Far West Program Development

Miss Kane’s first grade class at Lutie Lewis Coates Elementary School (also known as Coates Elementary) has twenty students and seventeen of them are considered English Language Learners (ELL) (E. Kane, Personal Communication, October 4, 2016). This is very frustrating for both Miss. Kane and her students because it is very difficult to communicate with many of her ELLs. Out of Miss Kane’s twenty students eight students are Hispanic, five Indian, five Black, and three White. Miss Kane’s class is very diverse and this allows students to feel more accepted because not all students are similar. Coates Elementary as a whole is very diverse: Asian 28.86%, Black 18.26%, Hispanic 37.32%, and White 12.08% (Fairfax County Public Schools, 2015). Miss Kane’s classroom reflects similar diversity as Coates Elementary does. Both Miss. Kane and the Coates staff really show their appreciation for diversity and attempt to treat all children equally giving all students equal opportunity. Coates Elementary is a Title I school; about fifty percent of students receive free and reduced lunch (Fairfax County Public Schools, 2015). This school was placed in the center of poverty and many of these students who participate in the free and reduced lunch program are English Language Learners.

The Latino minority was now the majority. Of these new citizens, many are immigrants in search of affordable housing. For a typical immigrant, jobs are scarce and lead most of the residents in my city to settle for minimum wage jobs resulting in a low median income. The low socioeconomic status of the citizens played a pivotal role on the education of the children who grew up in this oppressed neighborhood. There was a staggering drop of 28.8% of students who graduated high school and/or pursued higher education from 1990 to 2010. This drop was result of the low expectations the education system primed on the students from a very young age. Since many come from immigrant parents their first language might not necessarily be English. Tracking then took place, separating the few who were fortunate enough to have prior knowledge of the “native language” and those who need extra help and were held back for their inability to speak English. Ramon and Hunt touch on the topic of schools lack of support, specifically schools under LAUSD; my home district. The education received at schools like mine were not up to par in comparison to schools white and Asian Americans attended; it did not provide the same highly certified teachers or varied class selection (Ramon, Hunt 387). Lack of support puts many at a disadvantage including myself who had to persist regardless of all the barriers tunneling my

“Where inability to speak and understand the English language excludes national origin minority-group children from effective participation in the educational program offered by a school district, the district must take affirmative steps to rectify the language deficiency in order to open its instructional program to these students.” (Smith, 1990)

The problem with both bilingual education and English-as-a-second language instruction in the United States lies in our unwillingness to treat English for non-speakers as an academic subject (Haas, 2007). While the bilingual programs in California are thought to be mostly for people who speak Spanish, there are also Asian students that need to be taught proper English before continuing their education. As one anonymous teacher points out: "I have had 32 different languages spoken in my classroom over a 25-year period. Eighty-four languages are spoken in our district."(Anon 1998 & Haas 2007). Which for most teachers mean that it is both educationally and economically impossible to teach every student in their own native language.

“Following the Immigration Act of 1965, legislation was passed to contribute the public schools in dealing with the influx of non-English-speaking students. Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 supported programs for educating these students, including transitional bilingual education programs” (Echevarria and Graves 2011, p.350). This Act did not fully articulate how to go about educating these students, so an unclear message was received or not received in whether there was going to be a process of their first languages or a complete transition to English. “The outcome was that most ELs were consigned in English-only classrooms without suitable

For the purpose of observing a school environment, I was granted the opportunity to visit Marcy Open School, a K-8 Minneapolis Public School located in 415 University Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN. Like all magnet schools, Marcy Open School strives to achieve racial balance and incorporates specialized curricular themes to reach out to its scholars. In addition, the school website states the mission of the school is to,” Educate for life-long learning in a respectful environment that emphasizes responsibility, creativity, curiosity, and connectedness to the world”. To enhance students’ learning outcomes, Marcy Open School incorporates the following nine unique programs: Marcy Arts Partnership, a program that funds for arts-integrated programs and residencies for all children, regardless of race, religion, developmental level or socioeconomic status. Parents established the program in 1995 in an effort to connect students with the wider community and strengthen students’ education. Also, the school provides Path to Reading Excellence in School Sites (PRESS) a partnership between, target, the University of Minnesota, Reading Corps, and select Minneapolis schools (Marcy included), that focuses on teachers and students in grades K-3 and provides them Quality Core Instruction, Data-Based Decision Making, Tiered Interventions, and Professional Development. This program was designed because ample research proves that children’s’ ability to read by third grade determines their future

