39 qualified for per-student dollars: $4,672.03 for each student, which is less than districts got for students enrolled in October.

In other cases, districts received many new arrivals, but because of overall declining enrollment, their total student count by February was still lower than it was in October.

The Adams 12 school district, for example, enrolled 374 new arrivals, but because of overall enrollment declines, their total enrollment is down 58 students compared to October. That meant Adams 12 qualified for $550,000 from the tiered system, but did not receive any per-student amount in addition to that.

Districts will receive their funding allocations this month, though for most, it will serve to reimburse them for money they’ve already spent on hiring extra staff earlier this year.

School district leaders talked about having to add new classrooms in some schools, requiring more teachers and other support staff.

The Westminster school district is planning to offer some summer programming for newly arrived students. In the Harrison school district in Colorado Springs, a “newcomer committee” is developing a “toolkit for teachers to use.”

“Even though they are just one-time funds, every little bit helps us provide our newcomer students with the support, resources, and instruction they need,” Rachel Laufer, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning for the Harrison district, said in an email about the funding.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

How the 2024 National Teacher of the Year helps English learners adapt in rural Appalachia

2024-04-03T19:50:00+00:00

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As an English as a Second Language specialist at her Tennessee school and a long-time member of her rural Appalachian community, Missy Testerman often finds herself straddling two worlds, trying to bridge the divide.

That could mean anything from accompanying a student and his mother to get a refill for epilepsy medication, to showing the staff at the local courthouse how to use a translation app so they can communicate with immigrant families.

“Simple gestures such as sitting with my students’ families at high school graduation or a school play goes a long way in helping them find acceptance in our rural area since I have belonged to this community for decades and others trust my lead,” Testerman wrote recently. “I take this role as ambassador seriously, and I am thankful for the opportunity to connect these groups.”

And now, Testerman will be serving as an ambassador on an even bigger stage: She’s the new National Teacher of the Year.

Testerman, who teaches English learners at Rogersville City School, earned the title on Wednesday as part of a competition run by the Council of Chief State School Officers. She was previously named Tennessee’s top teacher for 2023.

She’ll spend the next year traveling the country, speaking out about issues she says teachers need to be making noise about, including the persistent mental health challenges kids are facing and the need to offer services even as COVID relief funding dries up.

“At times, it feels as though state legislatures across this country are passing laws that do not address actual problems,” Testerman wrote in her application. “Schools had to hire someone to scan every book in the building under the guise that pornography is lurking in a kindergarten classroom, yet we do not have funding to hire a behaviorist to help with the kindergarteners who are disrupting classrooms every day.”

Chalkbeat spoke with Testerman about how field trips to the post office help her English learners, why she went back to school at the age of 51, and why it’s important for lawmakers to understand what’s really happening inside the nation’s classrooms.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You got your ESL endorsement after teaching for 30 years. Is there a moment or an interaction you had that made you think: ‘I’m going to go back and do this right now’?

Yes, actually, there was. One of my closest allies at school was our ESL teacher. She came to me and let me know that she was moving at the end of the school year. She had done a phenomenal job, not just educating these students and helping them acquire the English language, but also serving as their family resource person in our community. So I was very worried about who was going to advocate for these families.

The next day, I received an email that went out to everyone who was teaching in the state of Tennessee, explaining how the Tennessee Grow Your Own program works. One facet is that teachers who are already licensed could add an endorsement area in a hard-to-fill position, and that year, it was math, special education, and ESL. I was 51 years old, not your typical college student. But I enrolled, and at the end of the year, I was able to transition into her role and become the advocate for my students’ families.

You talked about how much you enjoy getting to be the first person who takes your ESL students to the library, or the post office, or the courthouse. Why is it important to you to do that, and how does that help your students and their families?

Many of my students are their family’s translators. They are the ones calling and making doctor’s appointments at 7 years old, or they are the ones who are translating documents.

Missy Testerman is the 2024 National Teacher of the Year. She teaches English learners at Rogersville City School in Tennessee.

A lot of times, my students are in a situation where pretty much all they do is come to school and go back home. They haven’t had the typical exposure to the things that we’re talking about. They may pass the post office every day, but they don’t understand: This is where I go when I need to mail a package.

Or they may be aware that we have a library, but there’s a language barrier for their parents to be able to take them to the library and explain that they need a library card.

Those are experiences that I get to have. And not only do I get to have them with my students, and open up that pathway for them to be able to share with their families, but also it helps the people in my community to see my families as just another member of the community. It helps them to adapt to living in our rural area.

You’ve been talking with educator prep programs and offering your feedback. What are some of the ways that you’d like to see teacher training improve or change?

The literacy piece is always a big thing. We passed a law called the Tennessee Literacy Act in 2021, and that requires that anyone entering into our classrooms be proficient in the science of reading, and how to teach literacy at any level — not just to students coming in. That’s been part of the conversation.

I’m also talking to them about the types of mental health challenges that we’re seeing, so that they can work that into the curriculum for students to be prepared, and to know what resources are available in schools.

As National Teacher of the Year, what do you want to make sure policymakers are better educated about?

I want our policymakers to know what’s going on inside our classrooms. For far too long, policy has been made by people who are not education experts. They’re not teachers, they don’t spend a lot of time within classrooms.

But we’re not going to make anyone aware unless our teachers are willing to speak up and be advocates — for their students, themselves, our profession — by being honest about what our struggles are, and what will make those struggles better.

Right now, I feel like the most pressing issue that schools across our country are facing are mental health challenges. I’m in a pre-K-8 school, so I’ve seen lots of different situations, anything from depression in our older students, where they are just totally withdrawn from the school situation — they don’t want to be there. That affects their education, obviously, and it also leads to chronic absenteeism.

In our younger students, what I’m seeing and what I’m hearing from other teachers is that students are showing up unable to regulate, or to deal with their frustrations.

These mental health challenges don’t just affect the child experiencing the crisis, or the teachers, they affect every kid in the classroom, every school employee who tries to help and intervene. I see that as a particular challenge.

You wrote in your application that ESSER funds are winding down, but we’re still dealing with big challenges around academic recovery and mental health. How do you think your advocacy can help raise alarms about some of the things that you’re seeing?

That $122 billion that was invested into schools helped schools hire mental health counselors, guidance counselors, behaviorists, and other support staff. And we know we’re still struggling with student mental health at this time. For those supports to be taken away can lead to a very difficult situation.

I hope that I empower teachers to share what that looks like, and why that’s difficult, and why that interrupts the learning of other students in the classroom, so that systems all across the country can figure out a way to make up for those funds and keep the supports in play.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

How a Humboldt Park school is helping parents learn English and gain confidence

2024-04-03T17:00:00+00:00

This story was originally published in Block Club Chicago.

All is quiet inside a Humboldt Park elementary school filled with student artwork, class pictures and flags — except for one classroom, where there’s soft chatter in English and Spanish.

It is home to Lowell Elementary School’s first English as a Second Language class, where about 15 parents and relatives of the school community meet Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

The group is a mix of new arrivals from Latin America, mothers, and relatives from other countries who wanted more opportunities to practice English, help their children with homework, and integrate into the neighborhood.

For some, learning English is also their ticket to getting a job and enrolling in college classes to further enrich their lives in Chicago, they said.

“I want to learn English so I can go to school and get a degree and acclimate here,” said Francelys Tineo, who arrived from Venezuela a few months ago and whose daughter attends Lowell. “My husband is trying to get work while I am in class, but we can’t work here yet. But I want to better communicate with people when I can get a job.”

María Taylor shows off her homework as she takes an English as a Second Language class at Lowell Elementary School.

Like many Chicago Public Schools, Lowell, 3320 W. Hirsch St., has seen an influx of migrant children enroll over the past year, growing its already high Latino student population, according to school data. The school has 304 students, 95% of whom are low-income students and 38% of whom are English learners, data shows.

Data on how many new arrivals have settled into Lowell since last year was not available, but the district has welcomed about 5,700 newcomers in collaboration with the city’s family services department, a CPS spokesperson said.

Noelia Llamas, who has lived in Humboldt Park for 18 years and is from Mexico, is on Lowell’s bilingual board and is a member of the school’s parent advisory council. She was one of the mothers who pushed the school to offer the program, she said.

As the Spanish-speaking parent group grew, they kept asking school officials what could be done to have more opportunities to learn English that fit their schedules, she said.

School liaison Maya Bral reached out to Literacy Chicago — a volunteer group that offers free English classes, digital literacy and workforce skills to adults — to see if it could send a teacher to the school.

The school began a partnership with the nonprofit in November, making Lowell one of the first CPS schools to offer the free class after the pandemic, Bral said.

“We need parents to learn and get practice writing and speaking in English so we can get more confidence, help our kids with homework and get more involved with the community,” Llamas said.

The attendance and level of engagement from parents has greatly benefited the school community, Bral said.

“Teachers are reliant on the teachers as much as the teachers are reliant on the parents, so I think (the class) has helped foster that sense of community even more and a sense of agency for the parents,” Bral said.

Wendy Hernandez and Carmelina Martinez work on their classwork.

Many who attend the class told Block Club it has helped them boost their confidence, let go of fears in pronouncing words incorrectly, and create lasting friendships and a greater sense of community.

Progressing from basic skills such as directions and letter pronunciation to more complex skills like reading and writing in English has given parents a valuable opportunity — and it’s free and accessible, parents said.

Carmen Tello, who is from Ecuador and has lived in the neighborhood for eight years, said the class has helped her come out of her shell and strengthen communication with her son.

“I need to communicate with my son and my community and with people from the school who help him, even doctors, so it’s very important to have this skill and train my English,” Tello said. “In all the jobs I have had, everyone speaks Spanish, so there has been no need to learn English, but now I want to. … I am still scared, but I try anyway. Now I have more confidence in speaking and pronouncing words correctly.”

From the other side of the classroom, teacher Marisol Guzman has seen the women blossom and feel more powerful in their language skills, she said.

Marisol Guzman (left) helps a student with a lesson on pronouns.

Through Literacy Chicago, Guzman has taught English literacy classes for three years around the city, and she has seen how the classes can empower attendees.

“There is something really powerful of just saying the words, even if it doesn’t sound right, just moving your tongue,” she said. “It’s a blessing to see them try, and putting themselves out there is powerful and very beneficial to them, as well.”

Guzman teaches all of her classes in English for a full immersion and only switches to Spanish as a last resort, she said.

“I like to challenge them and get them to work together, because I won’t always be here,” Guzman said. “If we have a new student, they may feel lost and need help, but others have been here a long time and can help, which is a good lesson and good to have a mix of learning.”

Llamas, who works with the school’s parent council to organize events at the school and the park, said the class has broadened her horizons. She hopes the class can help more parents looking to get more involved with the community and assimilate.

“I’ve been here 18 years, and it’s never too late to learn,” she said. “I know English, but this has helped with my pronunciation and confidence a lot. I am grateful.”

Con la llegada de estudiantes nuevos al país, los maestros de inglés en Colorado se sienten abrumados

2024-03-25T18:47:36+00:00

Read in English.

Este año escolar ha sido abrumador para los maestros como Joel Mollman.

Mollman, un maestro enfocado en desarrollar el idioma inglés en la Escuela Media Hamilton en Denver, ha tenido que hacerse cargo de más responsabilidades con la creciente cantidad de estudiantes que necesitan aprender inglés.

En años anteriores, por ejemplo, su escuela quizás recibía tres estudiantes al mes que necesitaban ser evaluados para verificar su nivel de inglés. Este año, Mollman evalúa a por lo menos tres estudiantes nuevos cada semana—un proceso que tarda de una a dos horas por estudiante.

“Rápidamente puede llenar dos de mis mañanas en lugar de que esté en salones de clases”, Mollman dijo.

Alrededor del estado, los maestros en programas para desarrollar el idioma inglés describen situaciones similares.

Ya que muchas escuelas han recibo una gran cantidad de estudiantes con habilidades limitadas para comunicarse en inglés este año, el papel de estos maestros ha estado cambiando.

Tradicionalmente, estos maestros tienen la responsabilidad de evaluar a estudiantes nuevos, enseñar inglés como segundo idioma, dar exámenes de dominio del inglés, y asesorar a otros maestros en los salones de clases.

Ahora también deben apoyar a muchos estudiantes que son nuevos en el país en salones mucho más numerosos de lo normal.

A finales de febrero, siete de los distritos escolares en Colorado—Denver, Aurora, Cherry Creek, Greeley, Adams 12, Jeffco y Mapleton—le dijeron a Chalkbeat que más de 5,600 estudiantes recién llegados al país se habían inscrito en sus distritos, justo después del conteo de octubre.

Algunas escuelas, en particular aquellas donde tradicionalmente no han tenido muchos estudiantes de inglés, han dependido de los maestros en sus programas de desarrollo del idioma inglés para que sean el apoyo principal de los niños recién llegados al país. Algunos de los maestros dicen que están ayudando a los estudiantes y sus familias a guiarse en un país nuevo, y hasta han aceptado a un niño cuya familia estaba viviendo en un automóvil durante un episodio de varicela.

Con frecuencia, dicen, han tenido que descuidar ciertas partes de su trabajo, y promotores estatales dicen que en distritos pequeños, hasta evaluar a estudiantes para identificar sus necesidades con el idioma inglés—un paso crucial—se omite.

Cynthia Trinidad-Sheahan, presidenta de la Asociación para la Educación Bilingüe en Colorado, dijo que los distritos no tienen la fuerza laboral, y con frecuencia no saben qué hacer.

“Algunos distritos no cuentan con la experiencia necesaria”, Trinidad-Sheahan dijo. “¿Cómo hacemos llegar la capacitación a maestros que están en estos distritos rurales? Y no es solo para los asistentes de educadores y maestros. Los administradores que lideran en estos edificios no tienen un entendimiento claro de la adquisición del idioma”.

Los maestros empiezan evaluando aptitudes del idioma inglés

Cuando se sospecha que un estudiante inscrito en la escuela no habla inglés con fluidez, el distrito debe evaluarlo para identificar su nivel de fluidez y necesidades para recibir servicios. Esta evaluación debe suceder en las dos primeras semanas después de que se inscribe.

Durante un año típico, ese proceso toma el tiempo de los maestros dedicados al desarrollo del idioma inglés al principio del año escolar. Este año, con algunas escuelas recibiendo estudiantes nuevos cada semana, ese proceso ha tomado mucho más tiempo.

En la escuela Hamilton, donde Mollman también es líder del equipo multilingüe, él se ha ocupado de evaluar a todos los estudiantes este semestre. Las cifras oficiales del estado muestran que el 40 por ciento de los 700 estudiantes en Hamilton han sido identificados como estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés.

Además de realizar las evaluaciones, Mollman tiene que apartar un par de horas por semana para preparar la documentación para el distrito. Esto requiere ingresar las calificaciones y otra información en la computadora, y tres integrantes del personal deben dar su aprobación.

El semestre pasado, otro maestro de desarrollo del idioma inglés en su equipo estaba compartiendo las responsabilidades, pero con tantos estudiantes nuevos, ese maestro tuvo que encargarse de otro salón de clases, y ya no tiene uno de sus períodos libres. Mollman se encarga de realizar todas las evaluaciones.

Cada lunes, empieza su semana preparando las pruebas, verificando los horarios que se dan a los estudiantes nuevos para asegurar que estén en sus clases correctas, consiguiendo Chromebooks si todavía no los han recibido y, a veces, haciendo llamadas mientras trata de averiguar qué tanto dominan su lengua materna los estudiantes nuevos.

Kayli Brooks, una maestra en la Escuela Primaria Tollgate en Aurora, dijo que evaluar a los estudiantes nuevos no consumía su trabajo solo porque su escuela logró obtener ayuda de los líderes del distrito, quienes asumieron las responsabilidades de ese trabajo.

Sin embargo, recuerda la cantidad de estudiantes que llegaron justo antes del período de pruebas anuales para las pruebas ACCESS—las pruebas que los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés toman cada año para evaluar su progreso en el idioma. Esos estudiantes tuvieron que tomar esas pruebas con días o semanas de diferencia.

“Cada oficina o salón estaba lleno con [estudiantes] tomando pruebas”, Brooks dijo. Mencionó que fue doloroso sacar a estudiantes de sus salones y que se dieran cuenta de que tendrían que tomar otro examen en inglés en el cual no les iría bien.

Es difícil encontrar tiempo para ayudar más

Tanto Brooks como Mollman dijeron que en sus escuelas darles a los estudiantes un período de enseñanza en inglés—un práctica que la ley requiere—no ha dejado de suceder.

Pero dar ayuda a estudiantes y al personal sí se ha pausado.

Brooks, por ejemplo, dijo que solía sacar a grupos de estudiantes, como aquellos recién llegados al país, para darles enseñanza adicional en inglés, donde practicaban hablar el idioma. Solía usar esas sesiones para enseñar frases y vocabulario que quizás los estudiantes escuchaban en otras materias, como ciencias o estudios sociales, para que sintieran que podían participar más.

“Todo eso paró”, Brooks dijo. “Se detuvo abruptamente”.

En semanas recientes, conforme la cantidad de estudiantes nuevos ha ido aminorando, Brooks empezó a reunir nuevamente a algunos grupos pequeños de estudiantes.

“Están tan contentos”, Brooks dijo. “Quieren aprender. Les enseñé la semana pasada sobre [cómo abogar por sí mismos] de forma básica: Necesito agua. Necesito ir al baño. Necesito comida”.

Sin embargo, no está haciendo tanto como le gustaría. Y no ha podido ayudar a otros maestros en su escuela. En Tollgate, dijo, alrededor del 60 al 75 por ciento de los estudiantes se consideran estudiantes de nivel 1 que están aprendiendo inglés. Esto significa que no dominan el inglés para nada.

“Tenemos un poco más de la mitad de cada salón de clases lleno con estudiantes que no hablan inglés, así que la mitad de sus estudiantes están entendiendo lo que [los maestros] dicen”, Brook dijo. “Nuestro equipo quiere—y debería—apoyar a los maestros y ofrecer desarrollo profesional sobre esto. Solo ha sido una época tan abrumadora que no es algo que esté sucediendo”.

Trinidad-Sheahan dijo que los distritos necesitan permitir que los maestros dedicados a desarrollar el idioma inglés asesoren a otros maestros, para que así las responsabilidades de enseñarles a los estudiantes se compartan.

En las escuelas con un gran número de estudiantes bilingües emergentes, dijo, los asesores de enseñanza deben ser aquellos maestros con experiencia ensenándoles a estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés.

Mollman dijo que en su escuela de Denver, su equipo está tratando de ayudar a los maestros que enseñan otras materias, pero “seguimos tratando de decidir cuál es la mejor forma de hacer esto”.

En otros años en su escuela, los maestros quizás formaban parejas con estudiantes nuevos y otros estudiantes que también hablaran el mismo idioma. Pero con tantos estudiantes nuevos, incluidos algunos que hablan español y otros que hablan árabe, a veces no es posible.

También está tratando de que los maestros modifiquen cómo califican a los estudiantes que todavía no hablan inglés. Pero sigue siendo un desafío.

“Algunos maestros son muy buenos para adaptarse”, Mollman dijo. “Algunos han tenido bastantes desafíos con eso, y todavía no hemos encontrado la solución perfecta”.

Los maestros tampoco se sienten preparados

Hasta los maestros que tienen experiencia trabajando con estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés como un idioma nuevo dicen que este año a veces no se sintieron preparados.

Dakota Prosch es una maestra que enseña inglés en Academia Ana Marie Sandoval en Denver, donde enseña a estudiantes de cuarto, quinto y sexto grado en una escuela Montessori de lenguaje dual. Durante un año típico, sus estudiantes ya casi son bilingües totalmente. Debido al modelo de aprendizaje de la escuela, y por ser una escuela especializada, la mayoría de los estudiantes de cuarto grado han estado en la escuela desde kindergarten.

Pero este año, por la gran cantidad de estudiantes migrantes en Denver, la escuela ha tenido que aceptar estudiantes nuevos. Eso significa que Prosch ahora trabaja con estudiantes que acaban de llegar al país y no hablan nada de inglés.

“No tenemos ningún material para estudiantes que no hablan inglés”, dijo.

En febrero, el distrito proporcionó algunos materiales que se usan en centros para estudiantes recién llegados, pero Prosch quisiera haber recibido antes esos recursos. Por lo menos 30 minutos al día, separa a los estudiantes nuevos para trabajar con ellos en habilidades para desarrollar el inglés.

“Esencialmente hay dos salones de clases en uno”, Prosch dijo. “No puedo ofrecer la misma enseñanza”.

La mayoría de sus estudiantes usualmente están analizando texto. Prosch intenta que sus estudiantes nuevos hagan lo mismo, pero muchos solo están tratando de aprender lo que es una oración y “cómo poner su lengua entre sus dientes” para aprender los sonidos que hacen las diferentes combinaciones de letras.

Sin embargo, Prosch dijo, “son niños realmente maravillosos y estoy muy contenta de tenerlos”. Es un sentimiento que también comparten otros maestros.

Legisladores están hablando sobre un plan que les daría fondos adicionales a algunos distritos escolares para estudiantes nuevos en el país que se hayan inscrito después del conteo de octubre cuando los fondos escolares se determinan.

Mollman está de acuerdo con que más recursos ayudarían.

En este momento, dijo, las escuelas como la suya están tomando decisiones difíciles, como elegir entre traer a un segundo maestro al programa de desarrollo del idioma inglés (ELD, por sus siglas en inglés) o a otro maestro de ciencias. En su escuela, este año, agregaron a un nuevo maestro de ELD para ayudar en un salón que tenía más de 40 estudiantes.

“Fue una decisión bastante fácil este año, pero eso impactó a uno de nuestros equipos más seriamente que a otros”, Mollman dijo.

Pero hasta sin fondos, los maestros dicen que sus roles deben adaptarse para cubrir las necesidades de los estudiantes.

“El objetivo es asegurar que todos nuestros estudiantes logren el éxito sin importar si están aprendiendo el idioma o no”, Mollman dijo.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Colorado will allow some of this year’s new migrant students to skip state tests

2024-03-22T22:39:54+00:00

Some students who are new to the U.S. and enrolled in Colorado schools after the official October count will not have to take any standardized tests this spring.

That’s according to new guidance issued recently by the Colorado Department of Education.

The department changed the guidance as school districts are seeing unprecedented numbers of new students who are new to the country. Teachers have described various challenges they’ve faced trying to educate migrant students, and the students are unlikely to do well on standardized state tests given in English. As of February, the Denver, Aurora, Cherry Creek, Greeley, Adams 12, Jeffco, and Mapleton districts told Chalkbeat they had enrolled more than 5,600 newcomer students after October count.

Denver Public School leaders told their school board this week that in their case, the majority of students new to the country will fall into that category to be exempt from testing.

Colorado students who are identified as new to the country and have no or limited proficiency in English already are exempt from taking standardized English reading and writing tests for at least their first year of school. Before the new guidance, they were expected to take standardized math and science tests with accommodations.

This spring, if students are new to the country, have no or little English fluency, enrolled after October count, and had limited or interrupted schooling before arriving, they can also skip the math and science tests.

Limited or interrupted schooling includes not attending school for six consecutive school calendar months prior to Colorado enrollment or having two or more years of missed schooling compared to similarly aged students in the U.S. Students who had limited school options in their home country because of war, civil unrest, or needing to travel a long distance to an available school could also qualify for that designation.

Students who have not had interrupted schooling will still be expected to take math and science tests with accommodations. Their participation will count toward overall participation rates, but their scores will not be factored into school ratings for state or federal accountability systems.

Colorado tests students in third through 11th grades. CMAS English and math tests are given to students in third through eighth grade. Science tests are only given to students in fifth, eighth, and 11th grades. In high school, students take the PSAT in ninth and tenth grades, and the SAT in 11th grade.

Families can always opt students out of tests.

In Colorado, this year’s spring testing window begins April 8, after most districts come back from spring break.

Reporter Ann Schimke contributed to this report.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Amid influx of students new to the country, English development teachers in Colorado feel overwhelmed

2024-03-20T23:44:05+00:00

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Leer en español.

This school year has been overwhelming for teachers like Joel Mollman.

As an English language development teacher at Hamilton Middle School in Denver, Mollman has had to take on more work to keep up with the growing number of students who need help learning English.

In previous years, for example, his school might have only received three students a month who needed to be screened for English fluency. This year, he screens at least three new students each week — a process that takes one to two hours per student.

“It could quickly take up two of my mornings where I could be in classrooms,” Mollman said.

Across the state, English language development teachers describe similar scenarios.

As many schools have experienced an influx of new students with limited English skills all year, their roles have been changing.

Traditionally, these teachers are tasked with screening new students, teaching English as a second language, administering English fluency tests, and coaching other classroom teachers.

Now they must also support many students who are new to the country in much larger classes than typical.

As of the end of February, seven of Colorado’s districts — Denver, Aurora, Cherry Creek, Greeley, Adams 12, Jeffco, and Mapleton — told Chalkbeat they had enrolled more than 5,600 students new to the country after October count.

Some schools, in particular ones where there haven’t traditionally been large numbers of English learners, have relied on their English language development teachers to be the main support for children new to the country. Some of the teachers describe helping students and their families navigate a new country, and even taking in a child whose family was living in a car, during a bout of chickenpox.

Often, they say, certain parts of their job have fallen to the wayside, and state advocates say that in small districts, even screening students to identify their English needs, a crucial step, gets skipped.

Cynthia Trinidad-Sheahan, president of the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education, said districts don’t have the manpower, and often don’t know what to do.

“The expertise is lacking with some of the districts,” Trinidad-Sheahan said. “How do we get training to the teachers that are in these rural districts? And it’s not just on the paraeducators and teachers. The administrators leading these buildings do not have a clear understanding of language acquisition.”

Teachers start by testing for English fluency

When a student who is suspected of not being fluent in English is enrolled in school, the district is required to screen them to identify their language level and needs for services. That screening is supposed to happen within two weeks of enrollment.

In a typical year, that occupies time in the beginning of the school year for English language development teachers. This year, with some schools receiving new students every week, that process has taken up a lot more time.

At Hamilton Middle, where Mollman is also team lead for the school’s multilingual team, he’s taken on the role of screening all students this semester. Official state numbers show 40% of Hamilton’s 700 students have been identified as English learners.

In addition to administering the tests, Mollman has to block off a few hours per week to do the paperwork for the district. That requires entering scores and other information into the computer, and three school staff members to sign off.

Last semester, another English language development teacher on his team was sharing the load, but with so many new students, that teacher had to take on another class, giving up one of her free periods. Mollman now does all the screening.

Each Monday, he starts his week preparing for testing, double-checking the schedules given to new students to make sure they’re in the right classes, tracking down Chromebooks if they haven’t received them, and sometimes making calls as he tries to figure out what proficiency the new students have in their native language.

Kayli Brooks, a teacher at Tollgate Elementary in Aurora, said screening new students didn’t consume her job only because her school was able to get help from Aurora district leaders who stepped in to do that work.

But she recalls how many of the students arrived just before the annual testing window for ACCESS tests, the tests English learners take each year to measure their progress in English fluency. Those students had to take both tests within days or weeks.

“Every office or room was filled with testing,” Brooks said. She said it was heartbreaking to pull students and have them realize they had to take yet another English test they wouldn’t be able to do well on.

It’s hard to find time to help more students

Both Brooks and Mollman said that in their schools, giving students a block of English language instruction — a legally required practice — has not stopped.

But other help for students and staff has.

Brooks, for instance, said she used to pull groups of students such as those new to the country out of class for extra English instruction where she would let them practice speaking. She used to cater those sessions to phrases and vocabulary the students might encounter in other content classrooms such as science or social studies so they might feel more able to participate.

“All of that stopped,” Brooks said. “It came to an absolute screeching halt.”

In recent weeks, as the number of new students has slowed, she started back on a rhythm of reconvening some small groups of students.

“They are so happy,” Brooks said. “They want to learn. I taught them last week some basic advocacy: I need water. I need the bathroom. I need food.”

Still, she isn’t doing as much as she would like. And she hasn’t been able to help other classroom teachers in her school. At Tollgate, she said, about 60% to 75% of students are considered level 1 English learners, which means they don’t have any English fluency.

“We have a little over half of every classroom filled with students who don’t speak English, so half of their students are understanding what they say,” Brooks said. “Our team wants to — and should be — supporting teachers and having professional development around this. It’s just been such an overwhelming time that it’s not something that’s happening.”

Trinidad-Sheahan said districts need to allow English language development teachers to coach other teachers so the responsibilities for teaching students gets shared.

At the schools seeing an influx of emerging bilingual students, she said, instructional coaches should be teachers with experience in teaching English learners.

Mollman said at his Denver school, his team is trying to help other content teachers, but “we’re still trying to figure out the best way to do this.”

In other years, at his school teachers may have paired new students with other students who also speak the same language. But with so many new students, including some who speak Spanish and others who speak Arabic, it’s not always possible.

He’s also trying to get teachers to adapt how they grade students who don’t yet speak English. But it’s all a challenge.

“Some teachers are very good at adapting,” Mollman said. “Some have really struggled with it and we haven’t quite found the solution.”

Teachers feel unprepared for student needs

Even teachers who have experience working with students learning English as a new language say they’ve felt unprepared at times this year.

Dakota Prosch, is an English language teacher at Academia Ana Marie Sandoval in Denver, where she teaches fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students at the dual language Montessori school. In a typical year, her students are already close to fully bilingual. Because of the school model, and being a magnet school, most students by fourth grade have been in the school since kindergarten.

