What does having a high percentage of English learners in a class mean in practice?

[Anonymous]

Our experience in APS elementary has been that several of my son’s teachers have spoken multiple languages and he has met kids from different countries and gained an appreciation for their country and culture. He has also learned to be patient and helpful with kids who don’t speak fluent English. My kid is average and doesn’t need special attention and I don’t think having ELLs has had any negative impact - except perhaps jealousy that our family only speaks English and doesn’t move to a foreign country every 2-3 years. When they studied continents in kindergarten some kids had pictures of themselves at the pyramids in Egypt or at the Great Wall of China.

At Ashlawn there are a lot of State Dept. families as well as LatinX students - both fluent and learning. In my son’s classes so far the main 2nd language is Spanish and there are fully bi-lingual classmates in most classes in addition to teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have an average or above average kid they will spend a lot of time on the iPad or own their own chilling. There is no incentive to push kids to excel; there IS PUNISHMENT if the struggling kids dont improve, so where do you think the teachers will focus?

Its just how public school is structured; there is no benefit for the schools or teachers for doing better than pass the SOLs in higher and higher percentages. Teachers would love to spend time with your high performing kid and teach them interesting things, but there just isn't the time or resources.

The most important thing is making sure your kid is a strong and enthusiastic reader, so when they have all that down time they can just pull out a book and its not a complete waste of time.

Absolutely nailed it. My DD attended a school with a high ESOL population. She ended up reading independently 2+ hours every single day at school, because the teacher was too busy to deal with the advanced kids. It honestly didn't hurt her to be ignored and spend so much time reading. If you have a kid who is not an enthusiastic reader or is likely to waste the copious amounts of free time they'll be given during the school day, being in a high ESOL class could be a disaster.

So I know it's dangerous to compare school today with what I grew up with but since that's my only frame of reference...2+ hours a day of independent reading time? Isn't a full school day 6-7 hours? Throw in an hour for lunch/recess and that's half the school day without instruction? That blows my mind. I don't recall having so much as a study hall until I got to high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have an average or above average kid they will spend a lot of time on the iPad or own their own chilling. There is no incentive to push kids to excel; there IS PUNISHMENT if the struggling kids dont improve, so where do you think the teachers will focus?

Its just how public school is structured; there is no benefit for the schools or teachers for doing better than pass the SOLs in higher and higher percentages. Teachers would love to spend time with your high performing kid and teach them interesting things, but there just isn't the time or resources.

The most important thing is making sure your kid is a strong and enthusiastic reader, so when they have all that down time they can just pull out a book and its not a complete waste of time.

Absolutely nailed it. My DD attended a school with a high ESOL population. She ended up reading independently 2+ hours every single day at school, because the teacher was too busy to deal with the advanced kids. It honestly didn't hurt her to be ignored and spend so much time reading. If you have a kid who is not an enthusiastic reader or is likely to waste the copious amounts of free time they'll be given during the school day, being in a high ESOL class could be a disaster.

So I know it's dangerous to compare school today with what I grew up with but since that's my only frame of reference...2+ hours a day of independent reading time? Isn't a full school day 6-7 hours? Throw in an hour for lunch/recess and that's half the school day without instruction? That blows my mind. I don't recall having so much as a study hall until I got to high school.

PP here. The way it worked for my DD is that in math class, she maybe saw the teacher 15 minutes twice per week, and otherwise got stuck on computers. For language arts block, the teacher met with her reading group for 15 minutes every other week, and the rest of the time was independent or online activities. The teachers were so overwhelmed with the kids who were below grade level that there was no time for kids who were advanced. If the school has high ESOL levels or low SOL pass rates, the teachers will completely ignore the kids who are going to pass the SOLs even without instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have an average or above average kid they will spend a lot of time on the iPad or own their own chilling. There is no incentive to push kids to excel; there IS PUNISHMENT if the struggling kids dont improve, so where do you think the teachers will focus?

Its just how public school is structured; there is no benefit for the schools or teachers for doing better than pass the SOLs in higher and higher percentages. Teachers would love to spend time with your high performing kid and teach them interesting things, but there just isn't the time or resources.

The most important thing is making sure your kid is a strong and enthusiastic reader, so when they have all that down time they can just pull out a book and its not a complete waste of time.

Absolutely nailed it. My DD attended a school with a high ESOL population. She ended up reading independently 2+ hours every single day at school, because the teacher was too busy to deal with the advanced kids. It honestly didn't hurt her to be ignored and spend so much time reading. If you have a kid who is not an enthusiastic reader or is likely to waste the copious amounts of free time they'll be given during the school day, being in a high ESOL class could be a disaster.

