The Covington Independent Public Schools Board of Education approved two measures at their meeting on Wednesday aimed at improving instruction for the students in the district who are learning English as a foreign language.
The first was the renewal of a program that provides in-person training on English language instruction for teachers in the summer. The second was a contract with English-language instruction specialist Dr. Hector Montenegro, who will advise the district on how to better address the needs of English-language students.
“We want to increase our achievement for our ELL [English-language learner] population,” said Dr. Susan Pastor-Richard, who heads up the ELL program in the district, on Wednesday, adding that she wanted to ensure the district had a “solid program” in the face of the growing immigrant student body in Covington.
The number of students who speak other languages in their natal tongues, which the district refers to as English language learners, or ELLs, has been steadily increasing over the years, especially at 6th District Elementary School, Holmes Middle School, and Holmes High School. Montenegro’s interventions will focus mostly on students in those schools. 213 new ELLs have entered the district this year, according to district data released at the end of January.
“Especially at the high school, 6th District, middle school, all of them, including [Holmes Middle School Principal Lee Turner], is excited to get somebody in there on the ground in the school, and the teachers need to help too,” said Assistant Superintendent Scott Alter. “They need the help; this is kind of uncharted territory, and our population is booming.”
Wednesday’s approvals are the latest in a line of resources and interventions the district has deployed to assist the ELL population. The district currently has 15 English language teachers, six dedicated translators, and 24 ILA Pros, which are machines capable of providing real-time translations of spoken conversations between people speaking different languages. The district also provides special programs in the summer for newcomers.
Montenegro is a well-regarded specialist in English language instruction and formerly worked as a math teacher and principal. These days, he helps schools train teachers on working with newcomer populations and provides strategies for building out family engagement.
Oftentimes, Montenegro told LINK nky, districts and teachers “don’t have strategies to address the specific needs of newcomers,” even if they genuinely want to help.
Montenegro has already performed some work at John G. Carlisle Elementary and 6th District Elementary. In addition, he served as a motivational speaker for the district in August, about a week before the school year started. Montenegro said that his consulting will focus on analyzing data in the district, observing classrooms, and providing teachers and other district staff with instructional, leadership, and community engagement strategies.
LINK nky attended a teacher training day in August of last year to speak with some of the teachers and their experience working with ELLs.
Eric Fuentes, who has been with the district since 2017 and now works as an English language teacher at 6th District, said that many of the newcomers arrive in Covington with a whole range of different experiences and cultural expectations, which can sometimes make it difficult to adapt to American schools.
“[Our ELL] population is coming in with their own set of background experiences that may or may not include trauma,” Fuentes said. “… In some countries they don’t maybe start school until [age] seven, so we might have a student that comes into first grade who has never had that experience of being in school.”
One of the key things that distinguishes the ELL population at the high school level, Pastor-Richard and some of the teachers said, is that many of the students work outside of school, sometimes over night. Naturally, this can make it difficult to stay engaged during the school day.
“They work third shift jobs, they come into school and they’re tired,” said Paul Mackiewicz, a math teacher at Holmes High School.
As such, one of the challenges that can arise is convincing the students to prioritize school.
“How do you tell them that the education is beneficial while at the same time kind of understanding their experience of, like,… sending money home once a month or, like, they’re the breadwinner in their family and they’re 18 years old, you know?” Mackiewicz said. “So, I think for some that can be a really big challenge because for them, they see the immediate need in front of them, and education is not a part of that.”
Fuentes said in August that he would have liked to see more family engagement events and other measures to keep the students’ families involved, and this week’s approvals could eventually see those desires come to fruition.
“Kids do better when they feel they belong…,” said Superintendent Alvin Garrison on Wednesday. “So that’s what we’re hoping to create, that culture of belonging to help them feel like, ‘this is my school.'”