But this year, because of the large numbers of migrant students in Denver, the school has had to accept new students. It means Prosch is now working with students who have just arrived in the country and speak no English.

“We don’t have any materials for students who don’t speak English,” she said.

In February, the district provided some materials used at newcomer centers, but Prosch wishes she had gotten those resources sooner. For at least 30 minutes a day, she pulls aside the new students to work with them on some English development.

“There’s essentially two classes in one,” Prosch said. “I cannot deliver the same instruction.”

Most of her students are usually analyzing text. She tries to have her new students do that too, but many are just trying to learn what a sentence is and “how to put their tongue between their teeth” to learn the sounds different letter combinations make.

Still, Prosch said, “they’re really awesome kids and I’m really glad to have them.” It’s a sentiment echoed by other teachers.

Lawmakers are discussing a plan that would give some school districts additional funding for the students new to the country who have enrolled after October count when school funding is set.

Mollman agrees that more resources would help.

Right now, he said, schools like his are making tough decisions, such as choosing between bringing in a second English language development teacher or another science teacher. At his school, this year, they added a new ELD teacher to relieve a class that had more than 40 students.

“It was a pretty easy decision this year, but that then impacted one of our teams more severely than others,” Mollman said.

But, even without funding, teachers say their roles have to adapt to meet the needs of students.

“The goal is to ensure all of our students are successful regardless if they’re language learners or not,” Mollman said.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

New report lays out roadmap for improving how Hispanic students in Denver are educated

2024-03-19T19:43:31+00:00

Leer en español.

Unequal resources across schools, a lack of Latino teachers and leaders, and a “perpetual undervaluing” of Latino culture are among the barriers facing Hispanic students, families, and staff in Denver Public Schools, a new report found.

Called the La Raza Report and released publicly Tuesday, the report was commissioned by the district to identify barriers and opportunities in the community, and to understand their impact.

The Denver school district, the largest in the state, has more than 45,000 students who identify as Hispanic or Latino — 51.8% of all students. The population had been increasing but started declining at the start of the pandemic. The report also highlights that gentrification has shifted the population within the city and contributed to resegregation.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero said at a press conference Tuesday that nothing in the report was surprising. Data on student outcomes over the years has been heavily reported. He said the report gives the district a roadmap to help students feel like their voices are heard.

“It was painful to hear or read, I should say, the lived experience of some of our Latino students who, even amongst their Latino groups, really expressed a lack of sense of belonging,” Marrero said. “That was painful, that was painful, because it’s something that is a reality.”

The Denver-area company that wrote the report, the Multicultural Leadership Center, LLC, spent months conducting focus groups, research, surveys, and other analysis.

Research on the district spanned a 15-year period, from 2008 to 2022. The research group put together 51 focus groups with over 600 participants to capture student, family, and teacher perspectives. It also conducted a survey with over 3,000 participants.

The work does not include perspective on the recent influx of migrant students into the school system because the research predated it.

In one of the more pointed sections, the report authors identified “the brown ceiling” as a barrier the district should better understand.

“Included in the brown ceiling is the finding that employees feel that the district, rather than capitalizing on its human capital to ensure equity and excellence for Latino students, frequently requires that Latinos ‘act white,’ ignore their Latino cultures and suppress the cultural assets they bring to the district,” the report states.

The report also identified cultural resilience and the persistence of various community groups as a strength that has led to positive changes in the district. Some of those changes, like curriculum and programs for culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and more opportunities for students to become bilingual, will help new Spanish speaking migrant students arriving recently, the report said. Previous generations had to fight for such opportunities, it notes.

The report concludes with 35 recommendations for the school district and the city. The recommendations range from systemic, including asking the city to help plan for a continued influx of immigrant families and students, to specifics that call for reviewing transportation options for West and Lincoln high schools.

The recommendations also note the district must find a better way to ensure that resources to schools in the district are being equitably distributed.

“We really hope that this is a chance for DPS and the City and County of Denver to be able to say we now know where we’re going,” said Steve DelCastillo, the Multicultural Leadership Center’s principal investigator. “We’re at a crossroads, we’re going to make the right decisions, and years from now people are going to look back and say that was a differentiating point for DPS and most importantly, for the Latino community.”

Marrero said he expects to take up the recommendations that relate to the district.

First steps will be to hire someone within the next week or two to lead the district’s newly launched Latinx success team, he said. The position will help the district dig deeper into the recommendations.

Among the recommendations:

For the district: To coordinate with local foundations, non-profit organizations, and higher education institutions to establish student tutoring programs funded by Denver employers.
For the district: To work with the city and the Regional Transportation District, or RTD, to develop a transportation system for students and families who need it, “even in those areas where providing such a service may not be cost-effective but is socially just.”
For students: To develop a strategy for increasing recruitment and participation in the Seal of Biliteracy program, which allows students to learn and demonstrate proficiency in English and another language. The seal is awarded at graduation and is meant to show colleges and employers that the student has demonstrated proficiency in two languages. Given that many DPS students already speak more than one language, the report says this program should be promoted more.
For parents: To develop a districtwide bilingual parent leadership institute focused on understanding the DPS educational system and the roles parents can play in the children’s education, including working with teachers and administrators. The institute must also include a multicultural component, including parents of color who “can use this venue to work on the issues related to cultural conflicts within groups and among the various cultural groups.”
For teachers: To expand the pool of Spanish-speaking teachers from various subject matter areas and to increase opportunities for concurrent enrollment, which allows students to simultaneously earn high school and college credit.
For school leaders: To establish a Latino Leadership Pipeline and a Latino Leadership Mentorship Program. Another recommendation is to consider redrawing the boundaries for West High School and to periodically review all boundaries to account for gentrification and other population shifts.
For the central office: Cultural sensitivity and cultural competence training for all central office employees. “Staff have reported overt and covert racist remarks,” the report states.

Read the report below:

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the last name of Steve DelCastillo.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Los centros comunitarios de las escuelas de Denver ayudan a las familias con comida, ropa, clases de inglés y mucho más

2024-03-19T17:16:37+00:00

Read in English.

Mientras su hijo de 5 años asiste a la guardería de la Primaria Colfax, al oeste de Denver, Maelka también asiste a clases. En un trailer cerca del parque de juegos, ella y otras tres mamás aprenden inglés.

Un jueves reciente, el grupo practicó las letras y los números en inglés jugando bingo.

“B eleven,” dijo la maestra.

“¡Eleven! ¡Eleven!” Dijo Maelka. Luego tradujo el número a español — “once” — para sus compañeras.

El trailer en la Primaria Colfax es uno de los seis “centros comunitarios” de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, y las clases de inglés son de las más populares. Estos centros comunitarios, establecidos en 2022 por el Superintendente Alex Marrero, tenían el propósito de enfocarse en dos generaciones a fin de mejorar las vidas de los estudiantes, y por lo tanto ayudan tanto a los niños como a los padres con todo, desde comida y ropa hasta asesoramiento financiero y citas médicas en clínicas móviles.

Ahora que más de 3,500 estudiantes inmigrantes se han inscrito en las Escuelas Públicas de Denver desde que empezó el año escolar, los centros están prestándoles cada vez más servicios a sus familias mientras rehacen sus vidas en Denver. Este flujo de familias ha estirado bastante la capacidad de los centros, pero los líderes del distrito escolar dijeron que siguen estando comprometidos con solicitar más donaciones y subvenciones para apoyar la labor.

“Necesito aprender inglés para entender, para trabajar — y también para aprender”, dijo Maelka. “Es importante saber hablar el idioma del país en el que te encuentras”.

Maelka y su familia llegaron a Denver de Venezuela a principios de diciembre. Después de pasar un tiempo en los refugios de la ciudad, encontraron una casa de alquiler cerca de la Primaria Colfax. Chalkbeat no está revelando el apellido de Maelka para proteger su privacidad.

Las clases gratis enseñan mucho más que a hablar inglés, el cual ofrece la promesa de empleos mejor pagados. Los centros también fomentan un sentido de comunidad, dijo la administradora Jackie Bell. El día del cumpleaños de Maelka, otra mamá le hizo un pastel y lo trajo a la clase.

Los centros también sirven como lugar de ayuda. Cuando una de las mamás llegó a la clase con dolor por un diente infectado, el personal del centro rápidamente la conectó con una clínica dental gratuita. Cuando el personal vio a estudiantes caminando a la escuela sin abrigos, el centro consiguió una subvención para comprarles abrigos de invierno nuevos a los niños. Cuando la abuela de un niño autista le dijo al personal del centro que él solamente comía una marca de arroz, ellos lograron conseguirlo para tenerlo en la tiendita del centro.

“Ese es el mensaje a nuestros padres del Distrito: ‘Queremos que estén aquí’”, dijo Bell.

Karen Rodríguez compra refrigerios para su hija Carely, de 11 meses, en la minitienda del centro comunitario de la Primaria John H. Amesse.

Hay “magia” en lo que hacen los centros

Los centros comunitarios son una expansión de un programa anterior llamado Family and Community Engagement Centers, a menudo conocidos por su abreviatura como Centros FACE. El centro de la Primaria John H. Amesse, en el extremo noreste de Denver, fue uno de los dos Centros FACE originales.

Marrero visitó el centro en la John H. Amesse al principio de su superintendencia. En su pared, la gerente Carla Duarte tiene enmarcado un mapa de la ciudad en el que Marrero dibujó a mano su visión de tener un centro similar en cada región de Denver. Ahora que han pasado dos años, los seis centros ofrecen los mismos programas que los centros anteriores y más, dependiendo en parte del espacio disponible en cada uno.

Dos de los centros tienen minitiendas de comida con productos frescos y carne congelada, mientras que otros cuentan con despensas repletas de alimentos no perecederos y enlatados. Todos los centros distribuyen pañales, pero algunos están asociados con una organización local sin fines de lucro para regalar asientos protectores y carriolas. Al menos uno tiene una boutique de ropa usada similar a una tienda de segunda mano. Algunos están ahora trabajando con la red de atención médica Denver Health, que estaciona su clínica móvil en el centro y atiende a los pacientes en citas de media hora.

El personal de los centros también varía. Todos conectan a los padres con programas que les ayudan a pagar facturas, pero algunos tienen asesores financieros y clases sobre cómo establecer un presupuesto familiar. Otros centros ayudan a los padres a encontrar trabajo. El coordinador de desarrollo de mano de obra del centro del extremo noreste ayudó recientemente a un padre emigrante que había trabajado como barbero en Venezuela durante 24 años a conseguir un empleo en una barbería de Denver.

Cuando un centro no tiene un servicio en particular, el personal refiere a las familias a otro que sí lo tiene.

“Esa es la magia de los centros comunitarios”, dijo Duarte. “Todos somos muy diferentes”

El centro de John H. Amesse es uno de los más grandes y con mayor movimiento. Sus espacios están repartidos por toda la escuela en salones de clase convertidos y oficinas que estaban vacías.

Un miércoles reciente por la mañana, los estudiantes adultos en una clase de GED estaban practicando matemáticas y celebrando con cupcakes que un compañero había aprobado sus exámenes.

En un salón pequeño al lado de la biblioteca, dos mujeres acunaban a los bebés de las estudiantes de GED. Una de ellas, refugiada de Afganistán cuyos hijos asisten a las escuelas del distrito, vino por primera vez al centro comunitario buscando ayuda para pagar el alquiler de su familia. A través de un traductor que hablaba dari, su idioma materno, ella hizo una pregunta importante.

“Me miró y dijo: “¿Tienes algún trabajo para mí?”

Duarte estaba buscando cubrir un puesto en la guardería, pero no estaba segura si ella podía hacerlo por la barrera de idioma. Casi todos los empleados del centro hablan español, pero ninguno hablaba dari. Pero el distrito escolar dijo que sí, y ahora la mujer está aprendiendo inglés en las clases del centro — y también español.

“Ella es increíble”, dijo Duarte. “Es la mejor decisión que hemos tomado”.

Hay una historia similar al otro lado del pasillo, donde una antigua participante dirige una clase de “jugar y aprender” para niños pequeños y sus padres, y que ese día estaban ocupados soplando burbujas de jabón con popotes.

Muchos de los padres que van a las clases de “jugar y aprender” también asisten a clases de GED o de inglés en el centro. Ingrid Alemán tuvo que dejar de ir a las clases del centro porque su hijo Dylan (de 2 años) lloraba demasiado cuando lo separaban de ella en la guardería. Pero ella y su hijo todavía vienen a las clases de “jugar y aprender”.

“Él está aprendiendo a relacionarse con otros niños”, dijo Alemán. “Y a mí me ayuda estar con otras mamás que pueden darme consejos. Porque en la casa —”

“Eres solo tú y los niños — " dijo Duarte.

“En la casa es una locura”, dijo Alemán riendo.

La maestra Mayra Lagunas, a la derecha, ayuda a los estudiantes Hugo Esparza (centro) y Janeth Carhuamaca (izquierda) en matemáticas durante una clase de GED en el centro comunitario de la Escuela Primaria John H. Amesse.

Hay inmigrantes entre las más de 4,000 familias atendidas

Operar cada centro cuesta unos $737,000, lo que equivale a un costo anual total de unos $4.4 millones, según Esmeralda de la Oliva, directora de los centros del distrito. Cuando Marrero anunció la iniciativa en 2022, él dijo que los centros se financiarían en parte con los ahorros de los recortes que hizo en la oficina central del distrito como parte de una reorganización.

En los dos últimos años, los centros han atendido a más de 4,000 familias, según de la Oliva. Eso incluye a más de 1,000 padres inscritos en clases de educación para adultos. Además de las clases de GED y de inglés, algunos centros ofrecen clases para ayudar a los padres a aprobar los exámenes de ciudadanía y clases para enseñarles español a los padres que hablan inglés.

En las clases se han matriculado unos 350 adultos recién llegados y los centros han atendido a 600 familias inmigrantes este año, dijo de la Oliva. Las clases de GED están a capacidad, y de la Oliva dijo que está buscando más fondos para las clases de GED y de inglés, las minitiendas y las despensas de alimentos de donantes privados y organizaciones sin fines de lucro, que incluyen la recién establecida New Arrivals, Students & Family Fund de la Fundación de Escuelas Públicas de Denver.

La labor de prestarles servicios a las familias inmigrantes, muchas de las cuales tienen historias desgarradoras, puede pesar en los corazones y las mentes del personal del centro, dijo de la Oliva, y por esa razón el distrito planea ofrecer capacitación intensiva de autocuidado para el personal a partir del próximo mes. Pero el trabajo está marcando una diferencia.

De la Oliva recordó a una familia que vino a un centro este año escolar buscando pañales tres semanas después de llegar de Colombia. En un mes, la mamá se matriculó en clases de GED y de inglés. En dos meses, el papá estaba trabajando para el departamento de transporte del DPS, que se ha caracterizado por su escasez de personal.

El centro en la Primaria Swansea en el norte de Denver, está a 15 minutos a pie del Western Motor Inn, que ha servido como refugio no oficial para cientos de inmigrantes. Hace un mes, Swansea había inscrito a más de 50 estudiantes inmigrantes — y el centro estaba dándoles servicios a sus familias y a otras personas que se enteraban al correrse la voz, dijo la gerente Sandra Carrillo.

La gente entraba por la puerta del centro, a veces en grupos de seis o más miembros de la familia, dijo Carrillo. “Nos decían: ‘Acabamos de llegar hoy’”. El personal del centro se puso manos a la obra, proporcionando desde calcetines y ropa interior hasta ayuda para inscribir a los niños de 4 años en el nuevo programa preescolar gratuito de Colorado.

Entre los recién llegados al centro de Swansea había un hombre ciego de 27 años, dijo Carrillo. No tiene ningún documento de Venezuela que valide que es legalmente ciego. Esto ha resultado en obstáculos para que él consiga servicios como Access-a-Ride de RTD, que les ofrece transporte a personas con discapacidades. Pero el centro está haciendo todo lo posible por eliminar esos obstáculos.

La meta de este hombre es estudiar economía y ciencias de computadora en una universidad, nos dijo Carrillo. Él se matriculó en las clases de inglés del centro, pero todo el material era impreso en papel. Carrillo dijo que la administración aprobó rápidamente que el centro trabajara con una organización local sin fines de lucro a fin de conseguirle el software que necesita para participar en las clases.

“Cuando las familias nos hacen saber que están pasando por algo, acudimos a toda la comunidad para ver quién tiene recursos”, dijo Carrillo.

Aunque el trabajo puede ser complicado, la meta es sencilla.

Como nos señaló Carrillo, “Familias más felices, estudiantes más felices”.

Melanie Asmar es la corresponsal jefa de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Melanie por correo electrónico a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Milly Suazo-Martinez

This New York City counselor used to teach math. Now she helps migrant students destress at school

2024-03-15T14:00:08+00:00

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As a middle school math teacher, Lisset Condo Dutan’s days often revolved around fractions and equations. But when the pandemic hit, her virtual classroom became a place where students came to confide in her.

“I would only see them through a screen, and they would share with me: I lost my grandma, I just lost my dad, I just lost my mom,” she said. She tried her best to listen, but she knew they needed more. “They didn’t really have the emotional support that they needed.”

Lisset Condo Dutan works with newcomer students at an elementary school in Queens through the nonprofit Counseling in Schools.

Driven by those conversations, Condo Dutan went back to school to get her master’s in counseling — while she was teaching full-time — and became a school counselor.

Last fall, she took a position with the nonprofit Counseling in Schools, which places school counselors in dozens of schools throughout New York City. Condo Dutan now works at P.S. 149 in Queens, not far from where she grew up. She was among a dozen bilingual or bicultural counselors that the nonprofit hired to meet the needs of a growing number of migrant students who’ve enrolled in the city’s schools.

Now, she spends her days popping into classrooms to see if newcomers need any help and meeting with students in small groups or one-on-one.

“Even though they went through a lot, they’re the strongest people that I’ve ever met,” she said. “I admire that.”

Condo Dutan spoke with Chalkbeat about how art therapy, breathing exercises, and sharing details from her visits to Ecuador have helped her connect with her students.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What are some of the mental health or social-emotional needs that your newcomer students have?

A lot of them have undergone some sort of trauma. Especially when they share their journey coming here to New York, either what they saw on their way here or what they saw at the detention centers at the border. It impacts them a lot.

Thankfully, a lot of the teachers pick up on these little emotions. Maybe they walk in sad one day or they look upset, or there’s a change in behavior. They’ll ask: Can you please just check up on the student? And when you check up on them, you realize that there’s a lot of things that are still bothering them.

They’ll share: You know, I had this nightmare, I’m still thinking about this. I remember when we were crossing the river. Or, honestly speaking, they’ve seen people pass away on their way here. Unfortunately, they’ve seen bodies and stuff like that. And these are third graders, second graders, fifth graders.

That’s still there for them. So, sometimes they do have days where they’re a little off. [It’s important] to provide them with that support and that safe space.

When you’re starting to build a relationship and a rapport with a student who has been through a really tough journey, what are some of the things you do to help establish that you’re a safe person and that they’re in a safe place?

I let them speak about their culture. A lot of these students are very proud of where they come from, so I give them that opportunity and that time to teach me about themselves.

Sometimes, we’ll share memories. But usually, we do a lot of art therapy. For most of them, that’s easier. Markers, crayons, glitter, pens, paints — anything that I have in the office.

They’re drawing their favorite dishes, their favorite places, or their favorite people that they left behind, as well as their pets or any traditional celebrations. For example, for Christmas, they shared that certain countries have a whole festival for like a week. They would draw bumper cars and parties, and certain cultural outfits.

What are some of the acculturation struggles that you’re seeing?

Usually, what they share is that it’s just hard overall. In their countries, they would have more freedom. There would be much more fresh air and free space for them to run around. Coming here and being in an apartment, or being stuck in school, it’s different for them.

They’ve slowly been getting accustomed to school life. It’s been a lot of teaching them how to schedule their time, time management, as well as asking them what other resources they need in order to feel comfortable.

What strategies or coping skills have you taught students that they’ve found helpful?

We’ve done a lot of breathing exercises. Sometimes [their exposure to trauma] does get them a little uneasy. They really like [an exercise called] smell the flower, blow out the birthday cake candle.

I usually ask them: If I had a flower in my hand, how would you smell the flower? And they would inhale and breathe in. And when I ask them to blow out a birthday candle, they blow out through their mouth. It teaches them how to not take quick breaths.

I’ve also done a lot of cooked spaghetti, uncooked spaghetti. I have students basically tense up every part of their body. So they’ll become very stiff, like uncooked spaghetti. And then I allow them to become like cooked spaghetti, very noodly, so they let go of everything.

It’s allowing them to take notice of what part of their body is under stress, and teaching them how to express themselves when they feel that stress.

How does being able to speak Spanish allow you to connect with the students in ways that wouldn’t be possible if you didn’t speak their language?

Instead of having to translate what they’re feeling, they’re able to just express themselves exactly how they feel.

If I don’t understand something, I do ask them: Oh, what do you mean by this? It could be because of cultural differences. I take that time to let them teach me about what they’re trying to say, or what they’re trying to get out.

Do you ever share things about yourself with the students to help make a connection with them?

My parents are Ecuadorian, and I do bring that to the table. When I go to Ecuador, I visit my grandpa, I go to the countryside, I go to the city, and I’m able to share that with them. Even if the child is not from Ecuador, they’re more open to opening up to me because they realize: She’s been outside of New York, she understands what’s going on in other countries.

Lisset Condo Dutan often shares stories about visiting her family in Ecuador as a way to connect with the students she works with.

They ask me: Have you tasted salchipapas? Have you tasted a traditional dish called tripa mishqui? I’m open to sharing that information with them, and they’re usually very happy [to talk about it].

Where my grandpa lives, it’s like a farmland. A lot of them came from farmland. So, me being able to say: You know, when I go to Ecuador, I spend a week with my grandpa, and I help him feed the cows and feed the horses. That usually sparks something in them. They look at me like: You did that? I used to do that! Little things like that have really helped me connect with them.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Denver’s Lincoln High School gets more time to improve, as State Board praises efforts

2024-03-14T01:07:09+00:00

When Colorado officials ordered Denver’s Lincoln High School to work on a turnaround plan to improve the achievement of its students, no one knew schools would be interrupted by the pandemic just a month later.

But the school pushed forward with its improvement plan, despite the switch to remote learning and a more recent influx of new students. And although the school’s test scores and state rating remained low this year, State Board of Education members praised Lincoln’s progress Wednesday and agreed to give its leaders more time to boost its rating.

So far, school leaders have completed a leadership program with the University of Virginia, created a new ninth grade academy, and rolled out new career-focused pathways for students. A program called PTECH allows students to stay in high school for a fifth or sixth year to earn an associate’s degree in business. Lincoln’s first participants are graduating this spring.

Those changes were made possible partly by Lincoln’s status as an “innovation school,” a model allowed for state-ordered improvement plans that gives the school autonomy from some district and state rules and provisions of the teachers union contract.

Lincoln was one of just two Denver schools with state-ordered improvement plans. The other, Manual High School, received an improved rating this year. If it sustains that rating for one more year, it can be freed from its state orders.

Lincoln, on the other hand, has not improved and had to have its plan reviewed this year. The state board unanimously approved a district plan on Wednesday that will keep Lincoln as an innovation school while the state monitors its progress.

If the school doesn’t manage to earn a higher state rating by 2026, then it will have to return to the state for another hearing.

When a school receives several years of low ratings, the state is obligated to order an improvement plan, which can include requiring external management, turning the school into a charter or even closing it. Recently, State Board members have stayed away from those drastic options. One alternative has been to grant innovation status.

With Lincoln, State Board members said they were encouraged that school and district leaders’ assessment of the school and its ability to improve mirrored the feedback from the community, the Colorado Department of Education staff, and an external state review panel.

“I’m constantly reminded of, we leave a school alone, great things happen,” said State Board member Angelika Schroeder. “What you’re offering is something really special.”

Under the district’s plan, Lincoln will continue to expand its offerings for workforce development while students are in high school.

The school will also focus more in the coming years on attendance. Currently, the average attendance rate at Lincoln is 83%, up from 81% last year.

Principal Antonio Esquibel said attendance rates are low among new immigrant students who are facing other challenges that make it difficult to attend school, such as housing instability.

School leaders also talked about the challenges they’ve faced most recently in supporting a rise in students who are new to the country. Lincoln High School houses one of Denver’s newcomer centers, which help students who are new to the country adjust to life in an American high school.

Esquibel said the school enrolled another six new students Wednesday.

He said the school has added staff, and is now doing an orientation every Monday for new students and their families. The orientation introduces them to Lincoln and the U.S. school system, and to living in southwest Denver.

As part of the improvement plan, the school will also expand its efforts to help all teachers accommodate their lessons for English learners through sheltered instruction, where teachers can adjust lessons to incorporate help for English learners throughout the day.

About half of Lincoln’s roughly 1,000 students are identified as English learners, but about 75% identify Spanish as their first language. With so many arriving students who are new to the country, those percentages are rising.

“Every teacher has to be a teacher of English learners at Lincoln,” Esquibel said.

The school also uses a model it calls TNLI that offers students Spanish instruction and then slowly moves toward more English instruction, allowing students to remain bilingual, Esquibel said.

“We know if given the right supports and resources, our students flourish,” he said.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Apps are helping teachers communicate with families that don’t speak English

2024-03-13T22:36:31+00:00

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Emma Gonzalez Gutierrez has struggled to communicate with the teachers of her five children for years.

She’s tried to stay engaged. She’s attended meetings, gravitated toward Spanish-speaking staff, and relied on translators, including her kids, over the years.

Now, thanks to an app that McElwain Elementary, her Adams 12 school, started using this year, she’s found opportunities to engage in new ways with her youngest child’s education.

Recently, the kindergarten teacher texted her on the app, ReachWell, which allows the teacher to text in English and parents to receive the messages in their own language. The teacher told Gonzalez Gutierrez that her daughter had won a student of the month-type award and invited her to come to the school to surprise her daughter when the award was presented. The small gesture that meant so much to Gonzalez Gutierrez.

“For me it was very exciting,” Gonzalez Gutierrez said. “It was so valuable that she was able to let me know.”

ReachWell and similar translation apps have become more common, and for some teachers, they’ve become crucial as educators work to communicate with the rising number of families that don’t speak English. The apps often allow the communications between parents and teachers to feel personal. Some teachers say it has helped parents open up about issues their child or family is having, which then helps teachers better engage with students.

In addition to seeing text from teachers in their native language on ReachWell, parents can respond in their native language and teachers see the replies in English.

Kayli Brooks, a teacher at Tollgate Elementary in Aurora, uses the app Talking Points, which also allows her to text parents. It also translates texts between parents and educators but does not require families to download an app.

“Families will share that they’re struggling with transportation, or here’s why maybe they’re acting out, or they might text me and say ‘hey this thing happened at home and I think my child is going to be really sad at school today,’” Brooks said. “It’s a huge deal. Families want to be involved in their child’s education no matter where they’re from, no matter what language they speak.”

Brooks said that since her Aurora school began using the app in 2020, she is much more successful at collecting permission forms, for example.

With migrant families who are new to the country and are “kind of overwhelmed,” she said, texting them through the app has also helped them better understand basic information they need to get their children started in school.

Communication that feels personal, through a text, is often more manageable for families than directing parents to online forms and resources, she said.

Sara Olson, principal of McElwain Elementary, said the ReachWell translation app is “a tool that provides equitable access.”

“It’s almost mind boggling to me that some of these folks have maneuvered schools for years not having access,” Olson said. “As a parent I can’t imagine not having access to the information, to the teachers. Every child and family member has a right to have that access.”

Olson said she did not have trouble having all families at her school download the app.

Zuben Bastani created the app ReachWell after he said he saw that some families at his child’s Denver school weren’t getting all the communications. He said he saw children excluded from field trips after arriving at school, unknowingly unprepared — wearing sneakers on the day of a snowshoeing trip, for example — because their families hadn’t understood the school communications.

“It became real apparent, real fast, which families were aware and showed up and which weren’t,” Bastani said.

The app is in use in many schools and districts in the metro area and across the country in places like Pittsburgh. In addition to schools, the company is also partnering with some emergency service agencies to provide emergency notifications — such as shelter-in-place or evacuation orders during natural disasters — that non-English speaking populations can receive in their home language.

Jean Boylan, a community liaison at McMeen Elementary in Denver, also uses ReachWell at her school, but said she also has used Google’s translation app on her phone to greet parents face to face as they pick up students from school. She said staff are all looking for as many ways as possible to communicate.

In her school, concerns about whether new immigrant families have access to the internet, have led staff to start printing materials too. McMeen is one of a couple dozen Denver schools that have enrolled a significant number of new students from Venezuela and elsewhere this year.

But anytime they can communicate with the ReachWell app, it saves time and energy, Boylan said.

The app helps because there are so many languages spoken by families. She said there’s a map in her office with at least 27 countries highlighted, reflecting where the school’s current families come from.

Bastani said ReachWell has found that because parents have to download the app and self-select from more than 130 languages what their preferred language is, many schools find that they’ve been undercounting how many languages their families speak.

On average, they discover 25% more languages after a few months, ReachWell leaders said.

Boylan is now working with Bastani to build out a resource page that ReachWell offers in the app for families. It may include ways for families to access help such as for food or housing.

For parents like Gonzalez Gutierrez, the personal communications they have with teachers are the most critical.

Gonzalez Gutierrez said earlier this year, she realized her kindergartener had become frustrated with an online program the school used for kids to learn math. It was causing the child stress and fear and Gonzalez Gutierrez said she didn’t know how to talk to the teacher about it — until she realized that she could text her.