So I know it's dangerous to compare school today with what I grew up with but since that's my only frame of reference...2+ hours a day of independent reading time? Isn't a full school day 6-7 hours? Throw in an hour for lunch/recess and that's half the school day without instruction? That blows my mind. I don't recall having so much as a study hall until I got to high school.

PP here. The way it worked for my DD is that in math class, she maybe saw the teacher 15 minutes twice per week, and otherwise got stuck on computers. For language arts block, the teacher met with her reading group for 15 minutes every other week, and the rest of the time was independent or online activities. The teachers were so overwhelmed with the kids who were below grade level that there was no time for kids who were advanced. If the school has high ESOL levels or low SOL pass rates, the teachers will completely ignore the kids who are going to pass the SOLs even without instruction.

Wow. That's actually shocking.

Can the poster (teacher by the sound of it) speaking so highly of high ESOL schools weigh in on this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have an average or above average kid they will spend a lot of time on the iPad or own their own chilling. There is no incentive to push kids to excel; there IS PUNISHMENT if the struggling kids dont improve, so where do you think the teachers will focus?

Its just how public school is structured; there is no benefit for the schools or teachers for doing better than pass the SOLs in higher and higher percentages. Teachers would love to spend time with your high performing kid and teach them interesting things, but there just isn't the time or resources.

The most important thing is making sure your kid is a strong and enthusiastic reader, so when they have all that down time they can just pull out a book and its not a complete waste of time.

Absolutely nailed it. My DD attended a school with a high ESOL population. She ended up reading independently 2+ hours every single day at school, because the teacher was too busy to deal with the advanced kids. It honestly didn't hurt her to be ignored and spend so much time reading. If you have a kid who is not an enthusiastic reader or is likely to waste the copious amounts of free time they'll be given during the school day, being in a high ESOL class could be a disaster.

This is how it was for my daughter in an APS 1st grade class. She was in a gifted cluster that was in the same classroom as an ESOL cluster. Her group got very, very little attention. Second grade was covid, so a disaster. But third grade was a ton better. Kids were better at working independently so the teacher had a lot more latitude to differentiate. The kids who needed extra help still got more teacher time, but there was much more interesting extension content for the gifted/advanced kids. Hopefully that holds true in 4th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have an average or above average kid they will spend a lot of time on the iPad or own their own chilling. There is no incentive to push kids to excel; there IS PUNISHMENT if the struggling kids dont improve, so where do you think the teachers will focus?

Its just how public school is structured; there is no benefit for the schools or teachers for doing better than pass the SOLs in higher and higher percentages. Teachers would love to spend time with your high performing kid and teach them interesting things, but there just isn't the time or resources.

The most important thing is making sure your kid is a strong and enthusiastic reader, so when they have all that down time they can just pull out a book and its not a complete waste of time.

Absolutely nailed it. My DD attended a school with a high ESOL population. She ended up reading independently 2+ hours every single day at school, because the teacher was too busy to deal with the advanced kids. It honestly didn't hurt her to be ignored and spend so much time reading. If you have a kid who is not an enthusiastic reader or is likely to waste the copious amounts of free time they'll be given during the school day, being in a high ESOL class could be a disaster.

This is how it was for my daughter in an APS 1st grade class. She was in a gifted cluster that was in the same classroom as an ESOL cluster. Her group got very, very little attention. Second grade was covid, so a disaster. But third grade was a ton better. Kids were better at working independently so the teacher had a lot more latitude to differentiate. The kids who needed extra help still got more teacher time, but there was much more interesting extension content for the gifted/advanced kids. Hopefully that holds true in 4th.

What should we do for a reluctant reader who is gifted? She excels at math and writing, but if left to her own devices will happily stare out the window and doodle. Doodling for 2 hours out of every school day seems... like a waste.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a school which has about 60% EL population. What does this mean?
Amazing kids from all over the world, who are eager to learn, caring, interesting and funny people. Many of them are smart enough to speak 2, 3 or 4 languages.

My kids who aren't as gifted linguistically, those who can only speak English, are not put on computers so I can "catch everyone else up". Nor are they given a book to read while I "catch everyone else up". In fact, the students who are only able to speak one language are often just in much of "catching up" as my bilingual and multilingual kids, if not more. Yes, even the white, middle income kids need remediation.

I think we need to stop saying our bilingual and multilingual kids need remediation and insist that every single student become proficient in at least two languages in order to graduate 8th grade. And then let's test the kids whose first language is English and see how they perform on assessments after a year or two in Urdu or Spanish or Polish. My guess is everyone else would have to sit around waiting while the "I only speak English" crowd has to catch up.

