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Connecticut - as Second Language/bilingual educator, Norwich schools face new world

By DANIEL AXELROD

Norwich Bulletin

Article published Sep 17, 2006

NORWICH -- Puerto Rican native and new Norwich resident Helda Mejías was early and eager for her appointment last week with two English as a Second Language instructors at Samuel Huntington Elementary School.

Beth Brunet, English as Second Language/bilingual educator coordinator, and English as Second Language teacher Bernie Flowers nodded as Mejías explained in Spanish her fidgeting, blonde, pony-tailed daughter, Pamela Cintrón, 8, was an "all-A student" in Puerto Rico and is ready for the fourth grade in America.

Norwich school administrators and faculty are finding creative ways to meet state mandates to teach the rising number of students who speak little or no English, despite a shortage of qualified English as Second Language teachers.

During the last five school years, the number of English Language Learners at Norwich Public Schools has quadrupled, rising from 107 in 2002 to a projected 400 by October.

Although Norwich Public Schools' immigrant student population has grown, the district's overall student population has declined. State officials expect birthrates to remain stagnant during the next five years, contributing to the district's enrollment decline, Superintendent Pam Aubin said.

As of the latest data from October 2005, 47 percent of Norwich students are minorities (including native English speakers) compared to 25.8 percent during 1996, yet the district's enrollment fell this year from 4,215 in 1996 to 3,914.

Local and state education officials say adult immigrants are coming to the area to fill new jobs at casinos and ancillary businesses. Not all of them have children in the schools, however.

"We have entire neighborhoods a school bus never stops at," Aubin said. "They're full of adult people that work either at Pfizer or the casinos, and they don't have children."

"(Norwich administrators) plan to have some dialogues with casinos to find out if they're recruiting in Haiti or Russia or wherever, so we can prepare by hiring bilingual teachers," Aubin added.

Brunet said Mejías and Pamela were unusually well-prepared and educated new arrivals. Norwich school teachers educate a United Nations worth of language speakers in addition to Spanish speakers.

"A lot of our teenage Haitian students are calling part of Norwich 'little Haiti,'" Brunet said. "When that starts to happen, you realize Norwich is changing far more than you could even imagine a few years ago."

Mejías, who is looking for a job, said she brought her daughters, Pamela, Roxanne Cintrón, 5, and Adyaris Cintrón, 3, to the United States two months ago to live with family members in Norwich.

"I came to the U.S. because Pamela and I have medical problems and I think we can get better help here," Mejías said through a translator. "I'm signing Pamela up for the (school district's ESL center) because it will help her relate better socially and academically."

Norwich Public Schools has had some form of English as Second Language program for more than 20 years, Brunet said. In the past three years, however, the program has expanded from a minimal presence to three English as Second Language centers with three certified teachers, 11 tutors at 11 schools and one English as Second Language coordinator.

"The schools are just a reflection of our society," said Dr. David Stoloff, education department chairman at Eastern Connecticut State University. "We've always been a diverse nation, but people have short memories. They forget people have come from all over the world and this nation has welcomed them."

Carla Bradley has two children in Norwich schools, and she welcomes the diversity in the school system and the English Language Learner students. She said it has broadened her children, Taylor, 8, a third-grader at Mahan School and Ryan, 11, a sixth-grader at Teachers' Memorial, to have students from so many parts of the world in their classes.

"My daughter has really gotten an interest in Spanish," Bradley said. "I think there's a really good influence of exposing kids to other cultures and languages.

"Our kids see how hard these kids have to work to learn English and I think it's a positive," Bradley said.

Dawn Davis personifies the rapid growth of Norwich's English as Second Language program. Davis spent the last four years of her 20-year career teaching preschool and fourth grade at Norwich schools.

This year, Aubin asked Davis, who speaks fluent Haitian Creole, to head up a new English as Second Language center for Haitian Creole speakers, because Greeneville Elementary School has more than 20 English Language Learner students.

Davis said the toughest part of her job is educating the many foreign students who grew up in poverty with little or no education in their home countries.

"Norwich schools get third-, fourth- or fifth-graders that have only been to school a few months, because they can't afford it," Davis said.

Davis said younger foreign language speakers tend to adjust better and learn English more quickly.

"The immigrant children are bombarded with so much," Davis said. "Just going into a grocery store once a week and seeing the variety of foods, when you're used to going to the market every day, can be overwhelming."

Haiti native M. Debbie Guerrier, 7, of Norwich came to America July 20. Davis said Debbie is an exceptional student -- smart, full of smiles and eager to learn English and her favorite subject, art. Debbie's father tutors Haitian students at Norwich Free Academy.

"I miss my friends and my aunt, but I don't miss my school in Haiti," Debbie said. "There aren't thieves and bad people in America (like in Haiti)."

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Number of English Language Learner students per school during the 2005-06 school year:

# Bishop Elementary School: 10 of 128 students. All together, 20 students total spoke a language other than English at home. Chinese and Spanish were the dominant languages.