Letting the teacher know what the problem was allowed them to work together to solve it.

“It’s worth it,” Gonzalez Gutierrez said. “It’s been such a gift for me.”

This story has been updated to reflect that users do not have to download the ReachWell app to get messages through ReachWell, though the downloading the app is an option.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Aplicaciones ayudan a que los maestros se comuniquen con familias que no hablan inglés

2024-03-13T22:35:42+00:00

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Por años, Emma Gonzalez Gutierrez ha tenido dificultades para comunicarse con los maestros de sus cinco hijos.

Ha intentado mantenerse involucrada. Ha asistido a reuniones, gravitado hacia el personal que habla español, y dependido de traductores, incluidos sus hijos, a lo largo de los años.

Ahora, gracias a una aplicación que su escuela en Adams 12, la escuela Primaria McElwain, empezó a usar este año, ha encontrado oportunidades para participar de nuevas maneras en la educación de su hija más pequeña.

Recientemente, la maestra de kindergarten le mandó un mensaje de texto usando esa aplicación, ReachWell, que permite que los maestros escriban en inglés y que los padres reciban mensajes en su propio idioma. La maestra le dijo a Gonzalez Gutierrez que su hija había ganado un premio parecido a “estudiante del mes” y la invitó a ir a la escuela para sorprender a su hija cuando le dieran el premio. Fue un pequeño gesto que significó mucho para Gonzalez Gutierrez.

“Para mí fue muy emocionante”, Gonzalez Gutierrez dijo. “Fue muy valioso para mí que pudo hacerme saber”.

ReachWell y aplicaciones similares de traducción se han convertido en algo más común y, para algunos maestros, se han convertido en una herramienta esencial para comunicarse con una creciente cantidad de familias que no hablan inglés. Las aplicaciones con frecuencia permiten que los mensajes entre padres y maestros sean personales. Algunos maestros dicen que han ayudado a que los padres se abran sobre problemas que su hijo o familia está teniendo, lo cual ayuda a que los maestros interactúen mejor con los estudiantes.

Además de ver los mensajes de texto de los maestros en su lengua materna en ReachWell, los padres pueden responder en su propio idioma y los maestros ven las respuestas en inglés.

Kayli Brooks, una maestra en la escuela Primaria Tollgate en Aurora, usa la aplicación Talking Points, la cual también le permite enviar mensajes de texto a los padres. También traduce los mensajes entre padres y educadores, pero no requiere que las familias descarguen una aplicación.

“Las familias comparten que están teniendo dificultades con el transporte, o esta es la razón por la que [el estudiante] está comportándose mal, o quizás me texteen y digan: ‘Oye, esto pasó en la casa y creo que mi hijo va a estar muy triste en la escuela hoy’”, Brooks dijo. “Es algo enorme. Las familias quieren estar involucradas en la educación de su hijo sin importar de dónde sean, sin importar qué idioma hablen”.

Brooks dijo que desde que su escuela en Aurora empezó a usar la aplicación en 2020, ha tenido mucho más éxito recolectando formularios de permisos, por ejemplo.

Con familias inmigrantes recién llegadas al país y que están “bastante abrumadas”, dijo, enviarles mensajes de texto por la aplicación también las ayuda a entender mejor la información básica que necesitan para que sus hijos empiecen la escuela.

La comunicación personal, a través de un mensaje de texto, con frecuencia es más fácil de manejar para las familias que pedirles a los padres que se dirijan a formularios o recursos en línea, Brooks dijo.

Sara Olson, directora de la escuela Primaria McElwain, dijo que la aplicación ReachWell es “una herramienta que proporciona acceso equitativo”.

“Casi no logro entender cómo estas personas se han guiado por las escuelas durante años sin tener acceso”, Olson dijo. “Como [madre], no puedo imaginarme no tener acceso a la información, a los maestros. Cada niño e integrante de la familia tiene derecho a tener acceso”.

Olson dijo que no tuvo problemas para que las familias en su escuela descargaran la aplicación.

Zuben Bastani dijo que creó la aplicación ReachWell después de que vio a familias en la escuela de Denver de su hijo que no estaban recibiendo todos los mensajes. Dijo que vio a niños excluidos de excursiones cuando llegaban a la escuela sin estar preparados, sin saberlo—como usando tenis cuando había una excursión para caminar por la nieve, por ejemplo—porque sus familias no habían entendido los mensajes de la escuela.

“Fue obvio, muy rápido, qué familias estaban informadas y se aparecían y qué familias no”, Bastani dijo.

La aplicación se está usando en muchas escuelas y distritos en el área metropolitana de Denver y alrededor del país en lugares como Pittsburgh. Además de con escuelas, la compañía también se está asociando con algunas agencias de servicios de emergencia para proporcionar alertas de emergencia—como órdenes de quedarse en casa o evacuaciones durante desastres naturales—que las poblaciones que no hablan inglés pueden recibir en su lengua materna.

Jean Boylan, una facilitadora comunitaria en la escuela Primaria McMeen en Denver, también usa ReachWell en su escuela, pero dijo que además ha usado la aplicación de traducciones de Google en su teléfono para saludar a los padres en persona cuando pasan a buscar a sus estudiantes. Dijo que el personal escolar busca tantas maneras como puede para comunicarse.

En su escuela, inquietudes sobre si las nuevas familias inmigrantes tienen acceso a internet, han resultado en que el personal empiece a imprimir materiales también. McMeen es una de un par de docenas de escuelas en Denver que han inscrito a una cantidad significativa de estudiantes nuevos de Venezuela y otros lugares este año.

Pero cada vez que pueden comunicarse con la aplicación de ReachWell, ahorran tiempo y energía, Boylan dijo. La aplicación ayuda porque las familias hablan muchos idiomas diferentes. Boylan dijo que hay un mapa en su oficina con por lo menos 27 países resaltados que reflejan de dónde vienen las familias actuales de la escuela.

Bastani dijo que ReachWell encontró que, debido a que los padres descargan la aplicación y seleccionan ellos mismos su idioma preferido de una lista de más de 130 idiomas, muchas escuelas descubren que no han estado contando todos los idiomas que sus familias hablan.

En promedio, descubren 25 por ciento más idiomas después de un par de meses, los líderes de ReachWell dijeron.

Boylan ahora está trabajando con Bastani para aumentar el contenido en una página con recursos que ReachWell ofrece en la aplicación para las familias. La página incluye información sobre el acceso a recursos como comida o vivienda para las familias.

Para padres como Gonzalez Gutierrez, la comunicación personal que tienen con los maestros es esencial.

Gonzalez Gutierrez dijo a principios de este año que notó que su estudiante de kindergarten estaba frustrada con un programa en línea que la escuela usaba para que los niños aprendieran matemáticas. Estaba causándole estrés y temor a la niña, y Gonzalez Gutierrez dijo que no sabía cómo hablar con la maestra sobre eso—hasta que se dio cuenta de que podía mandarle un mensaje de texto.

Compartir con la maestra cuál era el problema permitió que trabajaran juntas para resolverlo.

“Vale la pena”, Gonzalez Gutierrez dijo. “Es un regalo para mí”.

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado que distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Many migrant students need mental health support. Here’s why this program is a go-to for schools.

2024-03-11T09:00:00+00:00

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When thousands of Syrian families fleeing violence resettled in Canada several years ago, Ontario’s school mental health agency wanted to give schools tools to help refugee children process their traumatic journeys and adjust to their new lives.

The children didn’t necessarily need intensive support. But kids were bursting into tears and struggling to explain how they felt. Parents, too, noticed their usually social children had become more withdrawn and were struggling to make friends. That was especially common after kids had been in Canada for a few months and the honeymoon period ended.

So a team of experts in child mental health put their heads together and developed a program for newcomers that focuses on their strengths and who they can turn to for support. Known as STRONG, the program is now used across the U.S. in several cities serving lots of newcomers, including Chicago, Boston, Seattle, New York, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and Little Rock, Arkansas. Many others are asking for training, as schools struggle to meet the needs of students who’ve been through difficult journeys with limited school mental health staff, and even fewer bilingual ones.

STRONG, which stands for Supporting Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups, can’t solve everything. Some kids may still need more intensive mental health support — and finding the time and staff to run these groups can be challenging. But many experts, educators, and students themselves see the intervention as a promising tool to help newcomers forge connections and head off mental health struggles before they turn into a crisis.

“They’ve just really appreciated the opportunity to connect with other kids,” said Lisa Baron, a psychologist who trains schools to use STRONG and directs the Boston-based Center for Trauma Care in Schools. “A lot of them said that they just had not really known that other kids were feeling the same way as they were.”

Why some newcomers struggle with mental health

Newcomer students can be refugees or asylum-seekers or the children of undocumented immigrants. Some arrive with families, some arrive alone. Some have been in the U.S. for just a few days or weeks, while others have been here longer. And while their experiences vary, they’ve often faced various hardships, from hunger to abuse.

Many children did not feel in control during their travels, and now crave stability and predictability.

It can also be difficult for newcomer families to access mental health services in the U.S. — driving home the importance of offering help at school. There’s often stigma around seeking treatment, and some families fear that doing so could put them at risk for deportation.

Here’s how STRONG typically works: The school identifies a group of students who are close in age and relatively new to the U.S. who could benefit from extra support. Then the school makes sure parents are on board, which can mean having careful conversations, especially if families are unfamiliar with schools offering mental health support.

The group meets for 10 sessions, usually during the school day. Early sessions help students understand that it’s normal to feel overwhelmed or stressed sometimes. Kids learn different relaxation techniques, such as curling their toes into the floor as if they were standing in a mud puddle, or visualizing the sights and smells of a favorite place.

In later sessions, they learn coping and problem-solving skills, such as how to map out steps to achieve a goal. Kids who are shy about speaking English could identify people they’d feel safe practicing with.

“The coping skills [are] what will stay with you forever,” one Ontario student told Canadian researchers for a 2019 report. “Whenever you are in a stressful situation, you will always remember what to do.”

In STRONG, students learn various problem-solving and coping skills.

What makes STRONG unique and appealing to many schools, said Colleen Cicchetti, a pediatric psychologist who helped develop the intervention, is that it takes a strengths-based approach.

“There were strengths that were inside you that you had in your home country that are still with you, here, today — how do we build on them?” said Cicchetti, who directs the Center for Childhood Resilience at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and now trains schools on how to use STRONG. “We really want young people and their parents to say: ‘This is a part of who I am and what I’ve experienced, but it shouldn’t define who I am entirely.’”

That’s what attracted the attention of mental health and school staff in the Madison, Wisconsin area. The district tried tweaking another group that addresses student trauma to help newcomers, but realized it wasn’t quite meeting their needs.

Kids need to “talk about good memories and coping strategies, not necessarily the exposure to the traumatic event,” said Carrie Klein, a school mental health coach for Madison Metro schools, which is considering using STRONG.

For Jennifer Moorhouse, a teacher who works with English learners at Brighton Park Elementary School in Chicago, STRONG has been transformative for her and her students.

Related: Amid Chicago’s migrant influx, one school is trying to help newcomer students navigate trauma

Over the last year, Moorhouse has run four STRONG groups — known as “clubs” at her school — alongside school counselor Stephanie Carrillo. The program helped Moorhouse get to know newcomers’ families, and has made students comfortable to seek her out when they need essentials like toothpaste or body wash.

Brighton Park Elementary School threw a quinceañera for newcomer students who were sad they would miss celebrating in their home country.

The group has helped in unexpected ways, too. When kids said they weren’t eating at school because they didn’t like the food, Moorhouse figured out they did like Ritz crackers and Skinny popcorn, so she keeps those on hand. And when she found out some newcomers were crying in the bathroom, upset that they were going to miss their quinceñera back home, the group threw a big party at school, complete with balloons and empanadas.

“The students really have created this bond with Ms. Moorhouse — that’s their person,” said Cecilia Mendoza, the assistant principal. “Every student needs someone. For someone new entering the country, entering a new school, having someone is even more important.”

Brighton Park is one of 83 schools across the district that’s been trained in STRONG, with another 50 schools in line to be trained next school year.

Why talking about their journeys can help newcomers

When experts first developed STRONG, they imagined it would be delivered by social workers, school counselors and other mental health staff, since many newcomers have experienced trauma.

But given that mental health professionals are often stretched or in short supply, more schools are asking for others to be trained, too, said Sharon Hoover, a psychiatry professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine who helped create STRONG.

Now, many schools run STRONG sessions with two adults. A teacher with language or cultural skills can act as the interpreter, while the staffer with mental health training takes on tasks such as screening children for post-traumatic stress.

“We don’t want to be irresponsible with the curriculum and just throw it into the hands of anybody who has no mental health training at all,” Hoover said. “But on the other hand, we don’t want to restrict it in a way that’s going to lead to it not getting to students who might benefit.”

On a recent Tuesday morning, Hoover and Bianca Ramos, a STRONG trainer, showed what a one-on-one session that invites students to share about their journey can look like during a virtual training for two dozen school staffers.

The group, mostly social workers and school counselors from Connecticut, had gathered to learn strategies to help newcomer students from many parts of the world, including Haiti, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, and Ukraine.

Related: We are facing a migrant mental health crisis. More school social workers could help

In the video demonstration, Hoover sat beside Ramos in the corner of a blue-walled room. Ramos, a Chicago-based social worker, played the role of a 13-year-old girl who’d fled Guatemala without time to say goodbye to family and friends after her father was killed. Hoover explained that talking about something hard can be like stepping into cold water.

“The more we do it, slowly and gradually, usually the more comfortable we get,” Hoover said. “You don’t have to dive right in.”

In early sessions of STRONG, students learn various relaxation techniques and that it's OK to feel stress sometimes.

In the scenario, as the young girl neared the U.S.-Mexico border, robbers threatened to take her family’s few belongings. Hoover asked how she got through that time, using it as an opportunity to draw out the child’s strengths.

“I had this picture of my mom and I just remember looking at it, and trying to stay hopeful that I was going to be able to see her again,” Ramos said. And she had her little sister to watch out for: “I was like a mom to her.”

“That’s amazing,” Hoover replied, pointing out how brave and caring the child had been.

Later, Hoover asked if the girl was having trouble sleeping, reliving any memories, or feeling sad a lot. She wasn’t, but thoughts of her dad did pop into her head in class, making it hard to concentrate. Hoover made sure that wasn’t happening too much, and then kept the door open to talk more in the future if anything changed.

In Chicago, Moorhouse has seen that some kids feel relieved when they share about their journey. But she also cautions that it can be a lot for other students and teachers to take in. After one student shared details that made Moorhouse tear up later, she realized she couldn’t probe too deeply in her conversations with the student, and needed to let the school counselor step in.

“We’re not therapists,” she said. “That’s very important for teachers to realize.”

STRONG can help students, but there are challenges

STRONG is still being rigorously evaluated in the U.S. But research conducted by Western University in Canada, where STRONG was first piloted during the 2017-18 school year, has shown promising results.

Evaluations from across Ontario found the program helped kids build trust, increase their confidence, and develop a sense of belonging at school. Students reported that STRONG helped them feel more welcome and connect with their peers.

STRONG can also shift school culture and help the entire staff become more attuned to newcomers’ needs. When Moorhouse notices certain patterns of behavior, she shares that with other teachers, so they can keep an eye out.

That could be explaining why some kids may not want to take off sweaters or jackets — after border agents took everything they had except for what they were wearing at the time — or that playing certain sounds, like chirping birds or rushing water, could be upsetting to kids whose journey involved swimming or walking through the jungle.

There can be practical challenges. School leaders may be hesitant to pull kids out of class for STRONG when they are struggling academically. Elizabeth Paquette, who’s part of the team that trains school staff in Ontario, said it can be tricky to get enough kids together in smaller schools and rural communities without resorting to virtual groups that can make it harder for students to make friends.

And if groups use more than two languages, the interpretation needs can take away from the group’s conversational flow.

Still, Moorhouse said the group can be a place for kids to talk about those academic struggles, whether they’re lost in class or frustrated because they already know the content, but can’t yet express themselves. This year, especially, kids want to talk about school stress even more than their journeys.

“They were struggling with: ‘Do I give up?’” Moorhouse said. And her message was: “Let’s keep finding other ways to work through this. What are your thoughts?”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Public Schools plans new approach to teaching English learners

2024-03-08T12:00:00+00:00

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At Lew Wallace School 107, principal Arthur Hinton sees students come from all over the world.

The sounds of Spanish, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, and Arabic can fill the halls of the K-6 school on the west side of Indianapolis, near the “international marketplace” neighborhood. In recent years, the school has attracted more students whose families hail from Haiti, speaking French or Creole.

Roughly 70% of the 509 students are classified as English language learners, a population that has only increased since Hinton arrived in 2020.

“Don’t blink again,” he joked. It might grow even more.

Lew Wallace is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse schools in the district. But its growing share of English language learners is emblematic of a trend that’s appearing across Indianapolis Public Schools.

More than a quarter of the district’s students are now classified as English language learners — over 6,700 as of late February, an increase of over 2,000 students since 2017-18. As in many other districts, staffing up for those levels has been a challenge. At the end of February, the district had eight vacancies for English as a New Language teachers, out of 110 positions total. Bilingual assistants can be even harder to come by: The district had 24 vacancies as of that date for its 76 positions.

Amid a larger push for equity in its Rebuilding Stronger reorganization, the district now plans to reimagine how it serves English language learners. Officials say instruction for these students should be more consistent across school buildings, and allow students to learn alongside their native English-speaking peers. Students learning English, they say, should not be restricted from classes such as music or art because they are pulled away for separate English language learner instruction.

The plan includes assigning each school at least one leading English as a New Language “teacher of record,” responsible for overseeing the school’s English language learner program. It also involves more incentives for staff — including a $2,000 stipend for lead teachers and reimbursement for some English as a New Language teachers who also train to become certified to teach English language arts.

The plan is one of the district’s budget priorities for the 2024-25 school year.

“It’s going to be hard, without a doubt,” said Arturo Rodriguez, the district’s director for English as a New Language. “We’re up to the challenge.”

IPS plan encourages more co-teaching, less separation

In a sixth grade classroom at Lew Wallace, Ana Gonzalez sits with a small group of six students, alternating between Spanish and English as she teaches the concept of claims, evidence, and reasoning in language arts.

Just a few feet away, the main classroom teacher is reviewing the same topics with the other students. At Gonzalez’s table, though, the focus is on the English learners.

“You guys in class have been working on claims — finding a claim and finding evidence,” Gonzalez tells her students. “Tener, como, un reclamo y evidencia.”

The school uses a form of co-teaching, where English language learners are in the same classroom as their native-speaking peers, and learning the same things at the same time.

Ana Gonzalez, who teaches English as a new language, sits with sixth-graders in a small group to review the classroom lesson for the day. Gonzalez switches between English and Spanish while teaching amid the larger class of native English speakers.

This is the type of model that the district hopes all schools will embrace.

Right now, instruction for English language learners varies from school to school. Only some IPS elementary schools offer co-teaching, while others don’t have enough staff. Sometimes teachers are used as interventionists — staff who pull students away from class to work directly with them on their specific needs — rather than as co-teachers.

At the middle and high school levels, some English language learners do not have access to electives, because their English as a new language instruction is held during those times.

The district’s plans would mean less separation, and more exposure to the mainstream classroom as students learn English.

The philosophy: Everyone is an English as a New Language teacher.

An English as a New Language teacher “is supposed to help support language development, not necessarily spending their whole day doing intervention,” Rodriguez said. “There are some places where more than 80% of the day, that’s all they’re doing.”

At each school, a lead teacher of record will be responsible for the battery of tests that English language learner students must take to ensure that they pass the language proficiency test known as WIDA ACCESS.

That will free up the school’s other English as a New Language teachers to teach more throughout the day, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez is also hoping those lead teachers will monitor proficiency on state exams for English learners, which dropped after the pandemic, as it did for other student subgroups.

Last year, 47.9% of these students passed the third-grade IREAD exam, while 3.2% reached proficiency on both English and math sections on the ILEARN in grades 3-8, according to state data. (The figures do not include charter schools in the district’s autonomous Innovation Network.)

The district hopes to train English as a New Language teachers and main classroom teachers on the new changes.

Staffing poses a challenge

At Lew Wallace, Hinton acknowledges that he’s blessed to have five English as a New Language teachers. The school also has four bilingual assistants speaking Spanish and Arabic.

But at other schools in the district, filling those roles may be more challenging.

As of early March, the district anticipated the need to fill about one dozen English as a New Language teaching positions for the next school year.

Bilingual assistants, Rodriguez said, are particularly difficult to find amid stiff competition among districts. The district urgently needs candidates who speak Swahili, Kinyarwanda, French, and Haitian Creole, he said.

IPS hopes a few initiatives can help with the staffing needs.

The district is beginning to reach out to local universities to build a pipeline of bilingual assistants who can eventually transition into certified teaching positions, Rodriguez said.

The latest contract with the teacher’s union approved in November also offers base-pay increases for English as a New Language teachers and other in-demand positions.

And IPS also plans to offer English as a New Language teachers in middle and high school incentives to become dually certified to teach English language arts. That could reduce the number of staff needed to teach both topics.

The district would reimburse teachers for the cost of taking the Praxis certification exam for English language arts, which is over $100.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Almost half of migrant families who got 60-day eviction notices moved out of NYC shelters

2024-03-01T19:34:40+00:00

This article is part of an ongoing collaboration between Chalkbeat and THE CITY.

Beatriz, a Venezuelan mother of two young girls, got a 60-day notice to leave their Midtown migrant shelter last November.

The next day, she said, she was out hunting for apartments.

Working under the table in an Irish pub in Hell’s Kitchen, she’d been able to save some money, pooling it with her boyfriend and a cousin and his family. It was enough for the upfront costs to rent a three-bedroom apartment in Crown Heights they would all share. By the time her 60 days ran out, Beatriz and her girls had already moved out of the shelter.

“We’re totally thankful,” Beatriz, who asked that her last name be withheld fearing immigration consequences, said in Spanish. “We’ve been given so much.”

Beatriz is among the first swath of migrant families with children to see their time in city shelters run out under a newly implemented city policy for migrant families in certain shelters. Notices started coming due in early January, and of the around 7,500 parents and children who reached their 60-day limit, half have moved out, according data through late February from the mayor’s office.

A further breakdown of the data released by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander’s last month on the 60-day policy found that of about 4,750 families who’d had their time expire through early February, 29% of them, or about 1,300 families, reapplied for shelter and were transferred to new shelters. The remaining 16% stayed in the same shelter where they were originally placed.

Among those who’ve gotten the notices are families like Beatriz’ who came in the fall of 2022 and had more than a year to find work and make connections in New York City.

But many who received the notices have entered the migrant shelter system since the rule has been in place, like families living at the sprawling tent facility at Floyd Bennett Field, or those at a recently opened family shelter in an old warehouse in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill, who’ve had much less time to get their bearings in a new country.

Migrants leaving the Row Hotel stored their belongings on the sidewalk before heading to a new shelter, Jan. 4, 2024.

The mayor’s office didn’t return a request for additional comment on the new data, but members of the Eric Adams administration have repeatedly defended the shelter stay limits, crediting them for driving down costs. They also say the policy is keeping the number of migrants in city shelters — which hovers at around 64,000 people — from continuing to grow. The numbers have even slightly dipped in recent weeks, despite more than a thousand newcomers arriving each week.

For adult migrants who are subject to strict 30-day shelter limits, with days or weekslong waits to get another cot, many have resorted to sleeping on the streets or trains, in overcrowded mosques, or unsanctioned commercial spaces. This week, Gothamist reported on one couple living in a school bus.

The Adams administration has repeatedly said its main goal is not to have families with children sleeping on the streets. In all, city officials said they’ve given 9,100 families shelter eviction notices so far. While some like Beatriz have landed on their feet, critics of the 60-day policy say many more parents and children who can’t afford to move out have been put through unnecessary turmoil.

“The 60-day shelter limit for families with children is one of the cruelest policies to come from City Hall in generations, evicting families from shelter in the middle of winter, and displacing kids from their schools in the middle of the school year,” said Lander, who has promised to investigate the policy. He pointed out City Hall has relatively little information on what happens to migrants when they leave shelters.

“Where did those nearly 2,500 parents go? Were they in a dangerously overcrowded basement? Were they sleeping on the street? We have no idea.”

‘Families going dark’

Schools with migrant students forced to move because of the 60-day rule have been grappling with the logistical and emotional fallout of the disruptions.

“Just said goodbye to another four newcomers who are moving away after being with us for a year,” said one Manhattan principal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Lots of tears from the kids and adults.”

Upper West Side parent Naveed Hasan, who sits on the city’s school board, the Panel for Educational Policy, has been part of an informal group of parents, school staff, and local elected officials working to find students who disappear suddenly from classes.

“It’s really like families going dark and then leaving people really confused. Where are they, and how can we help them?” Hasan said. “And I think this is sort of the intended effect of a policy.”

Testifying at a City Council hearing Friday, Molly Schaeffer, the head of the city’s office of Asylum Seeker Operations, said that 90% of children who were evicted in the month of January remained in their same school, though she didn’t give specifics. “We really did prioritize education and the education of the youngest children when making these types of choices and moves,” she said, adding the office tried to keep families in the same borough as their youngest child’s school.

Migrants leaving the Row Hotel stored their belongings on the sidewalk before heading to a new shelter, Jan. 4, 2024.

Schools that recently got influxes of new students are already seeing them transferred to shelters in other parts of the city, leaving staffers with whiplash.

“In a month we had more than 50 students…and now I don’t know what’s going to happen with them,” said Carolina Zafra, a teacher at P.S. 46 in Clinton Hill, among several schools in the area that received a sudden surge in students, following the opening of a new shelter for families in a converted warehouse.

School staffers knew the new students were subject to the 60-day shelter stay limit, but were holding out hope that city officials wouldn’t enforce it, Zafra said.

The school wrote letters for families to bring back to the shelter showing they were enrolled in a nearby school in the hopes it might get them a reprieve. But when teachers came back from mid-winter break this week, they found that many of their students had already been moved. Zafra has one student who’s now commuting to the school from Manhattan and she heard about another living by JFK airport.

“I’m more concerned about all the emotional distress those children already experienced and now again moving them from something I thought was settled for them,” she said.

One mom who arrived from Venezuela in December and enrolled her two kids at P.S. 46 said her family was transferred from the Hall Street shelter to a shelter in Midtown Manhattan last week.

The mom, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she never considered transferring her kids to a new school, even though her commute is now close to an hour.

“They have a lot of patience with the children,” she said of the school, in Spanish. “I didn’t want to change their school because they feel good there.”

Homeless students in New York City are entitled to transportation under federal law so that they can remain in the same school if they move. Kids and parents in temporary housing are eligible for free MetroCards, and younger students can also get assigned to school bus routes, though that process can take some time.

But the mom said their MetroCards are still pending, and since the family has no income to pay the fares, they often have to sneak through open emergency gates. Her husband has already received a fine for doing so.

Still, the Venezuelan mom considers herself lucky compared to other families from the school who were placed in shelters even further away, she said.

‘I felt such relief’

Among those 16% of families who’ve been able to remain in their shelters, according to the data from the comptroller, many are living at the remote tent shelter located at Floyd Bennett Field. Some describe their extended stay there as both a blessing and a curse.

Geraldine, a 38-year-old mother of three from Venezuela, who moved into Floyd Bennett Field last December, said getting used to the tents was a challenge: the long walks in the cold across a vast marshland to the nearest bus stop, the bathrooms and showers in trailers outside of the living quarters, the lack of privacy and constant cries of collicky children. The disruptions during severe weather have also been hard, like the January evening when the city evacuated thousands of residents to a nearby school due to high winds.

Venezuelan migrants Geraldine, Jhon and their daughter Yorliannys, leave the Floyd Bennett Field family shelter for the day, Jan. 25, 2024.

Still, as her eviction date approached she prayed the family would get to stay put, dreading the disruption of packing up and starting again somewhere new. The family collected their belongings the night before their mid-February move-out day, still unsure what would happen. But when her husband checked in with staff the next morning, he was told they could get another 60 days in the same cubicle.

“I felt such relief,” Geraldine said, who asked that her full name not be used to protect her family’s identity. “We didn’t have to go all the way to [Midtown] with the kids,” she said, referring to the process of reapplying for shelter at the Roosevelt Hotel. Instead their kids continued at their schools without interruption.

“The idea is to finish our time here, save up money and move out,” she said.

‘I feel good, and I’m afraid, at the same time’

Beatriz’ hunt for their new home was difficult, as it is for many New Yorkers. She fronted $500 to someone promising an apartment and spent a day standing in the rain outside what she thought was her new apartment in Astoria before realizing it was a scam.

When a rental finally came through, she and her daughters moved out little by little, shuttling their belongings on the subway over the course of several days. After the winter break, Beatriz pulled her kids out of school and transferred them to ones closer to their new Crown Heights home, unable to make the bi-borough commute. Her 7-year-old daughter seems to be adjusting, while her 11-year-old is having a more difficult time.

“She misses all her friends from class,” Beatriz said.

Beatriz relishes being able to cook for herself and the family again, something she couldn’t do for more than a year living in a hotel room. She’s enjoying the privacy and peace of having their own place. But she also feels the anxiety of so many New Yorkers living paycheck to paycheck, that a little disruption could lead to an inability to make rent and send her back to shelter.

“I feel good, and I’m afraid, at the same time,” Beatriz said. “And the fear, because if one of us loses our job, god willing, how would we pay rent?”