But, to the OP's question, it means that your child will have friends from different places, who speak different languages and what a rich school environment that will be! I put my own child in a heavily Spanish speaking school. She's now fully bilingual and headed to college on a full ride scholarship in her field of choice. We Americans need to stop understanding "smart" as a 1600 SAT and a top ten university and need to start understanding smart as learning more than one language.

You've done a great job of outlining the positives of having a large cohort of EL students in class but by leaving out the downsides it sounds like propaganda.

Seriously, what are the tradeoffs for the diversity and richness these ELs bring to class? Great Schools says white students are getting 10/10 on assessment tests at this school while hispanic students are 4/10 - are you really saying teachers don't spend more time helping EL kids catch up and close a gap that large? I'm not even implying that's a bad thing, I'd understand if that's the reality but I'd like to understand what that looks like. You sound more knowledgeable than anyone else in here so I'd love it if you could share more.

In my school, every teacher has an ESL certificate, so we all have training to help kids with language learning. We also have an ESL teacher who pushes in and helps those kids specifically. But really, I personally feel very strongly that all kids deserve a significant amount of small group time, not just kids who are struggling. Yes, my lowest group might be seen in a small group 4 days a week, I still try to ensure my higher kids get seen 3 days a week. And yes, it helps that the reading specialist also pushes in daily and can help see groups. But my kids who only speak English truly are not sitting there bored or doing tons of independent work. Every kid reads independently for 15 minutes each day, but all abilities are doing that.
I think the misunderstanding here is that K classes ALWAYS have a huge range of kids. I've had kids who come in who don't know the difference between letters and numbers, kids who are 5 and not potty trained, kids who don't know how to hold a book. And every year, I have kids who come in reading at a first or second grade level. That's in schools with high levels of multilingualism and those with very low levels. My lessons are scaffolded to get at all learners.

Here's an example: It's writer's workshop time in February. I'm doing a lesson on how to write a note to mom or dad. I model what the letter could look like. I give the sentence stem "I love you, _____." The kids decide who they want to say that about and they all turn and talk with their partner. John says, "I love you, Dad." Jose says, "I love you, Mom." Then, we all count the number of words in one of those sentences. I write 4 lines on the board. Amy comes up and writes the word "I". Abed comes and writes the word "lov". (he forgets the e, but this is kindergarten and that's developmentally appropriate. Alejandra comes to write the word you, but is really struggling. I write the letter Y and she traces it. Kids learn to write the first letter of a word before they write more, usually. And Carl comes up and writes Mom. When they sit down to write themselves, yes, some struggle. And my kids who are flying in writing? When I drop by their table and see they have a perfect sentence with a cute picture, I ask them, "What more would you like to tell your mom? Can you write more? What would you say?" They tell me and they get started on writing more. I make a note of the 3 kids who are writing more and the next day, I pull them over for a small group conference on just that.

Kindergarten teachers are masters at differentiation and while I do believe that a very small percentage of teachers are still just teaching to the middle or to the lowest group, this has not been my experience.

I think when you have large groups of kids, living in poverty, also trying to master English, and you have large class sizes and underfunded schools, that's where things get dicey. But I really encourage you to embrace your multilingual school. At least, give it a shot. You might find that it's not propaganda at all. My classroom has kids who speak English, Spanish, Polish, Urdu, and a few other languages. By year's end, 90% of my students are at or above level. As the mother of two very high achieving kids, I made sure my high achievers (whatever language they speak or whatever their economic status is) have the opportunity to excel. You might be surprised how many other teachers feel this way and make that happen, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have an average or above average kid they will spend a lot of time on the iPad or own their own chilling. There is no incentive to push kids to excel; there IS PUNISHMENT if the struggling kids dont improve, so where do you think the teachers will focus?

Its just how public school is structured; there is no benefit for the schools or teachers for doing better than pass the SOLs in higher and higher percentages. Teachers would love to spend time with your high performing kid and teach them interesting things, but there just isn't the time or resources.

The most important thing is making sure your kid is a strong and enthusiastic reader, so when they have all that down time they can just pull out a book and its not a complete waste of time.

Absolutely nailed it. My DD attended a school with a high ESOL population. She ended up reading independently 2+ hours every single day at school, because the teacher was too busy to deal with the advanced kids. It honestly didn't hurt her to be ignored and spend so much time reading. If you have a kid who is not an enthusiastic reader or is likely to waste the copious amounts of free time they'll be given during the school day, being in a high ESOL class could be a disaster.

How do you know your child sat reading, independently, for 2 hours each day? I mean, really? You sat and watched? I don't believe you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have an average or above average kid they will spend a lot of time on the iPad or own their own chilling. There is no incentive to push kids to excel; there IS PUNISHMENT if the struggling kids dont improve, so where do you think the teachers will focus?