# Greeneville Elementary School: 68 of 305 students. All together, 111 students spoke a language other than English at home. Spanish, Creole and Cape Verdean were the dominant languages.

# Huntington Elementary School: 31 of 393 students. All together, 44 students spoke a language other than English at home. Spanish was the dominant language.

# Mahan Elementary School: 36 of 272 students. All together, 59 students spoke a language other than English at home. Chinese and Spanish were the dominant languages.

# Moriarty Elementary School: 26 of 384 students. All together, 40 students spoke a language other than English at home. Spanish and Haitian Creole were the dominant languages.

# Stanton Elementary School: 38 of 312 students. All together, 62 students spoke a language other than English at home. Spanish, Creole and Chinese were the dominant languages.

# Uncas Elementary School: 21 of 221 students. All together, 36 students spoke a language other than English at home. Spanish was the dominant language.

# Veterans Elementary School: 41 of 274 students. All together, 68 students spoke a language other than English at home. Spanish and Haitian Creole were the dominant languages.

# Wequonnoc Elementary School: 18 of 269 students. All together, 45 students spoke a language other than English at home. Haitian Creole and Spanish were the dominant languages.

# Kelly Middle School: 46 of 725 students. All together, 103 students spoke a language other than English at home.

# Teachers' Memorial Middle School: 49 of 583 students. All together, 126 students spoke a language other than English at home.

# Total: 385 students in bilingual programs. The number of ELL students is expected to rise to at least 400 this school year.

# The number of adult students enrolled in the school district's Norwich Adult Education English for Speakers of Other Languages also has grown from 234 in 1996-97 school year to 624 in 2005-06.

Source: Norwich Public Schools.

AT A GLANCE: COSTS

# Norwich Public Schools operates Spanish bilingual centers at Huntington Elementary School (13 students in 2005-06) and at Teachers' Memorial Middle School (five students in 2005-06).

# At present, 718 Norwich Public School students speak another language in their homes. A total of 385 of those students qualified for the district's ESL programs.

# The school district just opened its first Haitian Creole bilingual center at Moriarty Elementary School (17 students this year).

A breakdown of the costs to operate each center:

# Instructor: $50,000 salary, plus $13,000 in benefits.

# English as a Second Language tutor: $20,000 salary.

# Instructional materials to open center: $5,000.

# Annual cost: $88,000 for one center, $264,000 for three.

Other costs related to language services for immigrants include:

# Districtwide use of Cyracom, a telephone interpretation system: $5,000 a year.

# Districtwide translator to translate for Haitian Creole and Spanish: $20,000 a year (to be paid for by a state grant).

# The district is compiling estimateson translating all documents into Haitian Creole and Spanish as required by federal law. An early estimate is it'll cost the district $100 a page for about 100 documents.

# During the 2006-07 school year, the district will pay each of three bilingual teachers roughly $50,000 in salary and $13,000 in health benefits, while 12 ESL tutors will each make about $20,000, for a total of $429,000.

Source: Norwich Public Schools

AT A GLANCE: DIVERSITY

The recent growth of Norwich Public Schools' English Language Learner population and the increasing diversity in the school district mirror trends across the nation and Connecticut.

# In 1996, there were 19,819 English Language Learner students in Connecticut. As of the 2005-06 school year, there are 29,799 English Language Learner students.

# As of October 2005, 47 percent of Norwich Public Schools' students weren't white, compared to 25.8 percent in 1996.

# Nationally, 78 percentof public school students were white in 1978, while 22 percent were minorities.

# As of the most recent federal datain 2004, 57 percent of all public school students were white and 43 percent were minorities.

# Minority students already outnumber white students in six states -- California, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas.

# Demographers believe if present trends continue as they have in the last 30 years, minority students likely will outnumber white students within a decade or so.

Sources: U.S. Department of Education Survey of States on Limited English Proficient Students. Norwich Public Schools. The New York Times.

WHAT IT MEANS

# In 1977, state lawmakers passed the Act Improving Bilingual Education to ensure English Language Learner students receive proper English training. The act was revised in 1984 and 1999.

# Marie Salazar Glowski, English Language Learner/Bilingual Education consultant for the state Department of Education, explained the statute.

# School employees must interview or test and count students that might benefit from English as Second Language classes.

# The law kicks inwhen an elementary, middle or high school has 20 or more English Language Learner students who need help in the same language. The schools must minimally have a bilingual program for that language with an English as Second Language teacher with a degree in elementary education.

# High school English as Second Language teachersalso must be certified in content areas, such as math or history, according to the law.

# The parents of each English Language Learner student decide whether their child will spend part of each day in a school's English as Second Language center for up to 30 months of English training.

# Salazar Glowski said the state lets city's with growing immigrant student populations, such as Norwich, use a variety of tutors and teachers with various language certifications because "the reality is there's a shortage of bilingual teachers in Connecticut."

# The state also allows students who speak a variety of languages to learn together in the same English as Second Language centers.

# If a school'sEnglish Language Learner population dips below 20 in one language, its administrators eventually can dissolve its English as Second Language program for that language.