Gwynne Hogan covers Brooklyn for THE CITY.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago tendrá un consejo escolar que será elegido. ¿Qué preguntas tienes?

2024-02-29T11:00:00+00:00

En menos de un año, las Escuelas Públicas de Chicago tomarán juramento a sus primeros miembros electos del consejo escolar.

Pero incluso con una fecha firme de juramento del 15 de enero de 2025, muchas preguntas sin respuesta aún permanecen sobre la elección del 5 de noviembre que daría paso a los nuevos miembros del consejo- y cómo el consejo funcionará una vez en su lugar. La ley estatal establece que 10 miembros serán elegidos este año, pero los legisladores están debatiendo si elegir a los 21 ahora. (El alcalde Brandon Johnson pidió recientemente a la legislatura que se asegure de que sólo la mitad sean elegidos este año, informó el Sun-Times).

La legislatura estatal también debe finalizar los límites de los distritos para los miembros del consejo escolar. Los legisladores parecen haber acordado un tercer borrador del mapa el pasado noviembre.

Una vez que los miembros presten juramento el próximo enero, ¿qué sigue? ¿Cómo funcionará el consejo en comparación con el consejo que sustituirá?

Chalkbeat Chicago quiere escuchar tus preguntas sobre las próximas elecciones para el consejo escolar y sobre los miembros elegidos del consejo escolar. Vamos a tratar de responder a tus preguntas a través de nuestros reportajes mientras seguimos las campañas y las elecciones de este año.

Responde a la encuesta aquí o rellénala abajo. No utilizaremos tu nombre en nuestros reportajes sin tu permiso.

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Reema Amin es una reportera que cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Chicago para Chalkbeat Chicago. Ponte en contacto con Reema en ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Institute for Nonprofit News.

How the reading retention bill moving through Indiana Statehouse impacts English learners

2024-02-23T17:30:22+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.

Update: The Indiana legislative session ended on March 8, 2024. Here are the education bills that did and didn’t pass.

A bill that would hold back more third graders in Indiana has raised alarms among teachers of English language learners, who say the retention mandate ignores research on language acquisition, and could violate federal law.

Senate Bill 1 — a priority bill for GOP lawmakers this year — requires schools to remediate young students who don’t demonstrate reading skills and retain most third graders who don’t pass the state reading test, the IREAD3. It’s part of a legislative effort to address the state’s literacy scores, which have declined for more than a decade.

The bill has passed the Senate and is heading for a full vote in the House with support from the Indiana Department of Education.

The bill includes “good cause” exemptions to retention for several groups of students, including English learners who have received services for less than two years and whose teachers and parents agree that promotion is appropriate.

But advocates for English learners say that the exemption for this population doesn’t align with what research says about how long it takes for students to learn a new language.

With a growing population of 93,000 English learners in Indiana, and a history of shortages of educators licensed to teach language learners, advocates worry that English learners will be denied an appropriate education if they’re retained. The state also has an increasing number of immigrant students, some of whom will need language services.

Advocates also say the provision conflicts with the state’s implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which gives students six years to demonstrate proficiency in English before their schools face a penalty. Federal law also states that English learners should not be retained solely on the basis of their English language proficiency and that they are entitled to age-appropriate curriculum and participation in school programs.

State officials who support the bill, however, say it does not conflict with federal law or state rules.

Sen. Linda Rogers, the bill’s co-author, said in a statement that the language conforms with federal guidance, and that the bill’s authors “worked to ensure that was the case as the legislation was being written.”

And the Indiana Department of Education said in a statement that federal guidance requires school districts to help students become English proficient and participate in regular classes “within a reasonable period of time.”

Per the bill, that reasonable amount of time is two years to make sure EL students aren’t retained only because of “their lack of English proficiency and before they have been provided with meaningful opportunity and academic instruction,” the IDOE statement said.

But learning a new language can take anywhere from five to 14 years, said Patricia Morita-Mullaney, a professor of language and literacy at Purdue University and past president of the Indiana Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, or INTESOL.

English learners who are retained under the provisions of Senate Bill 1 could sue the state for failing to meet federal requirements, Morita-Mullaney said.

“Indiana is setting itself up for an enormous class action lawsuit,” Morita-Mullaney said.

Meeting the needs of English learners

Historically, most of Indiana’s young English learners were U.S. citizens who had attended American schools since kindergarten, Morita-Mullaney said. A large percentage then could become eligible for retention in third grade, when they are in their fourth year of receiving English language services — an insufficient amount of time, she said.

The effect would be a penalty for the child, instead of the school as currently outlined by ESSA, she said.

Current Indiana law exempts English learners from retention.

In addition to concerns about violating federal law, holding students back based on their English proficiency has a negative impact on their content knowledge, said Donna Albrecht, a professor of ENL/ESL at Indiana University Southeast and a member of the advocacy team at INTESOL. Instead, teachers should be trained in methods that teach content and language at the same time.

“It’s not that they weren’t taught to read; they’re learning two languages. It takes more time,” Albrecht said. “By the time they reach fourth and fifth grade, they’re surpassing their monolingual peers.”

Of the 2,819 English learner students who failed the IREAD-3 statewide in 2023, 1,922 received a good cause exemption from retention, while 897 did not. Most of the latter — 868 students — were promoted to fourth grade anyway. Such “social promotion” has increased in Indiana schools over the last decade.

Retaining hundreds more students will affect both urban districts like Indianapolis Public Schools, which has a large population of English learners, as well as small, rural districts where these students make up a large share of the population, Morita-Mullaney said.

In both cases, schools will need to staff additional third grade classrooms with teachers who are prepared to teach English learners, Morita-Mullaney said. Indiana schools have struggled to find enough qualified teachers for English learners — another federal requirement.

“They’ll move teachers to third grade, or they’ll bring in new people who have never been in high-stakes testing environments before,” Morita-Mullaney said.

Improving Senate Bill 1 for English learners

There are 93,625 English learners in all grades statewide in 2023-24, according to Indiana Department of Education data.

To improve the bill for English learners, INTESOL recommends changing the exemption language to reference scores on Indiana’s assessment for English learners — WIDA.

Under the organization’s proposed language, students who score less than a 5.0 proficiency level on WIDA, the score needed to exit the English learner programs and join the general student body, would be eligible for an exemption if they fail IREAD3.

On average, students gain half a level of proficiency per year on the assessment, said Albrecht. But even students who gain a full level of proficiency each year may not be ready to pass the IREAD-3 in third grade if they started learning English in kindergarten.

It’s not clear from available state data at what WIDA level students can typically pass the IREAD-3, Albrecht added. Comparing data has been challenging due to years of changes in state and federal testing, Morita-Mullaney said.

The state Department of Education said WIDA measures English language proficiency at grade level, as mandated by ESSA, while IREAD3 measures reading proficiency overall.

Advocates pushed back on this interpretation saying WIDA focuses on all parts of language, but IREAD is designed to test reading for native speakers.

Bill author Rogers also said that retention would not conflict with Indiana’s ESSA plan.

“The legislation highlights early identification of students that may not be reading proficient by the end of third grade. These students will be provided remediation and summer school aligned with the Science of Reading,” Rogers’ statement said. “The goal is not to retain anyone that doesn’t have a good cause exemption and ensure that ‘Every Child Learns to Read.’”

Previously, proponents said that retention will remain a last resort for students after they have more intervention and multiple attempts to pass the test. Still, retention is a necessary step in some cases, they said, giving students another year to develop literacy skills.

Both Rogers and Secretary of Education Katie Jenner have said they don’t believe very many students will be retained after receiving increased intervention.

“This is a crisis for our state right now and we have no time to waste,” Jenner said at a Wednesday meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The bill is scheduled for a second reading in the House on Monday.

You can track Senate Bill 1 on the General Assembly website.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

An existing program for migrant students can’t help schools with the current influx of new students. Here’s why.

2024-02-22T18:59:22+00:00

Some of Colorado’s most diverse school districts, including Aurora and Greeley, are used to waves of immigration bringing in new students in the middle of the year.

Recently, families from Burma have moved into Greeley, and Aurora officials recall hundreds of new students from Afghanistan after U.S. troops pulled out.

But this year, the midyear wave is even bigger, with most students arriving from Venezuela and other South American countries. And it is overwhelming some district systems.

“We’re running at 300% our normal typical average for the school year,” said Brett Johnson, chief financial officer for Aurora Public Schools, referring to the number of midyear enrollments, which are up from the typical 500 to 800 in a year.

Schools need everything from new desks and more classroom space, to more teachers, bilingual staff, and specialized teachers who can administer screening tests to determine students’ levels of English proficiency and help them learn English.

But many of the new students from South America arrived after the Oct. 1 cutoff that determines how much per-student state funding each district will get. And although government officials refer to this new group of immigrants as “migrants,” the students do not qualify for money from the federal Migrant Education Program.

What does the Migrant Education Program do?

The Migrant Education Program began in 1966 and was designed to support the children of farmworker families. To qualify for the program, students must have parents who work in agriculture, or work in the field themselves, usually in temporary or seasonal positions, and must have moved between school districts within the last three years.

Some of the children might belong to families who travel around the country following the seasonal availability of farm work. They aren’t necessarily new to the country, and many already are fluent in English. Immigration status doesn’t matter, just as it doesn’t for the students who arrived this semester. By law, all children can access free public education.

In Colorado, there were about 4,500 agricultural migrant children aged 1 through 21 this year — fewer than the thousands of new students from South America. The $7.5 million federal allocation for the state helps younger children succeed in school and focuses on keeping teens and young adults up to age 22 in school instead of dropping out to work full time.

Advocates from the program travel to farms or worksites to enroll children in the program and convince older students up to age 22 to stay in school. The program works with families, visiting their homes, supporting their mental health, and figuring out what other barriers might exist for the students to learn. The funding also pays for school supplies, tutoring, and summer programming.

“A lot of our families have needs that are pretty basic, if we just try to push education on them they’re not ready a lot of times,” said Tomás Mejia, Colorado’s director for the Migrant Education Program. “If we help them be well enough, help the parents and adults be well enough to help the kids, that can really help a lot more.”

The new South American students also need the same types of support. For both groups of students, educators say there’s a need to build trust and provide help that goes beyond the classroom.

The Greeley school district usually enrolls the largest number of agricultural migrant students in the state, and Greeley also is seeing a wave of non-agricultural migrant students. One school recently enrolled 19 new students in one day. An elementary school is now so full that teachers are starting to operate out of mobile carts, moving from room to room, instead of having a classroom.

School districts are addressing student needs

The Greeley district’s existing welcome center, which has always helped the community’s immigrant population, is playing a big role in helping the district welcome and make families feel like they belong, said Brian Lemos, director of instruction and English language development.

But the district is also relying on community partners to help families learn to use technology, learn English, and to offer help with housing or employment.

“There’s definitely unique needs,” Lemos said. “They’re new to the country. All of them have needs as far as language acquisition.”

“A lot of these students are coming to us with severe trauma,” said Theresa Myers, a spokesperson for the Greeley district. “Some of the families from Venezuela, they’ve been trying to travel for months. Our impact on our mental health services is real.”

Right now, the district has a mental health counselor at every school. But 35 counselor and social worker positions in the district were funded by ESSER dollars that won’t be available after September. Now the district is trying to figure out how to keep the much-needed positions.

Although Colorado gives school districts extra money to assist students who are learning English, most school districts say they have to use money from their general fund to cover the services they provide because that specific money isn’t enough.

And since so many of these students arrived after October 1, the districts didn’t get the money for them this year. (If students are still enrolled next fall, the districts will get money then.) In the meantime, school districts are having to hire new staff including paraprofessionals to help teachers with larger-than-normal class sizes. In Aurora, “We have several instances in which elementary schools came back from Christmas break with almost 100 more kids than before,” Johnson said.

Legislators in Colorado are drafting a $24 million proposal to give districts some funding for these midyear enrollees. It won’t be the total funding that districts usually get per student, but it might help.

State lawmakers haven’t filed the proposal, but there are promising signs it’ll pass once they do. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has said he supports sending extra funding to districts enrolling new students, and the proposal is coming from lawmakers on the powerful Joint Budget Committee, which plays a major role in how the state spends its money.

Johnson said that Aurora isn’t waiting to see that money transferred before hiring needed positions or addressing needs. He hopes the state will reimburse some of the expenses if the money does come.

While leaders say they aren’t cutting budgets or making adjustments, they are starting to think ahead. Maybe that will mean having roaming teams that can go to the schools most impacted on a short term basis to deal with the work of helping students new to the country.

“The hard part is no one knows how long this phenomenon will last,” Johnson said. “We are trying to start putting in some thought in the long-term, if there’s a better system.”

For now, schools are helping new students from South America adapt.

“When a new student enrolls who is new to the country it’s also a matter of the daily school routines — it’s also teaching them the routines of a typical school day,” Johnson said.

That can take up a lot of time for school staff. But not all schools are receiving high numbers of new students. Schools near shelters, apartments or housing where agencies have helped migrants get settled are enrolling more students.

Educators say they aren’t currently thinking about transferring students to different schools to avoid overcrowded classrooms, but Greeley leaders say they have changed enrollment boundaries when schools were getting too full in previous situations. They might consider it if the enrollment boom continues.

School educators say, still, they want kids in school, they understand that children must learn and the faster they can connect them to educators, the better.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Fútbol y fonética: un día en la Escuela Valdez de Denver con dos estudiantes recién llegados

2024-02-20T22:59:06+00:00

Read in English

Estudiantes de cuarto grado en la Escuela Primaria Valdez iban pasando uno por uno a través de la puerta del patio de recreo, formando una bola de energía serpenteante con los cordones desatados de los zapatos.

La mayoría subieron las escaleras a sus salones de clases. Solo un par se detuvieron para darle un abrazo rápido al integrante del personal escolar, quien tenía los ojos semicerrados por el sol que le pegaba de frente mientras mantenía la puerta abierta. Dos de los estudiantes que lo abrazaron fueron Jesus y Leiker, quienes llegaron a Denver de Venezuela hace un par de meses.

Los niños, de 9 y 10 años de edad, figuran entre las más de 38,000 personas migrantes que han llegado a Denver durante el último año después de escapar crisis políticas y económicas en sus países de origen.

Algunos de los recién llegados incluyen familias con niños como Jesus y Leiker. Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS, por sus siglas en inglés) han inscrito a más de 3,200 de estas personas jóvenes desde el inicio del año escolar.

La mayoría llegó después de la fecha límite en octubre que determina cuántos fondos por estudiante DPS recibe del estado, lo cual ha creado un déficit financiero para este distrito escolar, el más grande en el estado, y causado que las escuelas enfrenten dificultades para obtener recursos.

Pero no todas las escuelas. Los nuevos estudiantes están concentrados en un par de docenas de las más de 200 escuelas de DPS, a las cuales el distrito llama hotspots (literalmente, focos o puntos calientes). La razón principal es porque las escuelas ofrecen enseñanza especializada tanto en inglés como en español.

Valdez, también conocida como Escuela Valdez, ha ofrecido por mucho tiempo un programa de lenguaje dual. También está ubicada cerca de un refugio que la ciudad administra adentro de un Quality Inn, el cual la directora Jessica Buckley dijo que todos simplemente le dicen “el Quality”. Valdez, una escuela que tuvo menos de 400 estudiantes el año pasado, ha dado la bienvenida a más de 100 estudiantes nuevos en los últimos meses.

Todos los salones de clases en la escuela primaria ubicada en el noroeste de Denver han alcanzado su límite de 35 niños — excepto los de cuarto grado, en los que antes de la semana pasada había 29 estudiantes por salón.

La Escuela Primaria Valdez—Escuela Valdez—es una escuela de lenguaje dual en el noroeste de Denver.

De frente a esta nueva realidad, Valdez ha tenido que hacer modificaciones. Algunos de los cambios han sido bellos. Otros han sido difíciles. “Los aspectos positivos son el crecimiento de nuestros niños y nuestra comunidad”, Buckley dijo. “El desafío son los recursos”.

Jesus y Leiker se conocieron en el Quality, donde sus familias se estaban quedando, y se hicieron amigos enseguida. Dicen: “Somos como hermanos”.

Así fue un día en la escuela la semana pasada para Jesus y Leiker, cuyos apellidos Chalkbeat no está publicando para proteger sus identidades mientras se guían por su vida en un nuevo país.

Valdez es un “excelente lugar para llegar”

Los niños fueron los dos primeros en entrar al salón de clases, caminando hombro a hombro y platicando.

“¡OK! Siéntate en un lugar donde creas que te vas a enfocar bien”, la maestra Isabelle King dijo.

Jesus y Leiker se apresuraron a ir a esquinas opuestas en la alfombra con un mapa de Estados Unidos que cubre el piso del salón. Jesus se sentó con las piernas cruzadas arriba del estado de Michigan, y Leiker logró agarrar un lugar cerca de California. Dijeron “buenos días” a sus compañeros sentados junto a ellos. Siguiendo las instrucciones de la maestra, también nombraron su deporte favorito.

“Fútbol”, Jesus dijo con una sonrisa.

El salón de cuarto grado había estado viendo videoclips sobre niños con discapacidades. En el videoclip de ese día apareció una niña con sordera que usaba un intérprete al lenguaje de señas en la escuela.

Cuando la maestra pausó el video para preguntar sobre una forma como los estudiantes se parecían a la niña y una forma como eran diferentes, Leiker levantó la mano. En español, dijo que él era diferente porque podía hablar directamente con sus amigos, sin un intérprete.

Jesus, con la camiseta azul tipo polo, escucha mientras la maestra Isabelle King da instrucciones durante la reunión de la mañana en su salón de clases de cuarto grado.

Esto es posible en Valdez porque todos los estudiantes hablan español. Como una escuela de lenguaje dual, Valdez no admite a estudiantes que hablan inglés como lengua materna después de kindergarten. En los grados para niños más pequeños, hasta el 90 por ciento de la enseñanza en el salón de clases es en español para que los niños estén inmersos en el idioma.

Mientras que otras escuelas en Denver y alrededor del país han tenido que usar tecnología, a veces tan rudimentaria como Google Translate, para comunicarse con estudiantes y familias nuevas de Venezuela, en Valdez no se necesitan intérpretes.

“Somos un excelente lugar para que estos niños lleguen”, Buckley dijo. Porque todos hablan español, dijo, los estudiantes nuevos “pueden interactuar y aprender y ser ellos mismos”.

Los estudiantes aprenden el idioma del juego

En el gimnasio, la maestra de educación física Jessica Dominguez pidió que los estudiantes que se dividieran en equipos.

“¡Yo y Leiker!” Jesus gritó.

Durante los siguientes 40 minutos, su equipo rotó entre básquetbol, cuatro recuadros y una pared para escalar. Los niños dominaron en básquetbol a la vez que corrían rápidamente por la media cancha y gritaban: “¡rápido, rápido!” mientras sus compañeros de equipo tiraban la pelota a la canasta.

Las niñas dominaron en cuatro recuadros. Jesus tuvo dificultades. Después de perder por haberle pegado a la pelota cuando no era su turno, una niña pausó el juego para explicarle las reglas en español.

“Él no sabía”, les dijo la niña en inglés a sus compañeros de clase.

Leiker, en el recuadro superior izquierdo, y Jesus, parado atrás de él en la fila, juegan a los cuatro recuadros con sus compañeros durante la clase de educación física.

El personal en Valdez está de acuerdo en que los nuevos estudiantes han enriquecido lingüísticamente a la escuela. Mientras que antes los estudiantes — y hasta los adultos — con frecuencia terminaban hablando en inglés cuando hablaban entre ellos, ahora es más práctico hablar en español. De esa forma, todos entienden.

El fenómeno también fue visible durante el recreo. El fútbol ha sido por mucho tiempo la actividad más popular durante el recreo, Buckley dijo. Pero ahora, el español es lo que se habla en la cancha.

“¡Leiker! ¡Leiker! ¡Atrás! ¡Atrás!” gritó un compañero de equipo, pidiéndole que le pasara la pelota hacia atrás.

El segundo juego más popular es uno nuevo llamado pelota gaga. En contraste con el español que se habla en la cancha de fútbol, todos los estudiantes que jugaron pelota gaga estaban hablando en inglés.

Al escuchar el agudo tuit-tuit del silbato, Jesus, Leiker y los otros jugadores de fútbol corrieron a la cafetería para almorzar. Leiker tenía las mejillas rojas mientras esperaba a que le dieran su macarroni con queso. Jesus trajo su almuerzo de casa, pero igual hizo la fila con su amigo.

Juntos, encontraron asientos en una mesa redonda con dos niños más de cuarto grado.

“¿Jugaron al fútbol hoy, chicos?” preguntó el subdirector Cesar Sanchez en español.

“¡Sí!” contestaron al unísono.

“Nosotros perdimos”, Leiker agregó.

“¿Importa si ganamos o perdimos?” Sanchez preguntó. “¿Qué es lo que importa?”

“¡Divertirse!” dijeron al unísono.

El fútbol es el juego más popular durante el recreo en la Escuela Valdez. En este día cálido de invierno, Jesus, pateando la pelota, Leiker, y otros estudiantes usaron el “piedra, papel o tijera” para elegir equipos.

Los maestros adaptan las lecciones

Siempre ha sido el caso en Valdez, como en todas las escuelas, que algunos estudiantes están más avanzados académicamente y algunos más atrasados, y los maestros deben adaptar sus lecciones. Pero con los estudiantes recién llegados, los maestros han tenido que diferenciar la enseñanza aún más. Valdez ha recibido a estudiantes de cuarto grado que no saben cómo escribir sus nombres, Buckley dijo.

Jesus y Leiker pueden leer y escribir en español. Dijeron que fueron a la escuela en Venezuela antes de venir a Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, sus maestros — especialmente el maestro de lectoescritura Giovanni Leon, a quienes los estudiantes llaman Don Gio — han tenido que realizar modificaciones, trabajando para fortalecer las aptitudes de lectura y escritura de los recién llegados en su lengua materna mientras también empiezan desde cero en inglés. Les están enseñando el alfabeto y los sonidos de las letras.

Este día, después de educación física, la clase de Jesus y Leiker empezó su sesión de lectoescritura en la alfombra, donde Leon explicó la tarea del día: leer un discurso de 1873 de la activista de derechos de la mujer Susan B. Anthony y contestar preguntas sobre el texto.

Leiker, a mano izquierda, y Jesus, tercero de la izq., trabajan para escribir oraciones completas.

Pero el texto y las preguntas eran en inglés, parte de la división 50/50 que Valdez hace entre el inglés y el español en grados más avanzados. Por años, la rotación del idioma era muy marcada. Con los nuevos estudiantes, se ha hecho más flexible.

Mientras la mayoría de los estudiantes se ponían en parejas para empezar a leer el discurso de Susan B. Anthony, Leon llamó a Jesus, Leiker y tres otros a una mesa en forma de C atrás del salón. Iban a leer y contestar preguntas sobre otro texto, un cuento de hadas, en español.

Sin embargo, primero Leon les pidió que practicaran escribir oraciones completas con un sujeto y un predicado, una letra mayúscula al principio, y un punto al final. Les dio un tema en español — el perro — y les pidió que terminaran la oración.

Muchos de los estudiantes recién llegados a Valdez están practicando sus aptitudes de lectoescritura en su lengua materna—español—a la vez que aprenden inglés.

“El perro está jugando en el patio”, Leiker escribió en español en su libreta.

“El perro está ladrando”, Jesus escribió.

Un poco después, cuando Leon señaló que a Leiker le faltaba un punto, el niño dio vueltas con la punta de su lápiz tantas veces que escribió un punto tan grande que hubiera sido imposible que el maestro no lo viera.

Jesus tiene un “momento ajá”

Aunque muchas cosas son diferentes en Valdez últimamente, algunas cosas son iguales. Una de esas es que los estudiantes, incluidos los recién llegados, siguen teniendo lo que los maestros llaman “momentos ajá” — el momento de alegría y descubrimiento cuando entienden un concepto académico.

Este día, Jesus tuvo un momento ajá en matemáticas.

Las matemáticas no son la materia favorita de Jesus. Ambos niños dijeron que lo que más les gusta es el recreo y el almuerzo, seguido por el bocadillo. Leiker dijo que piensa que la clase de música, donde aprenden a tocar instrumentos, es la más difícil. Moviendo la cabeza, Jesus dijo que para él, son las matemáticas.

Leiker, izq., y Jesus, der., se ríen mientras trabajan lado a lado en problemas de matemáticas en sus computadoras.

Durante parte de la sesión de matemáticas, los niños estuvieron sentados con King en su mesa en forma de C. Para explicarle cómo calcular 5 x 30 a Leiker, King sacó una cubeta con bloques amarillos pegados entre sí en grupos de 10. Leiker dividió los grupos de bloques en cinco montones de tres y los contó.

Jesus estaba sentado junto a él, trabajando en sumas. Pero los bloques amarillos le llamaron la atención.

Cuando Leiker obtuvo la respuesta correcta — 150 — a Jesus se le escapó un, “¡Aaahh!”

Jesus puso de lado su propia actividad y ayudó a Leiker con su siguiente problema: 30 x 40. Usando más bloques amarillos, los niños contaron en español. Hablaron al mismo tiempo, igual que lo habían hecho cuando hablaron de fútbol durante el almuerzo: “100, 200, 300, 400…

“¡1,200!”

“Eso es”, King dijo.

Los niños sonrieron orgullosamente.

Valdez necesitará más escritorios

Justo después de las 3 p. m., Jesus, Leiker y sus compañeros de cuarto grado salieron de Valdez por la misma puerta por la que habían entrado del patio de recreo unas horas antes, formando la misma fila desorganizada.

Buckley estaba parada en el asfalto, supervisando la situación.

Valdez tiene más estudiantes ahora que en cualquier momento en años recientes. La escuela está tan llena que cuando familias recién llegadas se presentan en la oficina para inscribir a sus hijos, como lo habían hecho tres de ellas ese día, la secretaria con frecuencia tiene que indicarles que vayan a otras escuelas primarias cercanas.

Jesus, izq., y Leiker, der., caminan a su salón de clases en la Escuela Valdez, la cual ha recibido a más de 100 estudiantes recién llegados este año, muchos de ellos de Venezuela.

Valdez contrató a más asistentes de maestros y un maestro de intervención para ayudar a que los estudiantes nuevos se pongan al día. También compró más libros y logró encontrar muebles usados. El subdirector, Sanchez, a veces ha tenido que manejar por la ciudad en su propia camioneta para recolectar escritorios disponibles en escuelas primarias que no tienen tantos estudiantes.

Un par de horas antes que terminara el día escolar, Buckley se enteró de que la escuela necesitaba dos escritorios más. El distrito se había comunicado para compartir que dos estudiantes recién llegados — en cuarto grado, el único grado en Valdez que todavía tiene cupo — se iban a inscribir la próxima semana.

Melanie Asmar es la corresponsal jefa de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Melanie por correo electrónico a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

‘Growing our readers’: How the Sheridan district has revived its once-closed high school library

2024-02-16T20:05:03+00:00

For years, the Sheridan district’s high school library was just empty space — a few shelves, no books, no staff.

Now, the library is thriving. Students hang out there during lunch or other free periods. They read, play games, and can even take a literature class.

The space has transformed from bare to buzzing.

“We just had old tables and chairs,” said Jenn Alevy, the digital teacher librarian. “Throughout the five years, our space has changed so much.”

Among the changes: new furniture, including a puzzle table hand-built by a student in the school’s former woodshop class.

While some schools are having to cut librarians or letting libraries languish as school budgets are strained and others are grappling with book bans, the Sheridan library continues to grow because of voter-approved funds passed in 2018.

Trenity Briscoe, 16, works on her book project during a class in the library at Sheridan High School.

Pat Sandos, the outgoing superintendent, had just been hired in 2018 when he decided to put the promise of school librarians into the proposed mill levy tax request. Before the tax measure, the district used about $40,000 from reserves to get the space ready.

“I just couldn’t believe we didn’t have a library at the high school,” Sandos said. “It’s the hub of the school. So much goes on there.”

When Sandos talked to people in the community, many didn’t know the 300-student high school had been left without a library after the county library pulled out of the school into its own building.

Having the county library in the district was complicated, leaders said, because it was difficult to control who was in the school building just for the public library. And, Sandos said, having the library nearby was not the same as having an in-house teacher librarian who could collaborate with teachers and build relationships with students.

That’s what Alevy has done.

“There’s so much opportunity, it’s critical,” Sandos said.

Leticia Salazar, a senior at Sheridan High School, said Alevy has helped her through many rough times, including a recent death in her family. Last semester, she was a library assistant. Now, she just hangs out at the library because she finds it a safe and peaceful place.

“She’s awesome,” Salazar said, of Alevy. “And she got me into reading.”

When Alevy was hired in 2019 after voters approved the tax request, she started reviving the library by ordering books and working on a three-year plan to create more integration between technology and learning.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, schools went to remote learning, the library shut down – and Alevy’s plan to incorporate more digital learning became a plan she had to integrate right away.

She was the go-to for teachers on any technology questions, and helped many navigate remote learning software.

Now that schools have gone back to in-person learning, she still tries to collaborate with teachers, recommending books for various lessons they plan and suggesting ways to incorporate reading or digital learning when appropriate.

Students hang out at the Sheridan High School library during lunch or other free periods, including to play games.

Maegan Daigler, the district’s executive director of assessment & technology, said the mill levy funds pay for the salaries of librarians at the district schools and funds each year are also used to help grow the library’s collection.

The goal is to grow the book collection about 10% each year as funds allow, she said.

“It’s a priority,” Daigler said.

