New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Working to SPREAD THE WORD
Demand for bilingual ed grows in Conn.
NEW HAVEN — When Yeuris Asencio moved to New Haven at 11 years old, the Dominican Republic native was given a test in school to test his fluency in English.
The results, he said, were not optimal.
“It wasn’t that good,” he said. “I hadn’t learned enough to have a conversation, so I was technically a beginner.”
As a result, Asencio — who was enrolled in the sixth grade at Fair Haven Middle School at the time — was identified as an English learner. As with many other students, as an English learner he received academic supports to learn English concurrently with his regular studies.
To address the needs of students like Asencio who need the language support, school officials are proposing the district hire 11 new bilingual teachers, a plan that is part of the current $198 million projected budget proposal for the next school year. Four of the teachers would be dedicated to teaching English
“He is the best teacher I’ve ever met in my life.” Yakaira Meran Escoto, on her son Yeuris Asencio’s sixth-grade teacher
to speakers of other languages and seven would be bilingual classroom teachers. Officials say the plan is one of equity as well as compliance, spreading bilingual resources around the district to better serve students like Asencio, while also meeting state requirements around bilingual education.
Growing need
New Haven employs 34 fulltime teachers who are dedicated to teaching English to speakers of other languages, in addition to 48 bilingual teachers who teach in English and Spanish, according to information provided by the school district. There also are 22 employees who work as parttime tutors for English learners, who are mostly not assigned to specific buildings. Of the 20,051 students enrolled in the district this year, 3,580 are English learners — a distinction that extends to multiple languages besides Spanish, according to the district.
The cost to the district for 11 more bilingual teachers would be $360,000 next year, paid for by state grants. The cost represents six more educators for next school year, as five new hires have had their salaries and benefits paid by grant funding this year, funding which can be carried over into the next fiscal year.
Pedro Mendia-Landa, the school district’s director of bilingual education, said the expectation is to bring students more full-time services on a more equitable basis.
“We have schools where students are receiving services through EL tutors while in other schools are being provided with supports via certified (teaching English) teachers,” Mendia-Landa said.
According to state data, the rate of English learners in New
Haven has grown from 14.6 percent to 17.9 percent in the last five years.
At Fair Haven Middle School, where Asencio participated in the bilingual education program, 56.4 percent of students in the school were English learners in the 2016-17 school year, when he was in sixth grade. Today, 53.1 percent of students at the school are English learners. The school, which sits in the Fair Haven neighborhood that is home to the highest concentration of Spanish speakers in the city, has a robust bilingual education program.
While Asencio met regularly with a teacher who focused exclusively on teaching English to non-speakers, his classroom teacher also taught in a combination of Spanish and English.
In other schools, the concentration of English learners is much smaller. Nathan Hale School, in the East Shore neighborhood, has a student body of 10.4 percent English learners. At Worthington Hooker School in East Rock, 13 percent of students are English learners.
Superintendent of Schools
Iline Tracey said one of the challenges for English learners is that they may be served by tutors who are not at their school for the entirety of the day. Many tutors serve multiple schools, she said.
“We have a lot of tutors that go between schools,” she said.
“We hope to give them some permanency.”
Dave Cicarella, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, said he believes bilingual teachers in the district have a roughly equitable caseload, but the distribution of bilingual students is “clearly not uniform.”
“Some schools will have two or three bilingual teachers assigned, while another may have just one,” he said. He said he believes that, as a department head, Mendia-Landa is sensitive to and responsive to teacher concerns. “He always tries to be fair across the board,” he said.
Mendia-Landa said the district hopes to increase equity by ensuring all schools have enough bilingual supports for a growing bilingual population citywide.
Benefits
According to a state Board of Education, the Connecticut English Language Proficiency Standards were adopted 2015 with the premise that, in addition to “understanding common English usage,” English learners “need to understand the language used for grade-level instruction in English language arts, mathematics, science, social studies and other content areas,” the agency website says.
Over four years after entering the school district’s bilingual education program, Asencio is now fluent in English. He said has been beneficial, as it has made him more socially confident.
After three years of practicing grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation — something he and his classmates improved by recording their voices and rating their own performance — Asencio said he grew in his English abilities after having the immersive experience of enrolling at High School in the Community.
“In freshman year I made new friends, and they all speak English,” he said. Now a sophomore at the school, Asencio’s improved English abilities have been personally beneficial at home and around the city, he said.
His mother, Yakaira Meran Escoto, has conversational English skills but notes that she sometimes needs more time to process the language in a conversation.
“Yeuris helps me,” she said. In Fair Haven, Meran Escoto said she is able to go about her usual routine speaking only in Spanish. Outside the boundaries of the neighborhood, though, she said she is grateful to have a son who can assist her with translation.
Meran Escoto said her experience with Asencio’s sixth-grade teacher, who was able to reach out to parents in Spanish, was overwhelmingly positive.
“He is the best teacher I’ve ever met in my life,” she said.
Asencio said his teacher always indulged his students’ curiosities, taking them on local field trips to give them immersive experiences in the city.
“He pushed me out of my comfort zone,” he said.
Despite that, Meran Escoto said she felt that, as a Spanish speaker, it can be difficult for her to be heard when addressing issues at school.
“There are many Spanishspeaking immigrants here. This is where we live. It’s important to emphasize the community,” she said.
By the numbers
Peter Yazbak, a spokesman for the state State Department of Education, said English learners are not a homogeneous group, and as a group they are becoming more diverse every year. That variety among English learners makes a “one-size-fits-all” approach impossible, he said.
“When districts are selecting the types of programs that they will offer for language instruction, they need to make informed decisions that respond to the community’s needs,” he said.
According to state law, when a school has 20 or more speakers of a language, that school is required to provide a bilingual program. As the population of English learners grows in numbers and in the diversity of its language needs, more schools may be required to provide bilingual programs in another language.
Yazbak said many schools in the state take different approaches to best suit their needs.
“It is common for districts to offer a range of language instruction programs (e.g., transitional bilingual, dual language, ESL, sheltered instruction) in different schools depending on the size and needs of the multilingual population of students and the logistical considerations at each school,” he said.
According to information provided by the state, urban districts in the state vary on how many English teachers for English learners they hire. New Haven reported 29 English teachers for English learners at the start of the year before using grant funding for five new positions, a figure comparable to some other urban districts.
Bridgeport Public Schools employs 33 certified teachers who teach English to non-fluent speakers for a district of 3,936 English learners. In Danbury, where there are 3,300 English learners — 27.9 percent of the student body — there are 31 certified teachers for English learners.
Meanwhile, other districts have hired more certified English teachers for English learners, according to the state. Hartford employs 65 English teachers to serve a population of 3,804 English learners, Norwalk employs 46 certified teachers for 1,969 English learners and Stamford has 69 certified teachers for 2,174 English learners.