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Differentiating Instruction: A Guide for Teaching English-Language    Learners. (2019, February 6). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hekJsCOHLU

Dreilinger, D. (2014, August 23). New Orleans' charter school system ill-prepared for jump in Central American immigrants. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.nola.com/news/education/article_e3a39925-8a93-5460-ba79-da0a69d59202.html

Samson, J. F., & Collins, B. A. (2012, April). Preparing All Teachers to Meet the Needs of English Language Learners.

What ELL training, if any, is required of general classroom teachers? (2014, November). Retrieved October 19, 2020, from http://ecs.force.com/mbdata/mbquestNB2?rep=ELL1415

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Do you currently or have you ever worked with ELLs?

Were you provided with adequate training or professional development by your school district?

Did your school assess your skillset in educating all students, including those whose native language isn't English?

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Differentiating Instruction: A Guide for Teaching English-Language Learners

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The first step towards creating an education system that is able to serve its' ELL students is providing mandatory training to all general education teachers. As of now, it is federal law that school districts provide some training or professional development to any teachers, administrators or staff that directly work with ELLs. But, supplemental training requirements vary state by state. Louisiana doesn't require any form of ESL training to general education teachers. Teachers must be trained in oral language development, cultural sensitivity, and cultivation of academic language in order to create an effective stream of learning within their classrooms. The lack of training in these areas is a key factor in these teachers inability to educate ELLs in their general education classrooms. There are so many requirements that must be fulfilled before becoming a teacher, but ESL training isn't always one of them. Including this at the forefront of becoming a certified teacher would help to create a force of educators that are knowledgable and able to serve all students they may come in contact with.

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New Orleans Charter Schools unprepared for the large influx of ELL students. 

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New Orleans Charter Schools unprepared for the large influx of ELL students. 

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"All United States "local education agencies" must provide language services for immigrant families - a provision that in recent years has been criticized by some groups advocating for more restrictive immigration laws.

The job falls on school districts, which have more resources and flexibility to hire new staff and split specialized teachers between campuses. But RSD charter schools and charter groups have the same responsibilities as districts. It creates the same problem they have with providing special education: a single school or a small group of schools has to provide all the services a child needs, without the possible benefits and coordination that a centralized system can provide."

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As the school year begins, principal Ben Davis' main problem at G.W. Carver Preparatory Academy in the 9 th Ward is a number: 53 - the number of students needing English-language learner help. It's up from only 10 last year, and such students now represent 20 percent of Carver's enrollment. That's a gargantuan challenge for a small school that six weeks ago didn't have instruction materials in Spanish or a full-time English as a Second Language teacher.

At Dwight Eisenhower Charter in Algiers, there are a similar number of students, about 50, needing English-learners' help. But the increase has taken three years, giving the school more time to prepare, hire teachers and integrate ESL students.

The contrast between these two schools illustrates the challenges faced by a balkanized charter school structure in New Orleans as it deals with a rapidly-rising number of Spanish-speaking children -- the result of recent immigration from Central American countries troubled by crime and economic downturns.

Education is a priority for many of the relatives with whom many of the children have been placed as they wade through immigration court. But because most New Orleans schools are independent charters, there's no official number of Spanish-speaking students enrolled across the city yet. The immigrant advocacy group VAYLA estimates 500 new immigrant students enrolled in New Orleans schools this year. Last year, the entire parish had fewer than 1,200 English-language learners, many of whom spoke Vietnamese.

These students are finding room in schools that have barely educated any Spanish speakers before. There the impact is huge.

Immigrant students are also arriving in a system under fire. VAYLA last year filed a federal civil rights complaint describing deep gaps in schools' abilities to serve Spanish-speaking families. In one school, a 5-year-old said she had to translate for her parents at report card meetings because there was no staff member to do so, the complaint said.
Where they're going to school
New Orleans is not the only Louisiana system facing a rise in children needing language help because of recent immigration. The number has also increased in Jefferson Parish, though the centralized administration there has allowed for a more coordinated response at times. (Read more about how these students are faring in Jefferson schools.)