During the time the library was closed due to remote learning, Alevy ordered digital books for students to check out, but has since found that students prefer physical copies of books to read.

The library now has more than 4,500 books, including a few hundred Spanish books, many Stephen King novels, the popular Colleen Hoover titles, and lots of manga.

For many of the Spanish books, Alevy likes to get the English and Spanish versions so students can read them side-by-side if they like. She also gets some audiobooks that can be a helpful addition when students are trying to learn English.

From left to right Students Aidan Cordova, 17, Rock Himebaugh, 17, and Isaac Rosales, 16, play the card game UNO in the library during their lunch break at Sheridan High School.

The students in newcomer classes check out lots of books, she said. About a third of the school’s 300 students are English learners.

“Students will challenge themselves when they’re picking up a book,” Alevy said. “If it gets them to read, I will buy them.”

This year Alevy started offering a new elective class, Introduction to Literature, where students read, write about what they read, and then will promote the books they read in the library.

“We’re growing our readers,” Alevy said. “It’s slowly working.”

Each of the 10 students in the class picked a theme and planned out which books they would read this semester to fit that theme.

One of the school’s most avid readers, Kaitlyn Miller, a 15-year-old sophomore, has already read six books for the class this semester. She’s focusing her project on two themes: mystical creatures, and how people feel when they lose someone they love.

As Miller described her project, she noted: “I probably need to get some more books.”

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the last names of Leticia Salazar and Rock Himebaugh, and to reflect that the Sheridan library has more than 4,500 books in its collection now.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Esta maestra de Colorado lucha por lograr un cambio para los estudiantes bilingües

2024-02-14T23:05:35+00:00

Read in English.

En segundo grado, Carlota Loya Hernández pasaba mucho tiempo coloreando en su asiento. No hablaba inglés y su maestra no hablaba español, así que los lápices de colores y el papel eran su actividad favorita en la escuela de San Luis Valley en Colorado.

En la escuela intermedia, las cosas habían cambiado. Loya Hernández estaba tomando la clase de matemáticas avanzadas y estaba en camino a tomar clases más avanzadas en la secundaria. Con el tiempo, obtuvo su diploma universitario y se convirtió en maestra en el distrito escolar del Boulder Valley.

Hoy tiene un doctorado y aboga por los estudiantes bilingües, trabajando para asegurar que ellos tengan las oportunidades educativas que merecen.

“El mayor problema de las escuelas públicas es la falta de respuesta al brillante e increíble talento de todos y cada uno de los niños, especialmente los bilingües y multilingües”, dijo ella.

Carlota Loya Hernández.

Loya Hernández, que es especialista en matemáticas y en programas para estudiantes sobresalientes y talentosos en la Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer, una escuela de inmersión en dos idiomas en Boulder Valley, fue nombrada maestra bilingüe de primaria del año 2023 por la Asociación de Educación Bilingüe de Colorado. Ella habló con Chalkbeat sobre cómo aseguraba que las reuniones de padres y maestros tuvieran un 100% de asistencia, qué le dijo a la mamá de un estudiante y por qué le preocupan los sentimientos en contra de los inmigrantes.

Esta entrevista ha sido levemente editada para acortarla y hacerla más precisa.

¿En qué momento decidiste ser maestra?

Como estudiante de intermedia y secundaria, recibí capacitación para ser tutora de estudiantes porque con frecuencia venían a mí para que los ayudara. En la universidad, fui tutora de matemáticas y ciencias. Nunca tuve planes de ser maestra y quería ser ingeniera arquitectónica por mi amor a las matemáticas y al arte. Pero era mi vocación.

Abandoné la universidad por dificultades económicas y por no saber sobre las ayudas financieras. Conseguí un trabajo como gerente de un restaurante y comencé mi carrera en el distrito de Boulder Valley como una tutora de idioma natal. Disfruté mucho trabajando con estudiantes inmigrantes y refugiados, que a menudo eran ignorados o no recibían apoyo en los salones de clase regulares. Esto me enfureció y me impulsó a volver a la universidad y obtener un diploma de maestra.

¿Cómo influyó tu propia experiencia en la escuela en tu manera de enseñar?

Recuerdo mi primer día de segundo grado en la Center Elementary School. Acabábamos de mudarnos a San Luis Valley desde Silverton. Tuve apoyo bilingüe en Kinder y en primer grado porque acababa de llegar al país, pero en segundo grado mis opciones eran nadar o hundirme. Mi maestra no me entendía y yo no la entendía a ella. Me dio lápices de colores y me dejó colorear. Yo era muy feliz porque me encantaba el arte.

En la escuela intermedia, me asignaron a una clase de matemáticas avanzadas. En la secundaria tomé clases avanzadas de lenguaje, matemáticas y ciencias. Como hija de trabajadores agrícolas con pocos recursos en casa, la escuela se convirtió en un refugio seguro. Me iba muy bien en todas las clases, excepto en Educación Física. La única C que recibí fue en educación física porque tenía que vestirme para la clase. Mi papá no me permitía usar pantalones cortos y tampoco contaba con los medios para comprarme pantalones de sudadera.

La Center High School me abrió las puertas a un mundo de oportunidades y me nominó para la beca Spud Bowl del Adams State College en Alamosa (que ahora es la Adams State University). Gané la beca completa, y fue la clave para acceder a una educación superior y a un futuro lleno de posibilidades. Se convirtió en mi boleto para salir de la pobreza.

Cuéntanos cuál es la lección que más te gusta enseñar. ¿De dónde salió la idea?

Me encanta desarrollar lecciones que realmente conecten con los estudiantes, impacten en su forma de pensar y les ayuden a entender conceptos importantes. Para enseñar conceptos matemáticos importantes, como fracciones, decimales y porcentajes, preparé una lección utilizando el libro If the World Were a Village de David J. Smith.

El enfoque era muy matemático, pero los estudiantes pudieron analizar los datos y llegar a sus propias conclusiones. La lección permitió que mis estudiantes pensaran más allá de su propia existencia en su ciudad, más allá de las fronteras, y se enfrentaran a las graves desigualdades en el acceso a educación, atención médica, condiciones básicas para vivir, como acceso a agua potable, vivienda y alcantarillado, y pudieran imaginar la gran pobreza de tantos que literalmente se están muriendo de hambre. Nos permitió entender lo agradecidos que debemos estar por todo lo que tenemos en Estados Unidos, lo afortunados que somos y la gran cantidad de oportunidades que tenemos.

¿Cuál es el mayor reto que enfrentan tus estudiantes bilingües?

Los sistemas de opresión en todos los ámbitos de la vida de los estudiantes. Las manifestaciones de racismo incluyen programas de doble idioma adaptados para las familias blancas. La mayoría de los estudiantes de nuestro distrito que obtienen el Sello de Alfabetización Bilingüe (que demuestra que pueden leer y escribir tanto en inglés como en otro idioma) no son hablantes nativos de ese otro idioma.

Los estudiantes bilingües siguen estando sobrerrepresentados en educación especial, en referidos por disciplina y en escuelas alternativas con currículos técnicos en vez de en programas preuniversitarios y cursos AP/IB. Y no están suficientemente representados en clases avanzadas de todas las áreas, incluidas las de español. [A menudo], no se les identifica como sobresalientes y talentosos.

Estos son los sistemas contra los que lucho a diario. En mis tres semestres en la Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer, tenemos 25 estudiantes en matemáticas avanzadas solamente en cuarto y quinto grado. Cuando empecé en Pioneer solo había seis estudiantes. Hay otros 30-40 estudiantes en los grados más pequeños que están encaminados a toma clases de matemáticas avanzadas.

Como soy nerd para los datos, llevo cuenta del progreso de los estudiantes e identifico a los que tienen altas capacidades, tanto en matemáticas como en leer y escribir en ambos idiomas. Estamos en nuestro tercer año del Boulder Universal Advanced Math Program para estudiantes de cuarto y quinto grado.

La mayoría de los líderes de distritos y escuelas se enfocan en el nivel más alto de desempeño. Hay una urgencia por trabajar en la “brecha”, pero eso hace poco para mejorar una escuela. Tenemos que adoptar la mentalidad de desarrollar talento y oportunidades de aprendizaje avanzado para “subir la barra”.

¿Qué fortalezas notas en tus estudiantes bilingües?

Los estudiantes bilingües/multilingües están por encima del estándar, pero la fijación es que están por debajo del grado. Ellos logran un nivel más alto de lenguaje y de desempeño académico y social. Son el futuro de nuestra sociedad, ya que son ciudadanos con mentalidad global y serán los cuidadores del planeta. Los estudiantes bilingües/multilingües tienen más conciencia social a la hora de respetar y valorar diferencias, ya sean culturales, de idioma, religiosas, espirituales o de otro tipo.

Cuéntanos alguna anécdota memorable, sea buena o mala, en la que el contacto con la familia de un estudiante cambió tu perspectiva o estrategia.

Mis papás nunca pudieron ir a mi escuela cuando yo era niña porque trabajaban todo el día en los campos de lechugas o papas y llegaban tarde del trabajo. No tenían atención médica ni beneficios, y por lo tanto no podían darse el lujo de faltar al trabajo. Como maestra, me aseguré de quedarme hasta tarde y visitar los hogares de mis estudiantes para conectar con sus padres. Siempre me propuse y conseguí el 100% de asistencia en mis conferencias.

En mis 30 años como educadora, nunca vi a un padre o madre que no se preocupara por su hijo(a). La idea de que los padres no se preocupan, que están mal equipados para apoyar a sus hijos, tiene una base cruel y racista que contribuye a que los estudiantes de color sean vistos de manera más desfavorable, especialmente los que provienen de poblaciones de inmigrantes y refugiados. Por el contrario, esas familias cruzaron el continente a pie, huyeron del peligro y el hambre en su país de origen, y dejaron todo y a todos atrás para poder ofrecerles a sus hijos la mejor oportunidad para el futuro.

Una vez llamé a la mamá del payaso de la clase. Era un niño brillante que se negaba a hacer su tarea. Interrumpía la clase porque siempre estaba haciendo otra cosa y era muy gracioso. La madre contestó el teléfono: “¿Qué hizo Mario ahora?” Como estaba altavoz, Mario y el resto de la clase escucharon lo que dijo. No pude evitar reírme un poco, porque la estaba llamando para felicitarla por lo bien que Mario había hecho un examen o una actividad. Pero ese niño era y es brillante. Estoy seguro de que actualmente es un ciudadano exitoso y bilingüe que está aportando a la sociedad. No seguía las instrucciones siempre, pero tenía un potencial increíble. Para mí era tan obvio como el día; pero no todo el mundo es capaz de ver más allá del color de piel, trasfondo o comportamiento de un estudiante.

¿Qué está ocurriendo en la comunidad y afecta lo que pasa en tu salón de clases?

Nuestros estudiantes se ven afectados por el sentimiento antiinmigrante de este país, los asesinatos de latinos y negros a manos de la policía, los sistemas de prisión que alejan a los padres de sus hijos, la amenaza de los servicios sociales, y la falta de recursos en la comunidad, como vivienda básica, alimentos, atención médica, un salario digno y seguridad. La elección de un presidente — Donald Trump — que en su discurso y acciones proyectaba tanto odio, trajo miedo y angustia a las escuelas bilingües.

Los estudiantes estaban llorando mientras los maestros estaban en shock. Ese día tuve que quedarme en casa porque no podía afrontar la realidad de las elecciones. Este miedo ha regresado en 2024 porque el odio vuelve a afectar a todos los estudiantes de color, limita su humanidad y amenaza el bienestar y la seguridad de sus familias.

¿Qué estás leyendo en tu tiempo libre?

“Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal” y “We Want to Do More than Survive,” ambos escritos por Bettina L. Love. Me interesa mucho este tipo de literatura que trae a la luz y expone las causas raíz de las desigualdades en educación y sociales en la escuela y la sociedad. Este podría ser el enfoque de la siguiente fase de mi vida: enseñarle a la próxima generación la historia del racismo y la opresión en Estados Unidos para que puedan contribuir a cambiar la sociedad para que sea más equitativa.

Ann Schimke es reportera senior de Chalkbeat y cubre temas relacionados con la educación en la niñez temprana y la alfabetización temprana. Para comunicarte con Ann, envíale un email a aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Milly Suazo-Martinez

Four square, fútbol, and phonics: A day at Denver’s Valdez Elementary with two newly arrived migrant students

2024-02-14T00:43:59+00:00

Leer en español

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Fourth graders streamed one at a time through the playground door at Denver’s Valdez Elementary, a snaking jumble of energy and untied shoelaces.

Most bounded up the stairs to their classrooms. Only a few stopped to give a quick side hug to the staff member who was squinting in the sun and holding the door. Two of the huggers were Jesus and Leiker, who arrived in Denver from Venezuela a few months ago.

The boys, ages 9 and 10, are among the more than 38,000 migrants who have come to Denver in the past year after fleeing political and economic crises in their home countries.

Some of the new arrivals are families with children like Jesus and Leiker. Denver Public Schools has enrolled more than 3,200 of these young people since the start of the school year.

A majority arrived after the October cutoff date that determines how much per-student funding DPS gets from the state, creating a financial shortfall for the state’s largest district and causing schools to scramble for resources.

But not all schools. The new students are concentrated in a couple dozen of DPS’ more than 200 schools, which the district has been calling hotspots. The main reason is because the schools offer specialized instruction in both English and Spanish.

Valdez, also known as Escuela Valdez, has a longstanding dual language program. It’s also right up the street from a city-run shelter inside a Quality Inn, which Principal Jessica Buckley said everyone simply calls “The Quality.” Valdez, which had about 400 students last year, has welcomed more than 100 new students in the past few months.

Valdez Elementary — or Escuela Valdez — is a dual language school in northwest Denver.

Every classroom in the northwest Denver elementary school is at capacity with 35 children — except the fourth grade, which before last week had 29 per class.

In the face of this new reality, Valdez has had to make adjustments. Some of the shifts have been beautiful. Others have been hard. “The bright spots are the growth of our kids and our community,” Buckley said. “The challenge is resources.”

Jesus and Leiker met at The Quality, where both of their families were staying, and became fast friends. They say they are like brothers: “Somos como hermanos.”

This is what one school day looked like recently for Jesus and Leiker, whose last names Chalkbeat is withholding to protect their identities as they navigate life in a new country.

Valdez is ‘an excellent place to land’

The boys were the first two to enter the classroom, walking shoulder-to-shoulder and chattering.

“OK! Sit in a place where you think you can focus well,” teacher Isabelle King said in Spanish.

Jesus and Leiker scurried to opposite corners of a classroom rug imprinted with a map of the United States. Jesus sat cross-legged above the state of Michigan, and Leiker scrambled to a spot near California. They said “buenos días” to the classmates next to them. Following the teacher’s prompt, they also named their favorite sport.

“Fútbol,” Jesus said with a smile.

The fourth grade class had been watching video clips about children with disabilities. That day’s clip featured a girl who was Deaf and used a sign language interpreter at school.

When the teacher paused the video to ask for one way the students were the same as the girl and one way they were different, Leiker raised his hand. In Spanish, he said that he was different because he could talk to his friends directly, without an interpreter.

Jesus, in the blue polo shirt, listens as teacher Isabelle King gives instructions during morning meeting in her fourth grade classroom.

That’s possible at Valdez because all of the students speak Spanish. As a dual language school, Valdez doesn’t admit native English speakers after kindergarten. In the younger grades, as much as 90% of the classroom instruction is in Spanish to immerse students in the language.

Whereas other schools in Denver and around the country have had to use technology, sometimes as rudimentary as Google Translate, to communicate with new students and families from Venezuela, no interpreters are needed at Valdez.

“We are an excellent place for these kids to land,” Buckley said. Because everyone speaks Spanish, she said, the new students are “able to interact and learn and be themselves.”

Students learn the language of play

In the gym, P.E. teacher Jessica Dominguez told the students to split into teams.

“Me and Leiker!” Jesus shouted in Spanish.

For the next 40 minutes, their team rotated between basketball, four square, and a rock climbing wall. The boys dominated at basketball, sprinting around the half court and shouting “rápido, rápido!” — fast, fast! — as their teammates were shooting.

The girls dominated at four square. Jesus struggled. After he lost for serving the ball when he wasn’t supposed to, a girl paused the game to explain the rules to him in Spanish.

“He didn’t know,” she told her classmates.

Leiker, in the top left square, and Jesus, standing behind him in line, play four square with their classmates during P.E.

Staff at Valdez agree that the new students have enriched the school linguistically. Whereas in the past students — and even adults — would often default to English when speaking with each other, now it’s most practical to speak in Spanish. That way, everyone understands.

The phenomenon was on display at recess, too. Soccer has long been the most popular activity at recess, Buckley said. But now, Spanish is what is spoken on the field.

“Leiker! Leiker! Atrás! Atrás!”” a teammate called out, urging him to pass the ball behind.

The second most popular game is a new one called gaga ball. In contrast to the Spanish spoken on the soccer field, all of the students playing gaga ball spoke in English.

At the shrill tweet-tweet of a whistle, Jesus, Leiker, and the other soccer players ran to the cafeteria for lunch. Leiker’s cheeks were flushed pink as he waited for his macaroni and cheese. Jesus brought his lunch from home, but he still stood in line with his friend.

Together, they found seats at a round table with two other fourth-grade boys.

“You guys played soccer today?” Assistant Principal Cesar Sanchez asked in Spanish.

“Sí!” they answered in unison.

“We lost,” Leiker added.

“Does it matter if you win or lose?” Sanchez asked. “What matters?”

“Have fun!” they said in unison.

Soccer is the most popular game at recess at Valdez Elementary. On this warm winter day, Jesus, kicking the ball, Leiker, and the other students used rock-paper-scissors to pick teams.

Teachers make academic adjustments

It’s always been the case at Valdez, like at all schools, that some students are ahead academically and some are behind, and teachers must adapt their lessons. But with the newly arrived students, teachers have had to differentiate to new extremes. Valdez has welcomed some fourth graders who don’t know how to write their names, Buckley said.

Jesus and Leiker can read and write in Spanish. They said they went to school in Venezuela before coming to the United States. Still, their teachers — especially literacy teacher Giovanni Leon, who the students call Don Gio — have had to make adjustments, working to strengthen the new arrivals’ reading and writing skills in their native language while also starting from scratch in English, teaching them the alphabet and the sounds the letters make.

On this day after P.E., Jesus and Leiker’s class started their literacy block on the carpet, where Leon explained the day’s assignment: to read an 1873 speech by women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony and answer questions about the text.

Leiker, far left, and Jesus, third from the left, work on writing complete sentences.

But the text and the questions were in English, part of Valdez’s 50/50 split between English and Spanish in the upper grades. For years, the language rotation was very black-and-white. With the new students, it’s become more gray.

As most students paired up to begin reading the Susan B. Anthony speech, Leon called Jesus, Leiker, and three others to a C-shaped table in the back of the room. They would be reading and answering questions about another text, a fairy tale, in Spanish.

First, however, Leon had them practice writing complete sentences with a subject and a predicate, a capital letter at the beginning, and a period at the end. He gave them a subject in Spanish — el perro, the dog — and asked them to finish the sentence.

Many newly arrived students at Valdez are practicing literacy skills in their native Spanish while also learning English.

“The dog is playing in the yard,” Leiker wrote in Spanish in his notebook.

“The dog is barking,” Jesus wrote.

A while later, when Leon pointed out that Leiker was missing a period, the boy swirled the tip of his pencil several times, making a period so big his teacher couldn’t miss it.

Jesus has a lightbulb moment

While many things are different at Valdez these days, some things are the same. One of those is that students, including the new arrivals, continue to have what teachers call lightbulb moments — the moment of joy and discovery when an academic concept clicks.

On this day, something clicked for Jesus in math.

Math is not Jesus’ favorite subject. Both boys said they like recess and lunch best, followed by snack. Leiker said he thinks music class, where they learn to play instruments, is the hardest. Shaking his head, Jesus said that for him, it’s math.

Leiker, left, and Jesus, right, giggle as they work side by side on math problems on their computers.

During part of the math block, the boys were sitting with King at her C-shaped table. To help explain 5 x 30 to Leiker, King took out a bucket of yellow cubes stuck together in groups of 10. Leiker portioned the cube stacks into five piles of three and counted them up.

Jesus sat next to him, working on addition. But the yellow cubes caught his eye.

When Leiker got the right answer — 150 — Jesus let out an, “Ohhhhhhhh!”

Jesus put his own work aside and helped Leiker with his next problem: 30 x 40. Using a bigger set of yellow cubes, the boys counted in Spanish. They spoke in unison, just like they had when they were talking about soccer at lunch. “100, 200, 300, 400…

“1,200!”

“That’s it,” King said.

The boys beamed.

Valdez will need more desks

Just past 3 p.m., Jesus, Leiker, and their fourth-grade classmates streamed out of Valdez through the same playground door they’d entered seven hours earlier, in the same jumbly line.

Buckley stood on the blacktop, surveying the scene.

Valdez has more students now than at any time in recent history. The school is so full that when newly arrived families show up in the office looking to register their children, as three had that day, the secretary often has to redirect them to nearby elementary schools.

Jesus, left, and Leiker, right, walk to their classroom at Valdez Elementary, which has welcomed more than 100 newly arrived students this year, many of them from Venezuela.

Valdez has hired more paraprofessionals and an intervention teacher to help the new students catch up. It has also bought more books and scrounged for hand-me-down furniture. The assistant principal, Sanchez, has at times driven around the city in his own truck, collecting spare desks from elementary schools that don’t have as many students.

A few hours before class was dismissed for the day, Buckley learned the school would need two more desks. The district was in touch to share that two newly arrived students — in fourth grade, the only grade at Valdez with any more room — would be enrolling the following week.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Bilingual program to launch at Malcolm X Shabazz to serve Newark’s growing population of English learners

2024-02-05T11:00:00+00:00

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A new bilingual education program will launch in the South Ward this fall to help Newark’s growing population of English language learners access services closer to where they live.

High school students learning English as a second language will be eligible to enroll in the new program next school year at Malcolm X Shabazz High School, where concerns over declining enrollment, student performance, and safety challenges have remained in recent years. The program will start with ninth and 10th graders and then add one grade per year.

The new program comes as the district’s enrollment grows amid the latest influx of immigrants to New Jersey. It also comes almost three years after the district agreed to overhaul services for English language learners as part of a settlement following a years long investigation by federal officials.

More than 10,000 students – a quarter of the city’s public school enrollment – are English language learners, district officials said.

The new program at Shabazz will offer South Ward high school students learning English the option to receive services near home, according to Superintendent Roger León, who announced the new program at a recent school board meeting.

“There are students that live in the South Ward that take two or three buses to get to Eastside or Barringer High School because they’re in a bilingual Spanish program,” León said.

Currently, South Ward high schools offer no programs for English language learners, León said.

The program previously existed at Shabazz but was removed under state control of the district, according to district spokeswoman Nancy Deering. Since León was appointed to the board in 2018, when local control was reinstated, the district has added an engineering academy, cosmetology program, and an aviation program to the school as part of the district’s high school redesign strategy.

Last school year, 272 students attended Shabazz and less than 2% were English language learners, according to 2022-23 state data.

The district’s English learners include a mix of students born in the country and abroad. Most speak Spanish or Portuguese, although some speak Arabic, French, Haitian Creole, or other languages.

With the influx of second-language learners in the district, officials are also wrestling with a shortage of bilingual teachers who can communicate in different languages.

During a January school board meeting, board member Vereliz Santana said the new program at Shabazz would alleviate some of the staffing pressures at Eastside and Barringer high schools. Barringer has “the highest number of bilingual and ESL vacancies,” she said.

“It’s a student population that we’re committed to serving and to educate and we’re rising to the challenge,” Santana said.

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a nearly four-year investigation that found “wide-ranging failures” in the district’s English language program, officials said. The department’s civil rights division launched the investigation when the state still operated the Newark school system and in response to a complaint that the district was failing to properly serve English learners.

As part of a settlement agreement with federal officials, Newark agreed to overhaul how it serves English learners, but León has shared few details about plans to expand bilingual education districtwide.

In 2022, the Newark school board approved a 15-page resolution that restated the district’s responsibilities to meet the needs of students learning English as mandated by state and federal laws, such as screening students to identify English learners and providing teachers of English learners with relevant professional development opportunities.

Teachers and students are also grappling with the challenges of having English language learners in classrooms where there’s little support.

Sani Scott, a junior at Central High School, during the board meeting in January, said it’s tough to communicate with her bilingual classmates in her history class, and teachers are often stuck translating lessons and notes for students – “a process that takes up to at least 10 minutes of class time.”

Bilingual students “don’t get the proper education they deserve because they’re so busy trying to translate everything just to keep up with us,” Scott said. “That keeps them isolated and makes their social groups very small because of the language barrier.”

Yvette Jordan, chair of the Newark Education Workers Caucus, said at January’s board meeting that teachers aren’t getting enough support to help bilingual students. Teachers have to use their prep time to translate materials, which puts a strain on their time to plan lessons, Jordan said.

She read a statement from one of her Latina students who feels insecure because her classmates don’t understand her: “I don’t know if they are making fun of us, because they don’t understand me or my friends, and I feel bad.”

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Bilingual students miss out on advanced classes and gifted education. This teacher fights for change.

2024-01-30T20:24:49+00:00

Leer en español.

In second grade, Carlota Loya Hernández spent a lot of time coloring at her desk. She didn’t speak English and her teacher didn’t speak Spanish, so crayons and paper were her go-to activity at school in Colorado’s San Luis Valley.

By middle school, things had changed. Loya Hernández was taking advanced math and headed for even more advanced coursework in high school. Eventually, she earned her college degree and became a teacher in the Boulder Valley School District.

Today, she has a Ph.D. and is a champion for bilingual students, working to ensure they get the educational opportunities they deserve.

“The greatest problem in public schools is a lack of responsiveness to the brilliance and incredible talent evident in each and every child, especially bilingual and multilingual children,” she said.

Carlota Loya Hernández poses for a school photo.

Loya Hernández, who is a math and gifted and talented specialist at Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer, a dual language immersion school in Boulder Valley, was named the 2023 bilingual elementary teacher of the year by the Colorado Association of Bilingual Education. She talked to Chalkbeat about how she ensured 100% attendance for parent-teacher conferences, what she told the mother of a class clown, and why she worries about anti-immigrant sentiments.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Was there a moment when you decided to become a teacher?

As a middle and high school student, I was trained as a peer tutor because my fellow students would often come to me for help. In college, I tutored other students in math and science. I never planned to become a teacher and wanted to become an architectural engineer due to my love of both math and art. But it was my calling.

I dropped out of college due to financial hardship and a lack of knowledge about financial aid. I got a job as a restaurant manager and began my career with the Boulder Valley district as a native language tutor. I greatly enjoyed working with immigrant and refugee students who were often ignored or not supported in the mainstream classroom. This angered me and propelled me to go back to college and get a teaching degree.

How did your own experience in school influence your approach to teaching?

I remember my first day in second grade in Center Elementary School. We had just moved to the San Luis Valley from Silverton. I had bilingual support in kindergarten and first grade as I was new to the country, but in second grade it was sink or swim. My teacher did not understand me, and I did not understand her. She gave me crayons and let me color. I was happy as could be as I loved art.

By middle school, I was pulled for an advanced math class. I was in advanced language arts, math, and science in high school. As the child of farm workers with few resources at home, the school became a safe haven. I thrived in all my classes, except PE. The only C I received was in PE because I had to dress for class. My father did not allow me to wear shorts nor did I have the means to buy sweatpants.

Center High School opened the door to a world of opportunities and nominated me for the Spud Bowl Scholarship at Adams State College in Alamosa — now Adams State University. When I won the full-ride scholarship, it was the key to accessing higher education and a future full of possibilities. It became my ticket out of poverty.

Tell us about a favorite lesson to teach.

I love to develop lessons that really connect with students, impact their thinking, and help them understand important concepts. To teach important math concepts, such as fractions, decimals and percentages, I created a lesson using the book ”If the World Were a Village” by David J. Smith.

The focus was very mathematical, but students were able to analyze the data and come to their own conclusions. The lesson allowed my students to think beyond their own existence in their town, past borders, and to grapple with the grave inequities in educational access, medical care, basic living conditions, such as access to clean water, housing, and sewage, and to imagine the great poverty of so many that are literally starving to death. It allowed us to understand how grateful we should be for all we have in the U.S., how fortunate we are, and the great amount of opportunity we have.

What is the biggest challenge your bilingual students face?

The systems of oppression in all realms of students’ lives. Racist manifestations include dual-language programs tailored to white families. The majority of the students in our district who earn a Seal of Biliteracy, showing that they can read and write in both English and a non-English language, are not heritage speakers of the non-English language.

Bilingual students continue to be overrepresented in special education, discipline referrals, and alternative schools with technical tracks instead of pre-collegiate programs and AP/IB coursework. They are underrepresented in advanced coursework in all areas, including Spanish. [Often], they are not identified as gifted and talented.

These are the systems I fight against daily. In my three semesters at Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer, we have 25 students in advanced math just in fourth and fifth grades. There were only six students when I started at Pioneer. There are another 30-40 students in the younger grades who are in the pipeline for advanced math.

As a data nerd, I monitor students’ progress and identify students that have high ability, in both math and biliteracy (both languages). We are in our third year of the Boulder Universal Advanced Math Program which serves students in fourth and fifth grade.

Most district and school leaders do not focus on the high end of achievement. There is an urgency to work on the “gap,” but, that does little to improve a school. We must develop a mentality of talent development and advanced learning opportunities to raise the bar.