As someone who is planning on getting licensed to teach two different, yet often marginalized, groups in a school setting, it is very important to consider how to make a school welcoming to all of its students. There is a lot of information available on making a classroom inclusive for students with special needs, but this sort of information is harder to come by for immigrant students who speak a language other than English at home. For this paper, I am looking into the question of how can a school be fundamentally welcoming to students from an immigrant background. I will be doing this by analyzing the experiences of students at a school in Bayview, California, the topic of Made in America: Immigrant Students in our Public Schools, a famous book by Laurie Olsen (1997). Her purpose was to study, “Through their encounters[, …] an illuminated version of the American system of stratification and exclusion through language, cultural, and racial relations” (p. 36). However, by analyzing and describing the school, Olsen has made it possible to assess any number of concerns that immigrant and English Language Learners (ELLs) face. Using the legwork she has already done, I have identified three characteristics a welcoming school should strive towards in order to help immigrant students.

According to research cited by Karoly & Gonzalez, (2011), among immigrant children under age eighteen, 28% are in linguistically isolated families (minimal to no English speakers), 26% families with no high school diploma and 22 % below the poverty line families. This they posited causes a problem for immigrant children, in

Maya Angelou once said, “It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” When diversity is valued people from all nationalities can work together, effectively using their expertise and abilities for the benefit of everyone. The Head Start program, a nationally funded early childhood education program, embraces this idea. Head Start was initiated in the late 1960’s as a way to give children in poverty an educational boost. As the program matured services for families became available. The program is receptive to the children’s ethnical background, culture, and linguistic heritage. The Head Start program, in the United States, provides services to “over 300,000 dual language learners”

-With our organization, we can help immigrants find public schools for themselves and their children to learn English and American beliefs. Luckily schools are changing from placing immigrants in fully english classes and forcing them to start out at a grade level far below their own. Now, urban school systems have changed their curriculum to make it easier for immigrants to assimilate and get an education (De Jong). They have added English classes and other courses that teach about politics and civic values in America (American Decades).

The purpose of creating a summer school program is to give kids the necessary resources to become successful academically while attaining skills that may be used in their everyday lives. According to a recent study most students lose two months of learning during the summer (Alexander, 2009). Our program has decided to put their focus on the students of McInnis Elementary School located in De Leon Springs, Florida. The reason for the choosing of this school was because of their below average test scores. McInnis Elementary is a “C” school, with students who are predominantly hispanic (City-Data, 2010). The School’s review are as followed:

The United States is facing a challenge in serving immigrant youth. Today’s immigrants arrive from widely diverse countries, and are increasingly likely to resettle in the states and in rural communities, areas that often have the least experience and infrastructure to help students learn English and adapt to their new schools and neighborhoods. With immigration levels sustained at well over one million arrivals per year, immigrant students are entering public schools in record numbers. This has a big deal for program development, education, and funding.

Over October break, I was able to spend six hours observing in my local elementary school. Polk Street Elementary School houses students that range from Pre-Kindergarten to the sixth grade. Out of 697 students, more than seventy-five percent identify as Caucasian, and only three percent of students are “limited in English proficiency”. Polk Street offers free and reduced priced lunches to students who fall below a certain range on the poverty line. 10.2% of students participate in this program. Overall, the school is made up of middle class, white families who live in the area.

The program will take students on college visits and conferences to not only help them graduate high school, but also to plan for the future.

feedback and encouraging atmosphere of the program, and when they conducted things properly, which will be directly linked to what was learned through the program.