But New Orleans' post-Katrina education landscape creates some particular difficulties in handling ESL students. In other systems, children's home addresses determine where they go to school. In New Orleans there are no zoned schools, and every family must choose where to enroll.

Immigrant families gravitated to schools where they knew the services existed, or where other people they knew attended. That meant as the new wave of students arrived, a relatively small number of New Orleans' public schools were prepared to educate them. Last October, only 12 of the city's 88 public schools had more than 5 percent of its students with limited proficiency in English - and nearly half the city schools had no limited-English students at all, according to Tulane's Cowen Institute.

A handful of schools had particularly large numbers of Hispanic English-language learners. At Esperanza Charter in Mid-City, they represented nearly 6 of every 10 students last fall. At Einstein Charter in eastern New Orleans they were 18 percent of all students.

The rapid rise of students needing help learning English this is fall means they are spreading to many more schools, observers said. Lacking official numbers from the Recovery School District and the Orleans Parish School Board, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune contacted officials representing more than 60 of the city's 83 schools to inquire about their enrollment.

Recently-arrived immigrant children from Central America are attending almost every one of the more than 40 schools from which the news organization received enrollment data. Some schools, like Carver Prep, have seen a substantial increase. Wilson Charter has 33 new students whose families don't speak English at home, a 67 percent jump among such students compared to last year.

The influx of immigrant students is wildly uneven and disproportionately impacts a handful of schools that have never had more than a couple of English-language learners before, particularly ReNEW Cultural Arts in Central City and Carver Prep.

ReNEW Cultural Arts had 25 students receiving English as a Second Language services last year, said Co-Principal Ronald Gubitz. That's tripled this year, to 75. Essentially all new students are recent Central American immigrants, mostly from Honduras, Gubitz said. At Carver Prep, the jump from 10 last year to 53 now was felt especially among the freshman class. A third of that class are English-language learners, Davis said.
Database: Search Hispanic and English language learner enrollment in New Orleans and Jefferson, 2011-13
When a school has little experience, even a small number of new immigrants can cause headaches. New Orleans College Prep had two English-language learners in its entire 1,173-student, three-school network last year, said chief executive Ben Kleban. Now they comprise about 25 students out of 1,300. Though the percentage is still small, Kleban said it required significant changes to programming.

Surprisingly, not a single new Central American immigrant student has enrolled at the International School of Louisiana, CEO Melanie Tennyson said, even though the school has a Spanish-immersion program and reached out to the Hispanic Apostolate.
How families chose schools
Part of the reason why some schools are particularly saddled by a large number of new English-learner students, while others get a few, is the New Orleans enrollment system. The "school choice" process is complex and challenging even for families that speak English and have months to decide. Recently-arrived immigrants had neither. Officials said recent immigrants came after the first round of enrollment, so popular schools were already full. Shawn Toranto, chief executive at Einstein, said she was trying to accommodate as many newcomers as she could - but most of her seats were long gone.

Immigrant students enrolled through the OneApp system, which includes all but 10 of the city's schools, and were treated like any other late enrollee, picking from what was available, said Education Department spokesman Barry Landry.

Those assignations were made regardless of whether the schools had teachers and resources available to handle ESL students. In the absence of someone overseeing this process, VAYLA and individual parents said they picked up the slack, determining a large part of the disproportional load at certain schools.

Ana Henriquez, a parent at Eisenhower, encouraged other parents to enroll their children at the school. One of them was Carmen Jorge, who sat outside the school office on Tuesday. She knows Henriquez through church. Jorge initially put her students in another Algiers school, but no one in the office there spoke Spanish, she said. The fact that some Eisenhower administrators spoke Spanish helped her feel confident leaving her children in their hands, as did Henriquez' recommendation.

In an eighth-grade English classroom, six students from Vietnam, Haiti and Honduras clustered with bilingual dictionaries and an aide who made sure they understood their assignment. One was Gabriel Galindo, Henriquez' second child, who joined her in New Orleans last year because she feared for his safety.