What unique strengths do you observe in your bilingual students?

Bilingual/multilingual students are above standard, although the fixation is that they are below grade level. They rise to a higher level of language and overall academic and social achievement. They are the future of our society as they are globally minded citizens and will be the caretakers of the planet. Bilingual/multilingual students have more social conscientiousness in respecting and valuing differences — whether it is cultural, linguistic, religious, spiritual, or otherwise.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.

My parents were never able to go to my school when I was a child as they worked all day in the lettuce or potato fields and arrived late from work. They had no medical care or benefits, so they could not afford to miss work. As a teacher, I made sure I stayed late and did home visits if necessary to connect with my students’ parents. I always aimed for and achieved 100% attendance at my conferences.

In my 30 years as an educator, I never saw a parent that did not care for their child. The idea that parents do not care, that they are ill-equipped to support their child, has cruel and racist underpinnings that contribute to the deficit perspective of students of color, especially immigrant and refugee populations. On the contrary, families have walked across the continent, fled danger and hunger in their home country, leaving everything and everyone behind so they can provide the best opportunity for their child’s future.

One time, I called a mom whose son was the class clown. He was a brilliant child who refused to do his work. He was disruptive to the class as he was always off-task and hilarious. The mom answered the phone with, “What did Mario do now?” She was on speaker phone and both Mario and the class heard her response. I could not help but chuckle a bit as I was calling to congratulate her on how well Mario had done on a test or activity. But that child was and is brilliant. I am sure he is a very successful and highly bilingual citizen contributing to society. He was not compliant at all times but he had incredible potential. It was as obvious as day to me; but not everyone is able to see beyond a student’s color, background, or behavior.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on in your classroom?

The anti-immigrant sentiment in this country, police killings of Latinx and Black people, the prison systems that keep parents from their children, the threat of social services, the lack of community resources such as basic housing, food, medical care, a living wage, and safety all impact our students. The election of a president — Donald Trump — with all of that hate in his speech and actions brought fear and anguish into bilingual schools.

Students were crying as teachers were in shock. I had to stay home that day as I could not deal with the reality of the election. This fear has returned in 2024 as the hate returns to impact every student of color and limit their humanity and threaten the well-being and safety of their families.

What are you reading for enjoyment?

“Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal” and “We Want to Do More than Survive,” both by Bettina L. Love. I have become very interested in this type of scholarship that addresses and exposes the root causes of educational and social inequities in schooling and society. This might be the focus for the next phase of my life; to teach the next generation the history of racism and oppression in the U.S. so they can contribute to changing society to be more equitable.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Meet Colorado’s ‘Oscars of Teaching’ winner

2024-01-12T23:27:04+00:00

Leer en español

Teacher Caleb Flores knew a top-secret assembly was planned at his northern Colorado high school. The principal wanted the building to look flawless and for students to be on their best behavior. Flores wondered if an important government official was visiting on that December day.

Turns out that the visiting dignitaries, speeches, and gym full of cheering students were for him. Flores, who teaches English language development and language arts at Greeley West High School, had won a Milken Educator Award — also known as the” Oscars of Teaching.” The award, which is for early and mid-career teachers, comes with a $25,000 cash prize.

“I was speechless,” said Flores, who was the only Colorado teacher to win the award this year. “The entire day was phenomenal and something that I will always treasure.”

Flores, who was raised in Greeley and attended college there, talked to Chalkbeat about how coaching youth football changed his career path, why he began incorporating music into his lessons, and how a student’s request for a letter of reference humbled him.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Was there a moment when you decided to become a teacher?

As a college student, I was a business marketing major at the University of Northern Colorado. Throughout my sophomore and junior years, I was a little league football coach with my college roommate. We had a blast getting to know the kids that we coached, and coaching was always the highlight of my week. I made the decision in my junior year to switch my major to English to pursue a career in teaching.

The moment that made me decide to pursue culturally and linguistically diverse teaching was after college. Since I switched majors as a junior, I could not graduate with a teaching license. I began my career in Greeley-Evans District 6 working as a migrant advocate. My job involved supporting migrant families and students, most of them English learners, to make it to graduation. I fell in love with the role and saw that population as the subject area that I wanted to teach. I then applied to be an English language development teacher at Greeley West and enrolled in an alternative licensure program to receive my teaching license while working my first year.

How did your own experience in school influence your approach to teaching?

My parents had me and my siblings when they were young, so they did not have the opportunity to pursue a college education until we were older. My dad received his degree when I was in high school, and my mom and I graduated college on the same day. My parents always told us that they expected us to attend college right after high school, so I took school very seriously growing up.

I was always a talkative student in class, but I was fortunate enough to have teachers who were patient with me and held me to a high standard. These high expectations were crucial to me as a student to be able to perform well enough to be able to receive a scholarship to attend college. My parents and teachers were able to change the trajectory of my and my siblings’ education. (Both of my siblings also graduated from college.) This is something that I know firsthand can influence my students. I hold my students to a high standard and communicate with their families often to encourage them to perform well enough in high school to, hopefully, have the chance to pursue post-secondary education.

Tell us about a favorite lesson to teach. Where did the idea come from?

As an English 9 teacher, we incorporate students’ culture within our lessons so that students can see themselves within our classroom and our instruction. The idea for my favorite lesson came from a 9th grade student curriculum advisory committee. They wanted to incorporate music within our poetry unit — specifically, music that represented them.

One of my favorite poems that we annotate is a Spanish song called “Corrido de Juanito” by Calibre 50. The song is a first-person narrative describing the perspective of an immigrant to the United States named Juanito. The song is entirely in Spanish (we don’t provide a translation at first), so it makes my Spanish-speaking students the experts for the lesson. After annotating the song, students dispersed into small groups to discuss what they interpreted from the song and the themes it presented. After discussions, students do a comparative analysis project based on a song of their own choice and the themes that it presents. We’ve had amazing conversations and projects that students created from this unit.

What are your go-to strategies for connecting with new students, whether they’re new to your building or new to the country?

When they enroll in my class, we begin with an enrollment meeting with the student and family. This is such a crucial step because it helps ease the family’s apprehensions about enrolling in a school in the U.S. We make sure that the students understand their schedule, provide them with any school supplies that they need, and give them and their families a tour of the school.

When students arrive in my language development class, I always introduce them and involve them in the collaborative classroom activity for the day to encourage them to get to know their new classmates. Allowing this time for students to cooperate has been so crucial to building a sense of community within my class.

As a mentor to new teachers, what advice do you share?

Teaching is not meant to be done in isolation; get to know the staff and community of your school and learn from the experts who have found success. That definitely helped me learn and grow when I first started.

I would also encourage new teachers to embrace the diverse student populations. For me, it was teaching language learners. They may not be the easiest students to educate. They come with gaps in their learning, emotional traumas, and many responsibilities outside of school. However, they are some of the most thoughtful, inspirational, and fulfilling students that I have had the pleasure of teaching. Learning how to properly educate language learners made me a better teacher.

Caleb Flores, a teacher at Greeley West High School and a recent recipient of the Milken Educator Award, center in the black robe, poses for a photo with students at their graduation.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.

One of the most memorable moments came from a student who was a part of my Language Development class. He had asked me if I would be willing to write a character reference letter for him. After calling his uncle, his legal guardian, I found out that the letter was to be presented to a judge because the student was facing an order for deportation. I knew that this was a pivotal moment for the student and his family, so we went and contacted several of his teachers to get letters of recommendation on his behalf. My wife and I attended court with him and saw firsthand the legal battles and additional barriers that my students face just to receive an education. My student was allowed to stay. It was a great moment. He is a junior now and is on track for graduation.

I was humbled that my student and his family trusted me to share what was going on, and it reminded me how important it is to be accessible to my students.

What was the biggest misconception that you brought to teaching?

My biggest misconception was about classroom management. I went into teaching thinking that one had to be stern, tough, and unkind to run an effective classroom. I came to find out that the opposite was true; most students did not respond to teachers who yelled. My style of classroom management is more around building relationships. I still hold students accountable and have high expectations for them, but when students misbehave or distract others, I can address it without embarrassing or disrespecting them.

What are you reading for enjoyment?

I just finished the book “Brown Enough” by Christopher Rivas. It’s a personal memoir and a social commentary about being brown in the U.S. and how to find one’s identity, sense of belonging, and place within it.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

What’s in a name? Students at NYC’s largest school for newcomer immigrants push for change

2023-12-05T18:48:01+00:00

The name of New York City’s largest public school for immigrant students succinctly describes who it serves: Newcomers High School.

The school, located near a cluster of newly opened homeless shelters in Long Island City, Queens, has lived up to its name, enrolling perhaps more migrant students over the past two school years than any other in the city. Its roster jumped from roughly 800 two years ago to more than 1,400 now, according to Education Department records.

Often, over the school’s 30-year history, the name has served as a badge of honor, especially when Newcomers won national recognition for its academic achievement. The school is one of about 20 across the city designed to provide more targeted support and help new arrivals acclimate to life in the U.S.

But as New York City grapples with political and economic tensions surrounding the ongoing influx of migrants, the school’s student government wants a name change.

“The brand ‘Newcomers’ does not identify us any more,” Brianna Segarra, a senior and the student government president, said at a recent meeting of the city’s Panel on Educational Policy. “We are hurt by it, by all the people in the U.S. who are against migration.”

The name, she worries, “puts a target on us.”

Changing the name of a New York City school isn’t easy. It involves securing the approval of the Parent Association and principal, soliciting public comment at a community education council meeting, and getting a final sign-off from the chancellor.

Students pushing the name change at Newcomers are still in the early stages. They haven’t come up with a replacement name and haven’t yet begun the process of gathering input from all kinds of people with a stake in the school, said teacher and student government adviser Aixa Rodriguez.

Principal Elizabeth Messmann, who couldn’t be reached for comment, said in an email to staffers on Monday that the School Leadership Team, a body composed of staff, parent and student leaders, has begun discussing “rebranding the school.”

There’s also likely to be pushback.

“The fear [is] that if we change the name, will it change the character of the school?” said Rodriguez. “Are we killing the legacy of the last 30 years?”

A sweatshirt design raises questions of belonging

Student government leaders say they began considering the idea of a name change while designing the annual school-branded sweatshirt.

Demand for the Newcomers hoodie was through the roof this year.

Many new arrivals lack winter gear, and were excited to add a warm item to their wardrobes, student leaders said.

But when the student government began gathering feedback on this year’s design, they heard the same thing again and again from peers.

New York City Public Schools Chancellor David C. Banks poses for a photograph with students from Newcomers High School.

“They said the name was really big. They said, ‘I don’t want the name ‘Newcomers’” featured so prominently,” said Lindsay Abad, a senior and student government secretary who hails from Ecuador. Students worried it would make them vulnerable to “suffering a hate crime or something like that.”

The influx of migrants that began in summer 2022 and has included roughly 30,000 students has spurred bursts of generosity as well as vitriol, with protests against new shelters springing up across the city.

Students are acutely aware of that charged political climate, said Rodriguez, the teacher who advises the student government. They’ve also confronted some of it head-on.

Students confided in staff that they’ve heard insulting comments on public transit, Rodriguez said. They’ve also heard them during sports games at other schools.

“They don’t want to be associated with something that feels negative. They want to belong,” Ridriguez said. “When they’re going on a train or a bus to a game, they don’t want that attention.”

Several students also said they were hurt by a New York Post article suggesting that swelling enrollment had forced students from a school that shares the building to relocate to another campus across the street.

An Education Department spokesperson denied that claim, but the story still stung, students said.

Many Newcomers students felt the implication was “we are here occupying a space that is not ours,” said Mary Barcarse, a senior and student government chairperson originally from the Philippines.

That’s not to say the enrollment boom hasn’t posed real challenges, said Rodriguez.

Class sizes have ballooned, while class rosters are constantly in flux as new students arrive and others leave due to transient housing situations, Rodriguez said. Many of the new students are carrying significant trauma while juggling competing responsibilities like a pressure to work or care for siblings, she added.

Students say they were steered to Newcomers

Some students said the discussion about the name “Newcomers” has pushed them to reconsider a more fundamental question about educating immigrant students: whether they should be enrolled in separate schools in the first place.

The student government leaders who spoke to Chalkbeat said they didn’t feel like they had much choice about where to enroll and were pushed towards Newcomers.

“They said, ‘You’re from Ecuador, you go to Newcomers,’” Abad recounted.

There can be advantages to attending a school populated exclusively by immigrant students: classmates who can relate to your experiences, teachers who are seasoned in supporting language development, and a climate that’s inclusive and welcoming, students and staff said.

But there are also drawbacks. With fewer native English speakers, students at Newcomers said they feel like they’re missing out on critical chances to improve their English. And because the school focuses so many of its resources on language support, some students felt it offered fewer options for acceleration, electives, and specialized tracks than other high schools.

Regardless of which model works best, students said they wished they’d gotten more choice in where they enrolled. They worry that many of the new arrivals are getting funneled into a similarly narrow range of schools.

The name “Newcomers,” they argue, reinforces the idea that immigrant students only belong in one type of school, and that only one type of student belongs at schools like Newcomers.

Students also said the name doesn’t feel entirely accurate. At least 50 members of the school’s senior class were born in the U.S. and are citizens, but recently returned to the country after time abroad, according to Rodriguez.

“They feel it labels them,” she said, “in a way that doesn’t reflect every single person who walks in this door.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

As shelter limit for migrant families nears, NYC schools try to prepare

2023-11-29T23:37:59+00:00

New York City schools have started preparing for a massive reshuffling of students as early as next month, as thousands of migrant families face a new limit on shelter stays, education officials said during a Wednesday city council hearing.

Approximately 2,700 families have received notices since Oct. 27 that they’ll either have to reapply for shelter or find alternative housing within 60 days, according to a City Hall spokesperson. That means families will have to leave their shelters as early as Dec. 27. For families who do reapply for shelter, there’s no guarantee they’ll end up in the same site, or even the same borough.

Mayor Eric Adams has argued that the limits are necessary to relieve severe overcrowding in the city’s shelter amid an unprecedented and ongoing influx of migrants, many of whom are seeking asylum. Case workers will help families figure out next steps, according to city officials.

But educators and advocates have sounded the alarm for months that the policy could have devastating educational consequences.

Preparations are underway to try to minimize the disruptions and inform families of their rights, especially in Manhattan where the shelters are concentrated, Education Department officials said on Wednesday.

“What we’ve started to do is look very closely at where those students are located, engage principals, engage superintendents,” said Flavia Puello-Perdomo, an Education Department official who oversees students in temporary housing. “While we can’t fully control all the implications of the 60-day rules … as much as possible we’ll ensure every family is aware they have the right to stay in their schools.”

Federal law requires school districts to provide transportation for homeless students so they can remain in their schools. The city Education Department offers school buses for homeless students in kindergarten to sixth grade, and MetroCards for older kids. But arranging that transportation can take a long time, and the city’s sprawling school bus system is notoriously unreliable, according to advocates and educators.

Many families may opt to transfer rather than enduring that uncertainty and a potentially grueling commute.

One Manhattan school is getting ready to call all of its migrant families to ask if they’ve received the notices and walk them through their options, according to the principal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

But the principal said no amount of preparation will prevent the massive disruptions ahead.

“It’s going to be like musical shelters,” the principal said. “All these kids who we’ve spent the last 10 months building relationships with … we’re going to break that bond.”

Schools brace for logistical challenges

During Wednesday’s council hearing on immigrant students, Education Department officials offered a glimpse at the huge logistical challenges schools and families are facing as the 60-day deadlines hit.

The first task will be figuring out which families have even received the notices and where they are headed.

Staffers who work with the newly-arrived families said it’s possible some will leave the city or find their own apartments, but others will have no option other than reapplying for shelter.

“I’ve visited the shelter near me,” said the Manhattan principal. “My assumption is that if they had a better option, they would’ve already used it.”

The Education Department doesn’t have a data-sharing agreement with Health + Hospitals, the agency that administers many of the newly-created Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers, or HERRCs, where migrants are residing. That means schools won’t get automatic updates when children transfer from one shelter to another, officials said.

It could fall largely to schools to track down families to figure out if they’ve received a 60-day notice, where they’re moving, and whether they’ll need transportation – an especially daunting challenge given many of the newly-arrived families still may not have reliable phones.

The Education Department employs roughly 100 community coordinators who work directly with families in shelters – but that’s far short of the more than 360 shelters now operating across the city, according to an Education Department official.

Delays in figuring out where families have transferred will lead to delays in arranging transportation or finding new school placements.

Families face long commutes, school transfers

Even if the communication between schools and families is seamless, families who have to leave their shelters will face the tough decision of enduring a longer commute or transferring schools.

The Manhattan principal said several families have already switched shelters, and opted to remain at the school – but their attendance has suffered.

Schools across the city are already struggling with elevated rates of chronic absenteeism and the problem is even more severe for students in shelters, over 70% of whom were chronically absent last school year. The reshuffling from the 60-day notices will likely make that worse, the principal argued.

Transportation is especially challenging from the newly-opened shelter at Floyd Bennett, a former airfield in southern Brooklyn. The emergency shelter, which officials say can accommodate 500 families, has drawn fierce criticism from advocates who say it’s inappropriate for children, and some families have refused to stay there.

Education Department officials said on Monday that roughly 195 children staying at the shelter have registered for school. But Glenn Risbrook, the Education Department’s senior executive director for student transportation, acknowledged it’s in a “transportation desert” and said the agency has arranged for a coach bus to connect families to public transportation so they can get to school.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Estos estudiantes tuvieron más retrasos académicos durante COVID. ¿Cómo están respondiendo las escuelas en Colorado?

2023-11-08T19:00:00+00:00

Read in English.

Los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés quizás hayan enfrentado mayores obstáculos durante la pandemia y necesitan apoyo adicional, según dicen expertos y defensores en el campo de la educación.

Los resultados de las pruebas estatales en 2023 muestran que los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés se encuentran más rezagados en comparación con otros grupos de estudiantes que sus pares en 2019, y están teniendo más dificultades para retomar el camino. Tuvieron la reducción más grande en sus habilidades en las principales pruebas estatales de artes del idioma inglés y matemáticas y también mostraron menor crecimiento que sus pares en 2019.

Los resultados de las pruebas no son la única señal de alarma. El 40 por ciento de los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés faltaron tanto a la escuela el año pasado que se los identificó como ausentes crónicos, comparado con solo un tercio de otros estudiantes de Colorado.

Se han establecido dos métodos notables para ayudar a los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés con su desempeño académico a raíz de COVID.

Un puñado de distritos escolares observaron a sus estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés avanzar más del promedio, o demostrar un mayor crecimiento que el resto de los estudiantes. Líderes en esos distritos dijeron que priorizaron la enseñanza conjunta en lugar de sacar a los estudiantes de clases generales para recibir enseñanza específica sobre el desarrollo del idioma inglés. Por lo menos un distrito usó fondos federales por COVID para proporcionarles servicios de tutoría a esos estudiantes.

Pero algunos otros distritos dicen que no han asignado recursos ni estrategias específicas para ayudar a los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés. De hecho, sin importar datos recientes y lo que los analistas del estado digan sobre el tema, niegan que la pandemia haya afectado desproporcionadamente a estos estudiantes. Dicen que la composición demográfica de los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés ha cambiado y ahora incluye a más estudiantes recién llegados al país.

“Hay distritos que no parecen estar muy preocupados con los estudiantes bilingües emergentes”, dijo Cynthia Trinidad-Sheahan, presidenta de la Asociación de Educación Bilingüe de Colorado.

Representantes del estado en el campo de la educación dicen que no pueden darles más dinero a los distritos para ayudarlos con los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés a menos que los legisladores autoricen más gastos o nuevos programas. “Eso lo deberá contestar la Asamblea General”, dijo Floyd Cobb, comisionado de la Asociación de Educación de Colorado, al preguntarle cómo la agencia espera cerrar la brecha entre los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés y estudiantes[AC1] que hablan inglés como primer idioma.

La mayoría de los datos sobre calificaciones de pruebas muestran una tendencia negativa

Cuando las escuelas implementaron la enseñanza virtual al principio de la pandemia, algunas escuelas enfrentaron dificultades para ofrecer apoyo con el desarrollo del idioma inglés. Los estudiantes no tenían un entorno para practicar su nuevo idioma, y en sus hogares muchas familias no podían apoyarlos con el aprendizaje virtual. Y cuando las escuelas regresaron a la enseñanza presencial, algunas familias de estudiantes que estaban aprendiendo inglés titubearon más que otras familias para enviar nuevamente a sus hijos de inmediato al salón de clases.

Las desigualdades en las calificaciones de las pruebas entre los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés y quienes hablan inglés como primer idioma no son nuevas. Una razón es que la gran mayoría de los estudiantes del inglés están tomando pruebas en inglés antes de entender totalmente el idioma. Una cantidad limitada de estudiantes puede tomar pruebas de artes del idioma en español, pero esos resultados también reflejan calificaciones mucho más bajas que los estudiantes en 2019, mientras que los que hablan inglés como primer idioma en los mismos niveles de grado casi ya se recuperaron.

Las calificaciones de este año en la prueba ACCESS, la cual evalúa la habilidad de los estudiantes para dominar el idioma inglés, muestran que una porción más pequeña de estudiantes lo dominan en 2023 comparado con 2019. Y hace cuatro años, el 9.4 por ciento de estudiantes de primer grado obtuvieron una calificación de nivel 1, el nivel más bajo. Pero en 2023, casi un cuarto de los estudiantes de primer grado obtuvieron el nivel más bajo.

Cuando el estado publicó las calificaciones de CMAS en agosto, los representantes estatales dijeron que la mayoría de los grupos de estudiantes históricamente desventajados había regresado a los niveles de crecimiento prepandemia, excepto los estudiantes multilingües en la materia de artes del idioma inglés. Dijeron que sin acelerar su aprendizaje, esos estudiantes “continuarán retrasándose aún más”.

“Creo que tenemos una cantidad creíble de evidencia para poder decir que nuestros estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés se vieron afectados por COVID—y afectados desproporcionadamente”, dijo Joyce Zurkowski, directora ejecutiva de evaluaciones en el Departamento de Educación de Colorado.

Algunos distritos minimizan las tendencias negativas de los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés

A pesar de lo que los datos significan para personas como Zurkwoski, los líderes de algunos distritos piensan que los datos de los estudiantes que estaban aprendiendo inglés en 2019 no son comparables con los datos de estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés en 2023 debido a recientes llegadas de inmigrantes de Afganistán, Ucrania y América del Sur, quienes han cambiado la composición demográfica de esos grupos.

Representantes del estado dicen que aunque eso ha afectado a muchos distritos, las cantidades de recién llegados no son suficientes como para explicar todas las reducciones en los datos de logros.

En Cherry Creek, líderes del distrito dicen que están monitoreando cuántos estudiantes están logrando dominar el inglés. En Colorado, para que un estudiante deje de ser identificado como estudiante del inglés, los maestros usan datos de las calificaciones de ACCESS y pruebas estatales. Pero también pueden usar sus propias observaciones y datos internos para probar que un estudiante ya no necesita ciertas clases y servicios en inglés.

Holly Porter, directora de apoyos para el idioma en Cherry Creek, dijo que usualmente alrededor del 85 por ciento de los estudiantes se consideran como competentes en el idioma inglés a tres años de haber ingresado al distrito, y el 95 por ciento alcanza esa designación en cinco años.

Aunque las cantidades más recientes todavía no están disponibles, Porter dijo que la tendencia se ha mantenido constante.

Porter también dijo que los estudiantes que dejan de recibir servicios para el inglés siguen desempeñándose bien en la escuela y muestran un crecimiento por arriba del promedio en pruebas estatales, lo cual confirma los avances.

“Encontramos que muchos estudiantes estaban rezagados, no solo los estudiantes multilingües”, dijo.

En el distrito escolar de Harrison en Colorado Springs, Rachel Laufer, asistente del superintendente de enseñanza y aprendizaje, dijo que los desafíos que surgen con estudiantes recién llegados es que “las escuelas están trabajando para apoyar no solo las necesidades del lenguaje y académicas de las familias, sino también los otros obstáculos que existen para las familias que acaban de llegar al país”. Las familias necesitan ayuda con el transporte, la vivienda y otras cosas para que los estudiantes puedan ir a la escuela a aprender, dijo.

Aunque no les preocupan los datos, los líderes del distrito de Harrison dijeron que han realizado algunos cambios en cómo ayudan a los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés y a los recién llegados en particular.

En los últimos años, el distrito ha intentado aumentar el personal para asegurar que haya por lo menos un maestro certificado para trabajar con estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés en cada escuela, en lugar de tener que dividir su tiempo en diferentes escuelas. El distrito también está probando lentamente la enseñanza conjunta.

Laufer dijo que Harrison priorizó que los estudiantes del inglés y con discapacidades regresaran al aprendizaje presencial. Pero cuando el distrito usó el aprendizaje híbrido y los padres pudieron decidir si enviar o no a sus hijos a la escuela, fue más probable que los estudiantes que estaban aprendiendo inglés se quedaran en casa.

“Fue una mayor preocupación para ellos”, Laufer dijo. “Creo que podrías conectar eso con algunos de los datos”.

Aumentando el entusiasmo entre los maestros para ayudar a los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés

Hay algunos distritos en Colorado donde algunos de los datos entre los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés son más positivos.

En Pueblo 60, por ejemplo, la calificación del crecimiento este año en la prueba de CMAS en artes del idioma de los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés ahora es más alta que para los estudiantes que hablan inglés como primer idioma. En el distrito escolar 3J del Condado de Weld, la calificación del crecimiento en matemáticas mejoró entre 2019 y 2023.

La mejora no es uniforme en los distritos. En 3J, por ejemplo, a pesar de mejoras significativas en el crecimiento de las pruebas de matemáticas de CMS, el crecimiento en la prueba de ACCESS disminuyó.

Mientras tanto, los estudiantes de Adams 14 mostraron un crecimiento significativo en las pruebas ACCESS para ver si dominan el inglés—el crecimiento más alto entre distritos grandes—pero no mostraron mejoras en otras pruebas estatales.

En Pueblo, los líderes del distrito dijeron que ya estaban trabajando para renovar la educación de los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés antes de la pandemia.

La high school abrió un centro para estudiantes recién llegados hace siete años. En los últimos cinco años, el distrito ha trabajado en su filosofía de enseñanza y en que la enseñanza concuerde con los estándares de contenido.

Tanto Pueblo como 3J también han trabajado para reducir la cantidad de tiempo que a los estudiantes los sacan del salón de clases para recibir enseñanza sobre el idioma inglés, una estrategia que también se está usando en otros distritos como Harrison y Boulder donde los datos son menos positivos.

En escuelas primarias de Pueblo 60, la enseñanza donde se saca a los estudiantes del salón general ya no ocurre durante matemáticas ni lectura. En la escuela media, los maestros van a las clases de los estudiantes en lugar de sacarlos.

Ese fue un cambio que los maestros mismos sugirieron.

“Realmente estaban en sintonía con lo que sus estudiantes necesitaban así que aceptamos su sugerencia y dijimos: ‘bueno, intentemos eso y veamos si marca una diferencia’”, dijo Lisa Casarez, la especialista en adquisición del idioma inglés del distrito escolar de Pueblo. Ahora, en las escuelas de educación media, piensa que eso ha sucedido.

Los datos del estado muestran que los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés en las escuelas medias de Pueblo 60 obtuvieron calificaciones más altas de crecimiento en las pruebas de CMAS sobre las artes del idioma que los estudiantes en escuelas primarias y sus pares que ya dominan el inglés en escuelas de educación media.

Tanto en 3J como en Pueblo, líderes dijeron que han observado más entusiasmo entre todos los maestros para aprender cómo ayudar a los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés.

El departamento de educación del estado ahora obliga que todos los maestros reciban capacitación en Educación Cultural y Lingüísticamente Diversa cuando renuevan sus licencias. Eso significa que aprender cómo ayudar a esos estudiantes ya no es responsabilidad de unos pocos educadores con licencias especiales.

“Hemos observado mucho interés entre los maestros de educación general para apoyar a los estudiantes multilingües”, dijo Jenny Wakeman, asistente del superintendente en 3J. “Eso es algo que han hecho naturalmente”.

También ayudaron fondos adicionales. Wakeman dijo que su distrito usó algunos fondos federales por la pandemia para proporcionar intervenciones adicionales, incluida más tutoría, específicamente para estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés.

Mientras tanto, dijo que los maestros ahora están haciendo sus propios estudios de libros para aprender aún más sobre cómo ayudar a los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés. Ese es el tipo de actitud que Zurkowski con el departamento de educación de Colorado dice que se necesita para ayudar a esos estudiantes a ponerse a la par.

“Sabemos que esas brechas eran grandes antes de la pandemia, [y] son grandes después de la pandemia”, Zurkowski dijo. “Justifican esfuerzos intensivos de intervención”.

Test scores say COVID was especially rough on English learners. Not all school districts agree.

2023-11-08T19:00:00+00:00

Leer en español.

English learners might have been hit especially hard during the pandemic and need extra targeted support, experts and advocates say. But some school district leaders aren’t yet concerned about the data.

Results from 2023 state tests show English learners are further behind their peers from 2019 compared with other student groups, and they’re struggling more to get back on track.

On the main state tests in English language arts and math, the biggest falloff in proficiency between 2019 and this year is for English learners. They also showed less growth. Of those taking the SAT and PSAT for example, only students with disabilities showed less growth.

Helping English learners recover from the pandemic has been a complex problem nationwide. And test scores aren’t the only warning sign about how English learners in Colorado schools are faring: While nearly a third of Colorado students were chronically absent last year, for example, 40% of English learners missed enough school to get that label. In Colorado, English learners make up 12% of all K-12 students. Some districts have much higher concentrations than others.

There have been two notable approaches to English learners in COVID’s wake when it comes to academics.

A handful of school districts where English learners made up more ground than the average, or had better growth than non-English learners, said they prioritized co-teaching instead of pulling students out of mainstream classes to receive specific instruction on English language development. At least one district used federal COVID aid to give those students tutoring. And some district leaders also said they’ve noticed more teachers are now interested in learning strategies that specifically help English learners.

But in other districts, leaders say they haven’t devoted specific resources or strategies to help English learners. In fact, regardless of recent data and what state analysts say about it, they deny that the pandemic had an outsized impact on these students. They point to the changing makeup of English learners, among other factors.

“There are districts that don’t seem to be very concerned with emerging bilingual students,” said Cynthia Trinidad-Sheahan, president of the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education,

Whether these students get extra resources and support could depend on Colorado politics. After the Colorado Department of Education published the Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) scores in August, Associate Commissioner Floyd Cobb answered a question about how the agency would help close the gap between English learners and their peers by saying: “That’ll need to be answered by the General Assembly.”

Most test score data shows negative trend

When schools instituted remote learning at the start of the pandemic, some schools struggled to keep offering English language development. Students didn’t have an environment in which to practice their new language, and at home many of their families struggled to support them in accessing remote learning. And when schools resumed in-person instruction, some families of English learners were more reluctant than others to immediately send their children back to classrooms.

Test score disparities between English learners and native English speakers aren’t new. One reason is that the vast majority of English learners are testing in English before they have a full grasp of the language.

A limited number of students can take the test in Spanish for a couple of years. But results show those students did much worse than their 2019 counterparts, while native English speakers in the same grade levels have nearly recovered.

This year’s scores on the ACCESS test, which measures students’ English fluency, show that a smaller share of students are proficient in 2023 than in 2019. And four years ago, 9.4% of first graders scored at a level 1, the lowest level. But in 2023, 23.3% of first graders scored at the lowest level.

In some cases, the decline in the share of English learners achieving proficiency is just a handful of percentage points. But that doesn’t necessarily capture the pandemic’s impact.

For example, out of every 100 English learners in the fourth grade who took the CMAS language arts test for reading and writing, roughly eight met expectations, down from about 12 out of 100 in 2019. For every 100 students who aren’t English learners, about 49 met expectations this year, where 54 out of 100 met expectations in 2019.

Both groups’ proficiency rates dropped by around four to five percentage points. But four fewer English learners achieving proficiency means their share of who met expectations has dropped by roughly a third — far more proportionally than the decline for non-English learners.

Separately, CMAS growth scores, in which students’ performance is compared to peers who performed similarly in the past, also show English learners aren’t making the same growth as other student groups now, or as English learners did in the past. Students who are behind need a growth score above 50, on a scale of 0-100, to catch up.

When the state released CMAS scores in August, state officials said that groups of historically disadvantaged students were back to growth levels from before the pandemic, except for multilingual learners on English language arts. They said that without accelerating their learning, those students “will continue to fall further behind.”

“I believe we have a credible amount of evidence to be able to say that our English learners were impacted by COVID — and impacted disproportionately,” said Joyce Zurkowski, chief assessment officer for the Colorado Department of Education.

Some districts downplay negative trends for English learners

Despite what the data tells people like Zurkwoski, some district leaders think that the data for English learners in 2019 isn’t comparable to data for English learners in 2023 because of the recent waves of immigrants from Afghanistan, Ukraine, and South America, changing the demographics and make up of those groups.

State officials say that while that has impacted many districts, the numbers of new arrivals aren’t enough to completely account for all of the drops in achievement data.

District leaders have had access to state test data for months but have focused on different data points.

In Cherry Creek, district leaders say they’re monitoring how many students are becoming proficient in English. In Colorado, to move a student out of the English learner designation, teachers use ACCESS scores and state test score data. But they can also use their own observations and internal data to make the case that a student no longer requires specific English classes and services.

Holly Porter, director of language supports for Cherry Creek, said that typically about 85% of students are deemed English proficient within three years of entering the district, and 95% reach that status within five years.

Although the most recent numbers aren’t available yet, Porter said that trend has remained consistent.

When she looks at CMAS scores and other state data, Porter points out that participation dropped, including among English learners. One reason is that in 2018, the federal government asked states to allow some newcomer students to not take state language arts tests for the first year they’re enrolled.

These students tended to show very high growth because they were starting from a point of knowing no English. Porter said excluding these students made data for English learners look worse.

But that change was already in effect before the pandemic struck.

Still, for Porter, when comparing the pre-pandemic environment to what followed, she says “it’s just not the same kids, not the same data, not the same experiences. For me there’s too many variables there to say this is a definite issue until I can look at it for a couple years out of COVID.”

From 2019 to 2023, the growth score of Cherry Creek’s English learners fell from 48 to 45. Growth scores for non-English learners went up from 46 to 50 over the same time span.

Porter said, however, that growth scores for students who have reached English proficiency have held steady at 53. Students remain monitored as former English learners for two years after they stop receiving language services. Seeing that these students do well on state tests, and that the percentage of students exiting services is still high, Porter said, is additional reassurance that students are getting the English instruction they need to do well in school after they stop getting services.

Porter said the district isn’t necessarily doing anything to target the recovery of English learners, though 350 newcomer students are getting tutoring through a grant.

“We found that a lot of students were behind, not just multilingual learners,” she said.

In the Harrison school district, leaders also are slightly skeptical about comparing this year’s data with pre-pandemic scores. English learners in Harrison showed above average growth on ACCESS tests in 2019, with a score of 61, but that dropped rapidly to 51 in 2023. On CMAS language arts and math tests, student growth scores showed that English learners made less progress than other students.

While Cherry Creek attributes lower scores to excluding data from newcomer students, leaders in Harrison say a large influx of newcomers has contributed to lower scores. Both say the population of students has changed from from 2019 to 2023.

District leaders say that’s because starting in January 2021, they saw a dramatic increase in the number of refugees from Afghanistan, Guatemala, and Honduras who aren’t native English speakers.

Rachel Laufer, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, said the challenges that come with more newcomers is that “schools are working to support not only the language and academic needs of families, but also the other barriers that exist for families that are new to the county.” That includes helping with transportation, housing, and other resources.

While they aren’t worried about the data, Harrison district leaders said they have made some changes to how they help English learners and newcomers in particular.

In the last few years, the district has tried to increase staffing to ensure there is at least one licensed teacher working with English learners at each school, instead of having to have them split their time across sites. The district is also slowly trying more co-teaching.

Laufer said Harrison prioritized bringing back groups like English learners and students with disabilities to in-person classes. But when the district used hybrid learning and parents could decide whether to send their children to school, English learners were more likely to stay home.

“It was a bigger concern for them,” Laufer said. “I think you could connect that to some of the data.”

Getting teachers enthusiastic about helping English learners

There are a few Colorado districts where some of the data was more positive for English learners.

In Pueblo 60, for example, the growth score this year for English learners on the CMAS language arts test is now higher than it is for non-English learners. In Weld County 3J, their growth score in math improved from 2019 to 2023.

The improvement isn’t uniform within districts. In 3J, for example, despite the significant growth improvements on CMAS math tests, growth scores for ACCESS tests dropped from 56 in 2019 to 41.5 in 2023.

Adams 14 students, meanwhile, showed significant growth on ACCESS tests for English fluency — the highest among large districts — but they didn’t show improvement on other state tests.

In Pueblo, district leaders said that they were working on revamping education for English learners even before the pandemic.

The high school opened a center for newcomer students seven years ago. For the last five years, the district has worked on its philosophy of teaching and on aligning instruction to content standards.

Both Pueblo and 3J have also worked to reduce the extent to which students are pulled out of classes to receive English language instruction, a strategy also happening in other districts like Harrison and Boulder where the data is less positive.

In Pueblo 60 elementary schools, pull-out instruction no longer occurs during math or reading classes. In middle school, teachers are going into students’ classes instead of pulling them out.

That was a change suggested by teachers themselves.

“They really were in tune with what their students needed and so we took a cue from them and said ‘well lets go ahead and try that and see if that made a difference,’” said Lisa Casarez, Pueblo’s English language acquisition specialist. Now, for the middle schools, she thinks it has.

State data show English learners in Pueblo 60 middle schools had higher growth scores on language arts CMAS tests than elementary students or non-English learner middle school peers.

In both 3J and Pueblo, leaders said they’ve seen more enthusiasm from all teachers to learn how to help their English learners.

3J leaders traced that shift to a few years ago when the district rolled out state-mandated rules requiring many teachers to receive training in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education when they renewed their licenses.

That meant that learning how to help these students didn’t just fall to the dedicated staff member licensed to work with English learners.

“We’ve seen a lot of interest from general education teachers to support multilingual learners,” said Jenny Wakeman, assistant superintendent for 3J. “That’s something they’ve done naturally.”

Additional funding also helped. Wakeman said her district used some federal pandemic aid — known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER — to provide additional interventions specifically for English learners, including before- and after-school tutoring.

In the meantime, she said teachers started a book club to learn even more about how to help students who are learning English. That’s the kind of attitude that Zurkowski of the Colorado education department says is necessary to help those students catch up.

“We know that those gaps were large pre-pandemic, they are large post-pandemic,” Zurkowski said. “They warrant intensive intervention efforts.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Influx of asylum seekers pushes NYC’s homeless student population to record high

2023-11-01T10:00:00+00:00

The number of homeless students attending New York City schools reached a record high last year after thousands of asylum-seeking families entered the city’s shelter system, a new analysis shows.

Roughly 1 in 9 students were living in shelters, “doubled up” with relatives or friends, or otherwise without permanent housing at some point in the school year, according to state data compiled by Advocates for Children, a group that supports the city’s most vulnerable students.

The city’s population of homeless students was astronomical even before the recent influx, with the number of kids lacking permanent housing exceeding 100,000 for each of the past eight years – a stark indication of the city’s ongoing housing crisis.

But the sudden arrival of thousands of families fleeing dire conditions in Latin America and other parts of the world pushed the figure to nearly 120,000 last school year — a 14% increase over the previous school year. It’s an all-time high, even as the city’s overall student enrollment has plummeted, according to Advocates for Children, which has been crunching this number annually for more than a decade.

The number is likely to be even higher by the end of this school year. Roughly 12,500 new students in temporary housing have enrolled in city schools since July, according to an Education Department spokesperson.

“Our young people experiencing homelessness are some of our most vulnerable students, and it is our on-going priority to provide them with every support and resource at our disposal,” spokesperson Jenna Lyle said in a statement.

The increase has profound implications for city schools.

Homeless students face significant educational roadblocks, from the added logistical challenges of getting to school from distant shelters to the trauma that comes with losing permanent housing.

An astounding 72% of students living in homeless shelters were marked chronically absent last year — meaning they missed at least 18 days of school, according to data compiled by Advocates for Children. For all students in temporary housing, including those living doubled up, the rate was 54%, and for kids in permanent housing, it was 39%.

Students living in shelters were also more than four times as likely as kids with permanent housing to transfer schools last year, and less than half as likely to score proficient on state reading exams, according to the data.

Advocates fear the number of school transfers will spike even higher this year due to a new city rule that requires families in some shelters to exit the system every 60 days and either find alternative housing or re-apply for shelter. Families that re-apply would have no guarantee of ending up in the same shelter or even the same borough.

Mayor Eric Adams said the new policy is necessary to relieve severe overcrowding in shelters and free up space for new arrivals. He promised the city would work to ensure that students don’t have to transfer schools whenever possible.

Students who end up in homeless shelters far from their schools are entitled under federal law to transportation so they don’t have to transfer, but given the difficulty of coordinating the rides and the stress of the long commutes on families, that often amounts to “a right in name only,” said Jennifer Pringle, the director of Advocates for Children’s Learners in Temporary Housing project.

An Education Department spokesperson said district superintendents will ensure that transportation requests from homeless students are prioritized.

Schools go all out to help homeless students

Schools often devote considerable resources to supporting families in temporary housing with everything from transportation to basic needs like laundry.

At VOICE charter school in Long Island City, Queens, a sudden explosion of enrollment of students in shelters transformed educators’ approach to working with families.

Historically, the K-8 school enrolled no more than 20 homeless students in a year, said Principal Franklin Headley. But last year, given the school’s proximity to a cluster of recently converted shelters housing asylum-seeking families and an effective outreach strategy, the school enrolled hundreds of newly arrived families. It now serves roughly 270 students in temporary housing, Headley said.

The school’s 15-person operations team pivoted to focus almost exclusively on supporting the newly arrived families, fanning out to shelters to survey families’ needs and establish relationships with shelter staff, said Director of Operations Karina Chalas.

That work yielded several new school initiatives, including an after-school program to help parents who needed child care (because of shelter rules prohibiting them from leaving kids alone) and a laundry room for families without washers and dryers in their shelters.

Staff worked hard to keep attendance tabs on the new arrivals, even as families moved to new cities and states or transferred to shelters in other parts of the city. The school helped arrange bus or train transportation when possible for families who moved to different neighborhoods so kids didn’t have to transfer schools.

“They built a community here already,” Chalas said. “We try as hard as we can to give them any option of ‘here’s what we can do.’ After a while, if it becomes too much, we know as a school we tried everything we can do.”

Budget woes could unleash more instability for homeless students

All that support requires additional resources and expertise – and advocates say the city is still not providing enough help.

A city Education Department initiative last year that hired 100 new staffers, called community coordinators, to work directly in shelters to support families with educational needs is funded by one-time federal pandemic aid that expires at the end of this year.

Meanwhile, a plan to hire an additional 12 staffers this year to support homeless students is on hold because of a hiring freeze related to city budget cuts, advocates said.

“Losing the shelter-based Community Coordinators would almost certainly increase the already sky-high rates of chronic absenteeism and make it even more difficult for students in shelter to succeed in school,” said Kim Sweet, the executive director of Advocates for Children, said in a statement.

City officials have rolled out some new investments, including revamping the Education Department’s school funding formula to give extra dollars to schools for every student in temporary housing. The Education Department also employs 100 school-based social workers devoted to supporting homeless students.

Lyle, the Department spokesperson, said the agency plans to “work with our partners at the city and state levels to identify and establish supports for our students in temporary housing, while contending with the city’s financial reality.”

Staffers at schools serving large numbers of asylum-seekers remain worried about how the new 60-day shelter rules will affect their families. Chalas, the staffer at the Queens charter school, said she’s heard many families at her school talking about cramming into shared apartments together rather than re-enter the shelter system.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Amid Chicago’s migrant influx, one school is trying to help newcomer students navigate trauma

2023-10-27T19:24:21+00:00

An hour before dismissal on a recent Friday afternoon, eight Brighton Park Elementary School students huddled in a classroom with Jennifer Moorhouse, a teacher who works with English language learners.

They were there for a voluntary, biweekly support group run by Moorhouse and Stephanie Carrillo, a school counselor, for students grappling with the upheaval of immigration and the adjustment to a new country, new city, and new school.

She asked the children — a mix of sixth through eighth graders who had recently arrived in Chicago as part of an influx of migrant families — to share the best and worst part of their week.

One boy said the best thing was that his family had moved to a new house. Another child looked up, her hair slightly covering her face. She shrugged her shoulders and struggled to come up with a worst moment.

That’s OK, Moorhouse said in Spanish, she doesn’t have to have a low point.

The girl then added, “No mejor,” meaning there was no high point either. After a moment of silence, the whole group burst into laughter.

These students, who arrived in Chicago between last year and this year, are among the more than 20,000 newly arrived migrants in Chicago since last August, with many fleeing from Central, South American and African countries experiencing political and economic turmoil, according to city officials.

Chicago Public Schools does not track immigration status and has not shared how many migrant students have enrolled in schools. But the district has pointed to clues of an increase, including 7,800 more English learners enrolled this school year, compared to an annual average increase of 3,000 such students.

As of mid-September, 2,250 migrant children were housed in the city’s shelters, according to records from the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications that were obtained by Chalkbeat.

Educators have raised concerns that many Chicago schools don’t have the resources, such as staff, to provide new migrants with the right language instruction, recently pleading with the state to send more help.

But there are also questions about whether newcomers have the social-emotional support they need at school. These students have potentially endured dangerous journeys to the United States, on top of the stress of leaving their homes behind for shelters or other temporary living arrangements in a foreign place.

That latter concern led Moorhouse to launch the support group at Brighton Park last year after she met a migrant student who was showing signs of trauma. The student, whom Moorhouse met in January, didn’t want to be in school and sometimes, the student’s body would shake uncontrollably, she said.

At one of the sessions Moorhouse held, the student shared a personal story about his journey to the United States. Afterward, Moorhouse recalled, the student said: “My chest isn’t hurting. I can breathe.” Moorhouse felt it was a sign of healing.

In some ways, Brighton Park is well-positioned to host this support group. As a community school, it partners with a nonprofit organization to provide wraparound services for its students. Carrillo, the school counselor who helps Moorhouse with the support group, works with the school on behalf of its partner nonprofit, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council. Brighton Park Elementary’s community schools funding also helped to pay for the training on the model that the support group is based on, according to Cecilia Mendoza, the school’s assistant principal.

The model is known as STRONG, or Supporting Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups, which focuses on teaching children how to understand and cope with their stress before they’re invited to share more personal details about their journey to the United States, if they choose.

It’s unclear how many schools have specific support groups for migrant students like the one at Brighton Park. About $35 million of the district’s budget this year was allocated for social-emotional curriculum, behavioral health supports for students, and additional social workers and counselors, according to a district spokesperson.

This year, Moorhouse and Carrillo are starting with the basics.

On that recent Friday afternoon, in the classroom where Moorhouse gathered with eight of her students, bright orange and blue strips of paper on the dry erase board described concepts of melting and freezing in English and Spanish: “Que le pasa al chocolate que se deja al sol?” (What happens to chocolate left in the sun?).

A plastic cupboard sat against the wall, filled with shoes, socks, and clothing donations Moorhouse had collected through her Amazon Wishlist. Sheets of paper taped to the wall have words of affirmation in both languages: “Tus emociones son validas.” (Your feelings are valid.)

A classroom for English learners at Brighton Park Elementary School has brightly colored phrases translated in English and Spanish on the dry erase board.

After their icebreaker, Moorhouse passed around crayons and a worksheet with the outline of a human body. She explained that stress can cause physical pain and asked her students to color in the part of their bodies that hurt when they are stressed.

“Entonces para mi, cuando yo estoy estresado, mi estómago me duele,” she told the students, explaining that her stomach hurts when she’s stressed.

One girl, wearing a pair of sneakers donated through the Amazon wishlist, used a green crayon to fill in the top of the head. She colored the shoulders with a green-yellow.

When Moorhouse asked students to share, one boy said stress gives him a headache, and then he feels like throwing up. A low “hmm” spread through the group, as if others recognized the boy’s feeling.

At 2:35 p.m., about halfway through the session, the students received a new worksheet. This one had a large triangle on it, and each point represented something different: pensamientos, sentimientos, y acciones. Thoughts, emotions, and actions. Moorhouse wanted the students to reflect on how a thought may lead to a feeling, which ultimately leads to an action.

After a couple minutes jotting down their thoughts, the students shared their responses. One boy smiled as he described an example: When he’s talking to other students and they suddenly begin speaking in English, he feels as if he’s been removed from the conversation.

“How does that make you feel?” Moorhouse asked him in Spanish.

“Bad,” he replied.

“What’s your action?” Moorhouse responded.

“I walk away,” he said.

That day, Mendoza, the assistant principal, was peeking in.

“I don’t think students or people in general sometimes realize the effect that has on others who only speak one language,” Mendoza said later. “So that really stuck with me, and I thought about how we could have that conversation, perhaps, with the students … because they might not be aware that they’re doing that.”

Moorhouse then presented a challenge for the students: How can they change their thinking about a situation, in order to elicit better action? One boy gave the example of taking a hard math test that he doesn’t know the answers to, so instead, he asks to go to the bathroom.

He was stumped when Moorhouse asked him to think of a better action. She opened the floor to the group, but no one came up with an answer good enough for Moorhouse. When she pressed them to think harder, they hit on a solution: He could ask the teacher for help — for understanding the exam, or perhaps even asking to take it another day.

With about 15 minutes left, Moorhouse and Carillo passed around stress balls shaped like bee hives. They asked the students to squeeze hard and pretend that they were squeezing out the juice.

A couple of kids laughed as they squeezed their fists and then released pressure.

Around 2:55 p.m. Moorhouse handed out a blank calendar worksheet. For the following week, students would be expected to log how they’ve practiced relaxation strategies, such as grabbing an ice pack from the nurse or using a stress ball, when feeling stressed. One student shared that drawing helps.

It was time for dismissal. The students didn’t run out the door. They stayed back to chat with each other. A few grabbed extra bags of Skinny Pop.

As the weeks go on, Moorhouse and Carrillo will meet individually with each student to assess whether they want to talk more about their personal experiences of coming to the U.S. and what would be appropriate to share with the other students.

In those conversations, students may show signs of needing more individual counseling provided by the school, such as bursting into tears while recounting a story, Carrillo said.

Some students take a while to open up, so it’s unclear how much they’ll participate going forward, Moorhouse said. One of those quieter students is the child who had shared that there was no highlight or lowlight of her week. During the hourlong session, this student gradually opened up a little more.

And when most of the other children left at the end of the day, that student stayed behind. She wanted to talk some more one-on-one with Moorhouse.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 12’s first newcomer center offers students support and a path to graduation

2023-10-19T19:04:03+00:00

Leer en español.

About 23 students from mixed grades were taking a math quiz on exponents at the newcomer center at Thornton High School one recent Friday afternoon.

The class was buzzing. Students were helping each other.

“If we’re not sure, it’s OK,” teacher Adria Padilla Chavez assured her students. “We go back and relearn.” Then she repeated her instructions in Spanish.

Padilla Chavez and other staffers at the newcomer center work to help students who are new to the country adjust to life in an American high school. As the program grows, students are gaining much more than English lessons. They’re making friends from around the world, engaging in their learning, and getting on a path to graduation. It’s helping them dream of futures they might not have imagined before.

“We like to welcome our students into a community where they feel like they belong,” said Frida Rodriguez, a youth and family advocate at the center. “It’s so important to have a place where you know you belong. They connect with staff that provide them a sense of help and support and love. Truly feeling loved is really important.”

Seventeen-year-old Joan Madrigal Delgado has been a student at the newcomer center for a month, his first experience in a U.S. school. He already feels his life changing.

He’s impressed by how teachers help him, and ask him to think and participate in discussions.

“I really didn’t have any possibilities in my country,” said Madrigal Delgado, who came from Cuba. “It feels good. Now I aspire to everything.”

He’s starting to think about college and considering a career as a veterinarian.

The newcomer center, the first in Adams 12 Five Star Schools, opened in August with 30 students. Now, a couple months into the school year, the center has more than 90 students, with new students enrolling every week and families spreading the word in the community.

The students come from many countries, but one of the main drivers for the development of the center was the influx of refugees arriving from Afghanistan around two years ago. Many live in the Thornton area around the high school.

Adams 12 was one of four school districts to receive a grant from the Rose Community Foundation this year to help support education for newcomers, particularly from Afghanistan.

The foundation worked with the Colorado Refugee Services Program — a unit within the Colorado Department of Human Services — to set up the Refugee Integration Fund, which gave away the grants.

The district used that money, along with some federal COVID relief money, and pulled $868,000 from the general fund to start up the center and pay for staff. The center has its own registrar, who calls families flagged to her by other schools and invites them to attend.

The district is offering transportation. About 45 of the newcomer center students get bused to the high school. And advocates like Rodriguez, who speaks Spanish, and Imran Khan, who speaks Pashai and Dari, also help families find resources in the community.

One unique feature of the center, says director Manissa Featherstone, is that it has its own counselor to help students map their way to graduation. She said many newcomer centers focus on teaching students English, and sometimes that means delaying classes that would earn them the credits required to get on track to graduate.

At the Thornton High program, students take all their core classes within the center, but are integrated into the mainstream high school for elective classes, or when they need a more advanced class. An instructional coach who works for the center helps customize the help for students.

“We’re able to provide those classes,” Featherstone said. “It just depends on the individual student’s needs and what schooling they’ve had.”

Newcomer Center teacher Aria Padilla Chavez, top center, works on a math quiz with her students.

Students also participate in extracurricular activities, clubs, and sports at the high school.

The program can accommodate up to 150 students, Featherstone said. It’s designed so that students spend a year there after they first arrive in the U.S., and then move on to regular high school programming.

Mohammad Ali Dost, 14, arrived from Afghanistan a couple of years ago, and was initially attending a middle school in the district without a dedicated newcomer program. Now at the center, he said he’s happy it’s helped him improve his English.

Dost said he tells other students: “If you want to improve your English quickly, come to the newcomer center.”

Dost also helps students who speak his home language of Pashai, the kind of peer-to-peer learning and interaction that staffers celebrate.

Featherstone said current students often volunteer to give new students tours and to help familiarize them with their new school.

“We see students jumping in and saying. ‘I’ll take them,’” Featherstone said. “They’re really excited when a student arrives.”

The advocates teach students the basics at first, like how to use a locker. Recently students also enjoyed learning about homecoming and spirit week.

“A lot of students had no idea what it was. What was the big deal about the football game?” Rodriguez said. “We showed them videos. They were just excited to have that experience. They kept saying, ‘I get to go to a dance.’”

Some students also say they’re impressed by the security of schools in the U.S., having come from other environments where they didn’t always feel safe.

“They’re very prepared,” Madrigal Delgado said.

Ismael Piscoya, 17, from Peru, said he’s amazed at the amount of technology available. All students in the district, not just the center, get a Chromebook.

It takes no time to look up information, Piscoya said.

Maria Fernanda Guillen, 18, from Mexico, said she feels empowered in her education.

“In Mexico, we didn’t have a voice in school,” Guillen said. Now thinking about a future in biotechnology, she’s excited about the start she’s getting at the center.

“It’s nice to have friends from other countries,” she said.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Centro en el distrito Adams 12 atiende a estudiantes recién llegados al país

2023-10-19T19:03:55+00:00

Read in English.

Un reciente viernes por la tarde, alrededor de 23 estudiantes de diferentes grados estaban tomando un examen de matemáticas sobre exponentes en el centro para recién llegados de Thornton High School.

Se oía un zumbido en el salón de clases. Los estudiantes se estaban ayudando entre sí.

“Si no estamos seguros, está bien”, les aseguró la maestra Adria Padilla Chavez a sus estudiantes. “Retrocedemos y volvemos a aprender”. Luego repitió sus instrucciones en español.

Padilla Chavez y otros integrantes del personal escolar en el centro para recién llegados ayudan a los estudiantes que acaban de llegar al país a adaptarse a la vida en una high school estadounidense. Mientras el programa va creciendo, los estudiantes están recibiendo mucho más que lecciones de inglés. Están formando amistades con personas de todo el mundo, participando en su aprendizaje y abriéndose camino hacia la graduación. El programa está ayudándolos a soñar en un futuro que quizás nunca habían imaginado.

“Nos gusta darles la bienvenida a nuestros estudiantes a una comunidad en la que sientan que pertenecen”, dijo Frida Rodriguez, una promotora de jóvenes y familias en el centro. “Es muy importante tener un lugar donde sabes que perteneces. Conectan con el personal que les proporciona un sentimiento de ayuda y apoyo y cariño. Sentirse realmente queridos es muy importante”.

Joan Madrigal Delgado, de 17 años, ha sido estudiante en el centro para recién llegados por un mes, su primera experiencia en una escuela de Estados Unidos. Ya siente que su vida está cambiando.

Le impresiona ver cómo lo ayudan los maestros, y cómo le piden que piense y participe en las conversaciones.

“Realmente no tenía ninguna posibilidad en mi país”, dijo Madrigal Delgado, quien vino de Cuba. “Se siente bien. Ahora aspiro a todo”.

Está comenzando a pensar sobre la universidad y en dedicarse a una carrera en medicina veterinaria.

El centro para estudiantes recién llegados, el primero en las Escuelas Five Star de Adams 12, se inauguró en agosto con 30 estudiantes. Ahora, un par de meses después del inicio del año escolar, el centro cuenta con más de 90 estudiantes, con nuevos estudiantes inscritos cada semana y familias que corren la voz en la comunidad.

Los estudiantes vienen de muchos países, pero uno de los factores principales que resultaron en la creación del centro fue la llegada de refugiados de Afganistán hace casi dos años. Muchos viven en el área de Thornton alrededor de la high school.

Adams 12 fue uno de cuatro distritos que recibieron un subsidio de la Fundación Comunitaria Rose este año para ayudarlos a apoyar la educación de estudiantes recién llegados, especialmente aquellos de Afganistán.

La fundación trabajó con el Programa de Servicios para Refugiados de Colorado—una unidad que forma parte del Departamento de Servicios Humanos de Colorado—para establecer el Fondo de Integración de Refugiados, el cual distribuyó subsidios.

El distrito usó esos fondos, junto con algunos fondos federales de asistencia por COVID, y sacó $868,000 de su fondo general para establecer el centro y pagar por el personal. El centro tiene su propia secretaria de admisiones, quien llama a las familias que otras escuelas identifican y las invita para que vayan al centro.