Everything was different from his school in Honduras, Galindo said. He felt like he learned more at Eisenhower. He's also made friends, both Spanish-speaking and not, and won awards in soccer. This year, he said, he's helping new immigrants in class.

VAYLA's Spanish coordinator Kristi Rosales Fajardo said she'd helped 120 students enroll this summer. Her phone rang Monday: the name that came up was "Norma Put Son in School" - the nickname Fajardo had given to a mother still seeking a place for her son.

VAYLA has been recommending ReNEW's network, Einstein and Carver Prep. In a seeming paradox, both Einstein and Carver were named in the civil rights complaint. VAYLA director Minh Nguyen said both had come to a resolution in which the schools did not admit fault, and his organization was working with them closely.
Charters trying to staff up
All United States "local education agencies" must provide language services for immigrant families - a provision that in recent years has been criticized by some groups advocating for more restrictive immigration laws.

The job falls on school districts, which have more resources and flexibility to hire new staff and split specialized teachers between campuses. But RSD charter schools and charter groups have the same responsibilities as districts. It creates the same problem they have with providing special education: a single school or a small group of schools has to provide all the services a child needs, without the possible benefits and coordination that a centralized system can provide.

The Orleans Parish School Board charters have a different legal status, said charter superintendent Kathleen Padian. The School Board as a whole - and not any individual school - has the legal responsibility to serve children with language needs, whether they attend conventional schools or charters.

ReNEW Cultural Arts and Carver Prep couldn't say, "We can't serve these kids," or get the help of a district. They had to move quickly over the summer, with little money: 20 percent extra per student from the state. Federal funds would come, but they will be based on the previous year's ELL enrollment, Davis said.

The two principals, Gubitz and Davis, were optimistic, though neither speaks Spanish. The diversity would expand students' horizons, they said. "It's really pushing our school to a better place," Gubitz said. "It has, for so many years, been such a segregated system."

But with thin English learner programs and few Spanish-speaking staff, it's been hard. ReNEW Cultural Arts, part of a 3,300-student network, hired a new teacher to handle both English language instruction and emotional support. Carver Prep, starting its third year and part of the 850-student Collegiate Academies group, couldn't hire anyone at all.

The day before freshman orientation, Davis said he'd reassigned a math teacher who's fluent in Spanish to have someone for the ESL program alongside the Spanish teacher. VAYLA, unpaid, helped translate signs and worksheets.

At the opening day orientation, Davis launched into a high-energy introduction, in English but acting out what he wanted. When he said "raise your hands," teachers did, and nudged the elbows of students who didn't understand. When he told the students to "close their binders" the staff mimed it.

Whether that works in the long run remains to be seen. When the staff weren't acting out the rules, the Spanish-speaking students looked confused and didn't respond. At the end of the morning, staff asked students what they had learned, Davis said later. Both Spanish and English speakers understood the physical lessons. No one remembered the wordy, English instructions.

The Spanish speakers will have intensive language instruction, Davis said, but he wants Carver Prep to feel like one campus, not two.

"I want us to be a community," he said.
New Orleans public schools face unprecedented wave of English-language learners The number of English-language learners has radically increased at several New Orleans public schools, and almost all the newcomers are recent Central American immigrants. Some other schools are seeing a more gradual rise. Database: Search Hispanic and English language learner enrollment in New Orleans and Jefferson, 2011-13

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New Orleans' charter school system ill-prepared for jump in Central American immigrants

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As the school year begins, principal Ben Davis' main problem at G.W. Carver Preparatory Academy in the 9 th Ward is a number: 53 - the number of students needing English-language learner help. It's up from only 10 last year, and such students now represent 20 percent of Carver's enrollment.

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The population of English Language Learners within the American education system is steadily growing. This group of students is considered to be the lowest achieveing and under served of all the groups. As the Center of American Progress reports, one-in-four children in America are from immigrant families who speak a language other than English in their household. So, how are general education teachers being prepared to provide an adequate and thorough education to these students? If ELLs make up such a large portion of the school-aged population, then quality teachers must have the tools that they need to teach them.