El distrito está ofreciendo transporte. Cerca de 45 de los estudiantes que asisten al centro llegan en autobús a la high school. Y las promotoras como Rodriguez, quien habla español, y Imran Khan, quien habla pashai y darí, también ayudan a las familias para que encuentren recursos en la comunidad.

Una característica singular del centro, dice la directora Manissa Featherstone, es que tiene a su propio consejero que ayuda a los estudiantes para que establezcan su trayectoria hacia la graduación. Featherstone dijo que muchos centros para recién llegados se enfocan en enseñarles ingles a los estudiantes, y que a veces eso significa que se retrasan en las clases que los ayudan a acumular los créditos necesarios para graduarse.

En el programa de Thornton High School, los estudiantes toman todas las clases principales en el centro, pero toman sus clases electivas con el resto de los estudiantes, o cuando necesitan una clase más avanzada. Un asesor de enseñanza que trabaja para el centro ayuda a personalizar la ayuda de los estudiantes.

“Podemos proporcionar esas clases”, Featherstone dijo. “Solo depende de las necesidades individuales del estudiante y de qué tipo de estudios escolares ha cursado”.

Aria Padilla Chavez (arriba al centro), maestra en el centro para estudiantes recién llegados, trabaja en un examen de matemáticas con sus estudiantes.

Los estudiantes también participan en actividades extraescolares, clubes y deportes en la escuela.

El programa puede recibir hasta 150 estudiantes, Featherstone dijo. Está diseñado para que los estudiantes pasen un año ahí después de llegar a Estados Unidos y luego se cambien al programa regular de la escuela.

Mohammad Ali Dost, de 14 años, llegó de Afganistán hace un par de años, e inicialmente estudió en una escuela media del distrito que no tenía un programa específico para estudiantes recién llegados. Ahora en el centro de Thornton High School, dijo que está contento pues le está ayudando a mejorar su inglés.

Dost dijo que les dice a otros estudiantes: “Si quieres mejorar tu inglés rápidamente, ven al centro para recién llegados”.

Dost también ayuda a los estudiantes que hablan su misma lengua materna, pashai, con el tipo de aprendizaje e interacción entre pares que el personal del centro celebra.

Featherstone dijo que los estudiantes actuales con frecuencia se ofrecen como voluntarios para liderar visitas guiadas con estudiantes nuevos y ayudarlos a que se familiaricen con su nueva escuela.

“Observamos a estudiantes que se [ofrecen inmediatamente] y dicen: ‘Yo los llevo””, Featherstone dijo. “Están muy emocionados cuando un estudiante llega”.

Las promotoras primero les enseñan las cosas básicas a los estudiantes nuevos, por ejemplo cómo usar su casillero. Recientemente estudiantes también aprendieron sobre el homecoming y la semana del espíritu.

“Muchos estudiantes no tenían idea alguna de lo que era. ¿Por qué es gran cosa el partido de fútbol [americano]?” Rodriguez dijo. “Les mostramos videos. Estaban emocionados de tener esa experiencia. Seguían diciendo: ‘Voy a poder ir a un baile’”.

Algunos estudiantes también dicen que están impresionados con la seguridad de las escuelas en Estados Unidos, después de venir de otros lugares donde no siempre se sentían seguros.

“Están muy preparados”, Madrigal Delgado dijo.

Ismael Piscoya, de 17 años y proveniente de Perú, dijo que está impresionado con la cantidad de tecnología disponible. Todos los estudiantes en el distrito, no solo el centro, reciben un Chromebook.

No tardas nada en encontrar información, Piscoya dijo.

Maria Fernanda Guillen, de 18 años y originaria de México, dijo que se siente empoderada en su aprendizaje.

“En México, no teníamos una voz en la escuela”, Guillen dijo. Ahora está pensando en un futuro en biotecnología y emocionada por el comienzo que está obteniendo en el centro.

“Es lindo tener amigos de otros países”, dijo.

Chicago teachers urge State Board of Education to help with ongoing migrant crisis

2023-10-19T00:49:30+00:00

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Chicago teachers are urging state education officials to help the city’s public schools with an influx of migrant students, many of whom lack basic needs such as clothing, medical care, and housing.

Teachers told board members on Wednesday during the state board’s monthly meeting that Chicago schools are struggling to meet the needs of newly arrived school-age migrants. Some teachers said classrooms have become overcrowded, schools don’t have enough bilingual educators, and many students need access to bilingual social workers or school counselors for social-emotional support.

Diane Castro, a bilingual preschool teacher at Lorca Elementary School, said the 3- and 4-year-old students she works with have endured so much and need more than her school can provide.

“Our students are … doubled and tripled up in apartment buildings,” said Castro. “The children are in clothes that are too small and shoes that are too big. Our children have not had proper medical or dental care.”

More than 18,500 migrants have come to Chicago since August 2022, according to city officials, though it’s not clear exactly how many are school-aged. Chicago Public Schools officials have pointed to climbing numbers of students identified as English learners and those living in temporary living situations as an estimate for how many newcomers are now in CPS.

The teachers’ push for help comes as city and state officials are calling on the federal government to come through with additional funding and support.

During the spring legislative session, state lawmakers filed a bill to help support migrant students by requiring the state board to create New Arrival Student Grants for schools. But the bill didn’t move past the rules committee.

In late September, Gov. J. B. Pritzker announced $41.5 million for Illinois cities seeing an influx of newcomers. Chicago got more than $30 million of that money. But in early October, Pritzker made a plea to President Joe Biden for support, calling the pace of new arrivals “untenable” for Chicago and Illinois.

A Chalkbeat Chicago analysis of staffing data over the summer found a decline in the number of designated bilingual teachers in recent years, but an uptick in teachers with bilingual or English as a Second Language endorsements. The analysis also found that the ratio of staff with bilingual credentials or titles to students was increasing as more English learners have enrolled.

Syvelia Pittman, a teacher at Nash Elementary School on the city’s West Side, has seen that play out on the ground. She told the state board Wednesday that her school serves about 50 newcomers, increasing the school’s enrollment in preschool to third grade. However, the school does not have any bilingual educators and teachers often use Google translate to speak to students.

Pittman asked the state board to provide schools with additional funding to hire more teachers and provide current teachers with support to obtain a certificate in bilingual education.

In addition to the increased need for bilingual educators, teachers said students are coming to schools without their basic needs being met.

Gabriel Paez, a bilingual educator at Cameron Elementary School in the West Humboldt Park Neighborhood and Bilingual Education Committee chair for the Chicago Teachers Union, said some students lack shoes and clothes and need access to vaccination to attend school. With Chicago’s harsh winter around the corner, students will need warmer clothes, winter coats, and housing.

“We have 20 newcomers in each grade level who arrive daily and in worsening conditions. Many of my students arrive stripped of their basic needs,” said Paez. “Medication, clothes, shoes, socks, medical attention, housing, and mental health, are all falling on already overburdened and understaffed schools.”

Paez urged the state board to provide winter supplies, emergency housing assistance, and first aid kits along with bilingual social workers and counselors.

Paez also asked the board to give students who are migrants an exception from the state’s English-only exams such as the Illinois Assessment of Readiness because it would be “damaging and retraumatizing” to students who do not understand the language.

Chicago Public Schools’ enrollment increased by 1,000 students for the first time in more than a decade this year. District data shows more than 7,800 additional students were classified as English learners this year compared to last year. Normally, the annual increase is by an average of 3,000 English learners.

The number of students identified as living in temporary housing also increased compared to last year. Migrant students are considered Students in Temporary Living Situations, or STLS, and guaranteed admission to local public schools despite not having a permanent address.

On the 20th day of the school year, when the district took its official enrollment count, a spokesperson cautioned against attributing the bump to “any one group of students.” Earlier in July, a top mayoral aide suggested to the Chicago Sun-Times that newcomer students would reverse CPS enrollment declines.

The Illinois State Board of Education will make a budget recommendation to Pritzker before his State of the State and budget address which typically happens in February.

Reema Amin contributed to this report.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

At one magnet school, Chicago’s bus crisis has parents grasping for options — or leaving

2023-10-13T18:14:26+00:00

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Mónica Meléndez spent the first half of the last school year driving her three kids at least an hour each way to Inter-American Magnet School in Lake View.

She felt she had no choice after the district said it would not provide transportation at the beginning of the year for two of her children.

By the time all her kids got bus service in the second semester, Meléndez was exhausted — especially on days she spent another hour driving to work.

So shortly after Chicago Public Schools announced this summer that it wouldn’t provide busing to about 5,500 eligible general education students, largely those in gifted and magnet programs, Meléndez and her husband pulled their two youngest children out of the school. It was a wrenching decision: The Spanish dual language school felt perfect for the couple, who are originally from Puerto Rico and want their children to be bilingual.

Meléndez recalls telling her husband: “Sweetie, I can’t do this anymore.” Their oldest, a seventh grader, now takes a CTA bus two hours each way.

The family’s decision illustrates one way Chicago’s school bus crisis could impact enrollment and the socioeconomic and racial diversity of the city’s magnet and gifted programs. Many of these schools were created under a federal desegregation consent decree, but have been criticized for lacking diversity and enrolling larger shares of white and Asian American students since federal oversight ended in 2009. As working-class families find it difficult or impossible to take their children far distances to school, the absence of a transportation option could segregate the schools even more.

Parents at Inter-American are looking for solutions, as other gifted and magnet programs have also sought their own alternatives to the lack of busing.

Inter-American is already seeing the impact and some families have left.

“I would be really worried about what this change would mean for the demographics for these schools and for the goals of magnet schools in Chicago more generally,” said Halley Potter, an expert on school integration policy and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation.

Parents share transportation challenges

Citing a severe driver shortage, Chicago Public Schools announced in late July that it would limit bus transportation this year to students with disabilities and those who are homeless, both groups which are legally required to receive transportation. The district is currently under state watch to make sure it’s meeting those legal requirements.

The district said it has pursued several solutions to hire more drivers, including boosting driver pay rates by $2 – to $22 to $27 an hour – and hosting hiring fairs. But as of late last month, the district still had only half the number of drivers on hand and announced that busing would not be extended to more families for the rest of the semester. The district offered CTA cards to the 5,500 children who lost busing, but as of late last month, just about 1,600 took that option.

In a statement, CPS spokesperson Samantha Hart said the district is “acutely aware” of the challenges families are facing with longer commutes.

“We are committed to continuing to work with our vendors, City partners and our families to identify solutions and ensure every eligible student has safe, secure, and reliable transportation to and from school,” Hart said.

The transportation crisis has already had a small impact on enrollment at Inter-American, where nearly half of the school’s 641 students come from low-income families. Fifty-three families were eligible for transportation at the school. As of Oct. 2, six children have transferred out of the school due to the lack of transportation, according to the district.

At least two more children transferred out after Oct. 2 because of transportation issues, said Maria Ugarte, chair of Inter-American’s Local School Council. Ugarte has also heard from many parents who are considering leaving, and she wonders how lack of busing will impact next year’s enrollment.

At a meeting last month with the school’s principal, one parent said he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep up the commute to school. A mother shared that her commute involves taking the CTA with her three children, including a 2-year-old, every morning and evening— and doing that daily is becoming stressful.

Alexis Luna, who lives in Belmont Cragin, splits dropoff and pickup responsibilities for her third grade daughter with the girl’s father. But her daughter may have to miss school on days that the girl’s father is out of town for work, since Luna’s work schedule is inflexible and she can’t take days off.

Luna “lost everything” when her business closed during the pandemic, so she cannot afford to miss work or quit. She said she is struggling to pay for the increased gas costs.

For Rocio Meza, the lack of transportation means she can’t search for a job this year as she handles the hourlong pickup and dropoff each way at Inter-American for her 12-year-old daughter. She’s also responsible for driving her older son with disabilities to doctor’s appointments on some mornings, which sometimes makes one of the children late.

She and her husband have discussed transferring their daughter out of Inter-American – two other schools are within a few blocks of their house – but the family loves the school.

”Do I really want to do this and give up the education and experience she’s getting at Inter-American to go to another school?” Meza said.

Some attempts to find solutions at the school level haven’t come to fruition.

The school’s principal, Juan Carlos Zayas, launched a voluntary task force with parents to look for ways to ease the transportation issue. Ideas included a rideshare app and hiring a bus company on their own, according to recordings of the meetings. Both options would likely be too costly for parents, task force members said. For example, one parent found a company that would charge $158 per child this month — if the bus was full with just a couple of stops.

The district granted the school $157,000 in funding to host before- and after-school programs to accommodate more flexible pickup and dropoff times. The principal recently surveyed families for their interest and expects programming to start Oct. 23, a district spokesperson said.

Last month, Luna tried to distribute a survey to arrange carpooling for interested parents. The survey asked for information such as where their child’s old bus stop was and how many children they had. Zayas emailed Luna and several other parents that the “attempt to collect personal information” was a “clear violation” of district policy and that it was circulated to teachers without his knowledge.

District officials pointed to a CPS policy that prevents anyone from circulating ads, subscription lists, meeting invitations, books, maps, articles, or other political or commercial materials among school employees or students without approval from the principal or other district officials.

Still, some parents are trying to figure out carpool arrangements, Luna said.

Transportation woes could decrease diversity in magnet programs

During CPS board meetings, parents at magnet and gifted programs have said they are worried that the lack of transportation will most greatly impact children whose parents don’t have flexible work schedules to take young children on lengthy transit commutes or the money and time to drive them. That could force less-resourced families to transfer out of magnet programs or gifted programs or choose not to apply for them for next school year.

Once seen as a solution to the city’s segregated schools, the city’s magnet, gifted, and selective enrollment programs have been criticized for failing to achieve their diversity goals. A 2019 WBEZ analysis found that just 20% of these schools met the definition of racial diversity embedded in a now-lifted court order for Chicago to integrate its schools.

CPS uses a lottery for enrollment in magnet programs like Inter-American. Seats are offered based on the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood a student lives in. Sometimes priority is given to siblings or to students living close to the school.

Inter-American lacks racial diversity — 85% of its students this year are Hispanic, and 10% are white, according to district data. However, the school is more socioeconomically diverse, with 47% of its students coming from low-income families, still far below the district’s average of about 71%.

During one of the task force meetings, one parent expressed concern that working-class families would leave, and more local families from the surrounding affluent Lake View neighborhood would get seats — changing the face of the school.

At the same time, less transportation for magnet and gifted families could mean more students enrolling in their neighborhood schools. Bolstering neighborhood schools is a priority for Mayor Brandon Johnson.

After pulling her daughter and son out of Inter-American, Meléndez enrolled them in her local neighborhood school, Canty Elementary. There, about half of the students are Hispanic, 44% are white, and about 2% are each Black and Asian American. Just over 43% come from low-income households.

Her daughters like the school so far, Meléndez said. Canty, which is not a dual-language school like Inter-American, is just a five-minute drive away from home. But the outcome of their story is likely not the norm: In a city as segregated as Chicago, more integrated neighborhood schools like Canty are a rarity.

Potter, from The Century Foundation, said Chicago Public Schools has done “really important work” in finding ways to spur diversity in selective and magnet schools. The district’s lotteries that try to enroll students from different socioeconomic backgrounds often result in more racial diversity, too, she said.

But, Potter said, “without transportation support, a lot of that can fall apart.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Tenn. study on rejecting federal education funds has ‘no predetermined outcome,’ leader says

2023-10-05T14:50:17+00:00

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A leader of the group of lawmakers exploring whether Tennessee can feasibly reject nearly $1.9 billion in federal education funding says that the panel’s work will begin in early November, and that its findings — not politics — will guide its recommendations.

“There is no predetermined outcome for this working group, or for what the information we gather is going to show,” Sen. Jon Lundberg, a co-chair of the panel, said Wednesday.

“We want to look at what federal education money we get, where it goes, what we’re required to do to get those funds, and ultimately what’s the return on the investment,” the Bristol Republican told Chalkbeat. “I think this will give us a good overview.”

Lundberg, who also chairs the Senate Education Committee, was responding to criticism from Democrats that Republicans are seeking to undermine public education, cater to charter and private school interests, and advance the political aspirations of House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Crossville Republican and likely candidate for governor in 2026.

In February, Sexton said Tennessee should consider forgoing U.S. education dollars to free schools from federal rules and regulations, and should make up the difference with state funding. On Sept. 22, he and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, an Oak Ridge Republican, appointed eight Republicans and two Democrats to the working group to look into the idea and report back by Jan. 9, when the General Assembly convenes a new session.

Most of the federal money the state receives supports low-income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities. Tennessee school districts that are most reliant on U.S. dollars tend to be rural, and have more low-income and disabled students, less capacity for local revenue, and lower test scores in English language arts, according to a recent report from the Sycamore Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

Sen. Jon Lundberg

On Thursday, Lundberg and co-chair Debra Moody, a Covington Republican who chairs a House education committee, released the panel’s schedule showing five days of meetings in November, with the kickoff meeting on Nov. 6.

If the committee finds ways for the state to feasibly wean itself from federal education money that Tennesseans help generate through their taxes, Lundberg expects legislation to come out of its work. But he acknowledged that state revenue collections have lagged in recent months, potentially making it harder to cut the cord.

“Revenues are a valid concern, but that’s not our charge at this point,” he said. “We just want to do a deep dive on where we stand.”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bo Watson warned lawmakers in August that Tennessee likely will need to begin curbing state spending. But on Wednesday, he endorsed the panel’s task.

“I think it’s premature to say whether there will be budget constraints,” said the Hixson Republican. “Evaluating our programs and our funding is always a healthy exercise.”

Even if officials decide the state can afford to pass on federal funds, JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, questions whether it could effectively manage resources designed to support underserved communities and ensure equal access to education.

He cites the Achievement School District as one example of poor oversight for a state-run program intended to serve students attending low-performing schools. The turnaround district took over dozens of neighborhood schools beginning in 2012, mostly in Memphis, and turned many of them over to charter operators. But it has had few successes to show for its decade of work.

Lundberg said that example shouldn’t stop the state from investigating the possibility.

“Do I trust the state more than the federal government? Absolutely,” Lundberg said. “I think that government that operates closest to the people is the best government.”

Gov. Bill Lee has said he’s open to the idea and denounced what he called “excessive overreach” by the federal government. However, he didn’t give specific examples on education when answering questions from reporters last week.

Advocates for historically underserved student populations say federal oversight is needed to ensure that the state and local districts adequately provide for every student and school.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats pointed out that the federal government provided nearly $30 million last year to public schools in Cumberland County, which Sexton represents. That’s 44% of the East Tennessee district’s budget. Three school districts in Anderson County, where McNally lives, received $31 million in U.S. funds, which covered 32% of their budgets.

You can look up exactly how much federal education funding is on the line for every Tennessee county.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with information about the panel’s meeting schedule.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

In our schools, many families speak Mixteco. So we decided to translate children’s books into the Indigenous language.

2023-09-29T21:26:31+00:00

For the past four years, I served as superintendent of Oxnard School District, located 30 miles up the California coast from Malibu. But unlike Malibu, most of our school district’s 14,000 students come from low-income, Spanish-speaking families.

Yet, not all of our Latino families consider Spanish their first or second language. Nearly 500 families reported speaking Mixteco, an Indigenous language of Southern Mexico, which has scores of variants. For a long time, though, Mixteco wasn’t represented in any of our literacy materials, often making it hard for families to read together.

Karling Aguilera-Fort

Despite the prevalence of the Mixteco language, our students sometimes felt ashamed to report their Mixteco heritage or identify with their unique language and culture, Argelia Alvarado Zarate, one of our school district’s Mixteco translators and community support liaisons, told the Oxnard school board last spring.

“I was told not to say that I spoke Mixteco because it was something that we couldn’t share with other people who weren’t from our community,” said Alvarado Zarate. Growing up, she said, she yearned to have something in her native language to show that speaking Mixteco was “nothing to be ashamed of.”

Looking to change this, Alvarado Zarate and others on our family and community engagement team decided to support our Mixteco families and bring their culture to life through storytelling. The idea to translate digital books into Mixteco first sprouted a few years ago at a family reading night at one of our schools. There, Norma Zarate Cruz, another one of our school district’s Mixteco translators and community support liaisons, translated a book into Mixteco for some of the families in attendance.

Because Mixteco isn’t a written language, we had to make some decisions to ensure the greatest accessibility.

“They’re always told to go home, read to your child,” Alvarado Zarate told the school board. “But the same answer that they always give the teachers is, ‘I don’t know how to read or write.’”

Mixteco is a spoken — not a written — language.

Recognizing the literacy barriers that our Mixteco-speaking families faced, Alvarado Zarate and Zarate Cruz approached our school board with an idea to help these students and their families read together. They got approval to translate some of our digital books available on myON, the educational software company Renaissance’s digital reading platform. The app gives students access to digital books that match their desired language and interests.

The book cover of “The Bear Says Thank You,” translated into Mixteco.

We then partnered with Renaissance and worked with them to translate digital books into written (transliterated) and spoken Mixteco. Now, Mixteco-speaking families throughout Oxnard have 25 books they can enjoy together. For the first time, our families can listen to stories in their native language and read stories that appreciate and preserve their rich culture.

Alvarado Zarate and Zarate Cruz carefully chose the book titles, looking for topics that would most engage Mixteco-speaking students in the younger grades. They chose themes focused on overcoming bullying, maintaining cultural pride, and spreading kindness, including “Tasha Viun Caáchl Oso,” translated from “Bear Says ‘Thank You.’”

Because Mixteco isn’t a written language, we had to make some decisions to ensure the greatest accessibility. In each of the digital books, the text follows Spanish phonics, and the recording was spoken in the San Martin Peras variant of Mixteco. The audiobooks include two familiar voices: Zarate Cruz’s and Alvarado Zarate’s.

I know how important it is to foster inclusivity, diversity, and an appreciation for the languages and cultures that make our communities thrive. I also know what it’s like to feel excluded as a non-native English speaker. I’m originally from Venezuela, where I worked in special education before I began teaching in the Spanish Bilingual Special Education setting at San Francisco Unified School District several years ago. From there, I came to Oxnard.

At Oxnard School District, we designed a student profile to message the key traits we wanted our students to develop before they graduated. Two of these traits connect to equity, diversity, and inclusion, and one focuses on developing students to be global thinkers. We want our students to interact and solve problems with people across a diverse spectrum of races, ethnicities, and gender identities. The other focus speaks to students’ development into digital learners who carry with them a sense of cultural identity and pride, so as they learn to solve the problems of the future, they never forget where they’ve come from.

Our Mixteco translation project supports these goals — encouraging families to embrace their native language. To truly reflect diversity, equity, and inclusion, we know that content must go deeper than honoring heroes and holidays. We cannot pretend that we understand and reflect the different cultural backgrounds of our student population if we don’t elevate others who can speak to those experiences.

With this effort, Mixteco has “been given light,” as Alberto Mendoza, a district parent support liaison, put it. “It’s been given that space to say yes, you and your language are part of us.”

Dr. Karling Aguilera-Fort served as Superintendent of Oxnard School District from 2019–2023. Earlier this year, Dr. Aguilera-Fort accepted a role as the Site Associate Superintendent of Educational Services at San Francisco Unified School District.

Denver teachers scramble to help as migrant students face loss of housing

2023-09-29T20:50:43+00:00

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Editor’s note: On Monday, Denver Human Services extended the time that families can stay in city-provided shelter to 37 days, a week longer than previously. The change applies to people who arrive on or after Oct. 4. However, due to the large number of people arriving daily, individuals without children will get to stay in city-provided shelter for just 14 days, a week less than before.

As the number of migrants arriving daily in Denver rises, schools are starting to see a significant number of new students. And educators are worried about how to help them as migrant families encounter the limits of official support.

At Denver’s Bryant Webster Dual Language School, some teachers report classes of 38 students — a lot higher than last year. A teacher who screens students for whom English is not their home language has had to screen 60 students this year — up from a handful in typical years. And they’re trying to help students as they’re dealing with trauma, learning how to navigate a new country and a new school system.

“You work the whole day and you just want to make sure you do the best with the resources you have and so you build relationships with kids, and you have the connection to them,” said Alex Nelson, a fourth grade teacher at Bryant Webster. “Then you find out their story.”

Students who arrived near the start of the school year and were starting to settle in are facing a new challenge and a new trauma. Families get just 30 days in either a hotel or shelter paid for by the city. But then they have to find another place to live. In a city with soaring rents where many longtime residents also struggle to find housing, new arrivals sometimes find themselves with nowhere to go.

The first time a migrant family with children at Bryant Webster ran out of time on its housing voucher, teachers and a school intern spent hours calling shelters and everyone they could think of to try to find a place for the family to stay. They encountered waitlists and a lot of dead ends.

“We didn’t know what happened after the voucher expired until one of the new families said ‘our stay is up, and we don’t know where to go tonight,’” Nelson said. “We’ve never been prepared so we didn’t know how to handle it.”

The family ended up leaving to spend the night in a car, though Nelson said district officials were able to connect with them later that evening. Still, Nelson said it was really hard on the entire school to end the day that way.

Like in New York City schools and other districts nationwide, Denver school officials are on the frontline receiving requests from migrant families for help. In Denver, some teachers are just starting to connect their efforts with nonprofits, through the teachers union, and with other organizations, but coordination is still sporadic.

And even when working together, there are daunting obstacles. After the limited duration of city vouchers for migrants, the different social services available have different rules that can create confusion about what might jeopardize migrants’ legal standing. And the potential overlap between help for migrants and support for the city’s homeless population is something Denver officials are trying to avoid.

After helping the first Bryant Webster family, teachers heard from more families in the same situation. Some organizations are helping, but each time a new family comes forward, teachers worry if they’ll be able to find them assistance. At least three more are slated to lose their shelter this weekend.

“You can just feel the kids are stressed. It disrupts everything,” said Cecilia Quintanilla, an early childhood teacher at the school.

Denver has seen up to 250 migrants arriving per day this week, but it’s unclear how many are children.

Schools join Denver effort to help migrants find stability

Right now, it’s hard to track how widespread the surge of migrants in schools really is.

District officials in Denver did not respond to requests for comment. Teachers at Bryant Webster believe they’ve had around 60 newcomers arrive after the first day of school and counting. Other school districts in the state are also reporting surges of newcomers, the term schools use to refer to students arriving from outside the U.S., in the last few months.

The Colorado Department of Education doesn’t track those numbers and officials said they have not been asked to provide support to schools dealing with these surges.

Denver officials said that as of last week the city was currently sheltering 456 children under age 16. The city has seen up to 250 new individuals arriving per day this week, but numbers for children aren’t available for this week.

At another Denver school, Escuela Valdez, teacher Jessica Dominguez estimates they’ve received about 20 newcomer students this year. This week, they learned about a family that had already been sleeping outdoors after losing their shelter. Educators stayed up late into the night trying to find them a place to stay and ultimately were successful. But that may not always be the case.

“Kids are being involved now,” she said. “That puts a different face to what we might think is homelessness.”

Dominguez isn’t the only person who feels that way. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a former educator, said at a press conference Thursday that he has seen kids sleeping under blankets with families outside the city’s Wellington Webb building as they wait for staff to show up so they can ask for help.

“No kid should be in that context,” Johnston said.

Early that same day, at a migrant reception center in northeast Denver, a steady stream of men, women, and children arrived for processing. The official hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but staff often start earlier and stay until everyone has somewhere to go.

Some arrivals have family in the Denver area and ask to come here or even make their own way. Others get on buses in El Paso regardless of destination and then need to make a plan.

They’ve already made a hazardous journey and overcome many obstacles to leave behind dangerous situations in their home countries.

Jon Ewing, a spokesman for Denver Human Services, said the arrivals are smart, resourceful, and well-organized.

City workers collect basic information about the new arrivals, provide contact information for relevant social services and direct them to shelter. Individuals are eligible for 21 days of free shelter and families are eligible for 30 days. The city isn’t tracking what happens after that.

“Thirty days is not a long time to sort out your life, and we get that,” Ewing said. “But we have to move people through. There is a limit to what we are able to do.”

Ewing said city staff are working to coordinate as best they can between nonprofits, city services, and the school district — there are large group chats buzzing all day.

Ewing said the city tries to make sure people understand how expensive Denver is so they can make informed decisions. But they may have good reasons for wanting to stay here.

Ewing said the migrant and homeless populations are very different and face different challenges. New arrivals are never directed to homeless shelters, and many services are provided through different channels in order to be responsive to each group’s needs.

There are also different funding sources with different rules, when it comes to providing services for U.S. citizens and residents experiencing homelessness, versus migrants seeking asylum or another protected status.

Then there are legal concerns. Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said that organizations like hers are also concerned about inadvertently providing resources that would then make people ineligible for earning legal status — a common worry they hear from migrants, and one that Alderman and her team don’t have enough expertise to help navigate.

Still, she said that some of the migrant families might qualify for housing assistance from the coalition, but qualifying takes time.

“The problem is we have so many in the system right now waiting for housing,” Alderman said. “That system makes housing matches based on vulnerabilities. It’s a process. It certainly doesn’t move fast.”

She said that another problem for families is finding affordable housing with multiple bedrooms. Longer term vouchers, such as Section 8 vouchers, often don’t cover a large portion of the rents people might encounter in Denver.

“In Denver specifically we have a very, very, very minimal stock of really affordable housing,” she said. “We have a lot of market rate and luxury units that are sitting empty.”

With all the challenges migrant students and their families are confronting, teachers say they appreciate that so many are working to help. But they also wish they were more prepared to help students and families who come to them with such big worries.

“We don’t have what we need to welcome these families to the better life that they were searching for,” said Nelson, the teacher at Bryant Webster. “It’s just really hard to see the consequences of that.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.