Its just how public school is structured; there is no benefit for the schools or teachers for doing better than pass the SOLs in higher and higher percentages. Teachers would love to spend time with your high performing kid and teach them interesting things, but there just isn't the time or resources.

The most important thing is making sure your kid is a strong and enthusiastic reader, so when they have all that down time they can just pull out a book and its not a complete waste of time.

Omg you are full of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a school which has about 60% EL population. What does this mean?
Amazing kids from all over the world, who are eager to learn, caring, interesting and funny people. Many of them are smart enough to speak 2, 3 or 4 languages.

My kids who aren't as gifted linguistically, those who can only speak English, are not put on computers so I can "catch everyone else up". Nor are they given a book to read while I "catch everyone else up". In fact, the students who are only able to speak one language are often just in much of "catching up" as my bilingual and multilingual kids, if not more. Yes, even the white, middle income kids need remediation.

I think we need to stop saying our bilingual and multilingual kids need remediation and insist that every single student become proficient in at least two languages in order to graduate 8th grade. And then let's test the kids whose first language is English and see how they perform on assessments after a year or two in Urdu or Spanish or Polish. My guess is everyone else would have to sit around waiting while the "I only speak English" crowd has to catch up.

But, to the OP's question, it means that your child will have friends from different places, who speak different languages and what a rich school environment that will be! I put my own child in a heavily Spanish speaking school. She's now fully bilingual and headed to college on a full ride scholarship in her field of choice. We Americans need to stop understanding "smart" as a 1600 SAT and a top ten university and need to start understanding smart as learning more than one language.

Omg this is some fantasy land BS right here
Other posters have already covered the truth about elementary - your average or above average kid will be basically ignored and handed a book, ipad or some coloring sheets or simple worksheets during 75% of the day. The teacher will say glowing things bc your kid doesn’t have behavior issues and bc they teach at a level sufficient for grade level your child will be excelling. Side note - “grade level” is a low bar bc it’s a universal standard for an slightly below average student. If your child is struggling they will sweep it under the rug bc they don’t want to have to deal with parents who are going to push for services bc they already have too many kids and too few people to provide services.

also as far as having an UN delegation for friends like the PP claims - yeah that doesn’t happen. Kids self segregate in elementary and the non English speaking kids stick together as do their parents. Shocker - their parents don’t trust white Americans a lot of the time and don’t want to get involved with them more than necessary. I don’t necessarily blame them on this one.
i

Admit it, you and your Becky friends are angry that you can't afford private school for your magical snowflake children.

[Anonymous]

Three replies from same PP with zero contribution just scoffing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gawd this post is seriously going to make me quit DCUM again - just revolting.

+ 100.

These people are so clenched...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a school which has about 60% EL population. What does this mean?
Amazing kids from all over the world, who are eager to learn, caring, interesting and funny people. Many of them are smart enough to speak 2, 3 or 4 languages.

My kids who aren't as gifted linguistically, those who can only speak English, are not put on computers so I can "catch everyone else up". Nor are they given a book to read while I "catch everyone else up". In fact, the students who are only able to speak one language are often just in much of "catching up" as my bilingual and multilingual kids, if not more. Yes, even the white, middle income kids need remediation.

I think we need to stop saying our bilingual and multilingual kids need remediation and insist that every single student become proficient in at least two languages in order to graduate 8th grade. And then let's test the kids whose first language is English and see how they perform on assessments after a year or two in Urdu or Spanish or Polish. My guess is everyone else would have to sit around waiting while the "I only speak English" crowd has to catch up.

But, to the OP's question, it means that your child will have friends from different places, who speak different languages and what a rich school environment that will be! I put my own child in a heavily Spanish speaking school. She's now fully bilingual and headed to college on a full ride scholarship in her field of choice. We Americans need to stop understanding "smart" as a 1600 SAT and a top ten university and need to start understanding smart as learning more than one language.

You've done a great job of outlining the positives of having a large cohort of EL students in class but by leaving out the downsides it sounds like propaganda.

Seriously, what are the tradeoffs for the diversity and richness these ELs bring to class? Great Schools says white students are getting 10/10 on assessment tests at this school while hispanic students are 4/10 - are you really saying teachers don't spend more time helping EL kids catch up and close a gap that large? I'm not even implying that's a bad thing, I'd understand if that's the reality but I'd like to understand what that looks like. You sound more knowledgeable than anyone else in here so I'd love it if you could share more.

In my school, every teacher has an ESL certificate, so we all have training to help kids with language learning. We also have an ESL teacher who pushes in and helps those kids specifically. But really, I personally feel very strongly that all kids deserve a significant amount of small group time, not just kids who are struggling. Yes, my lowest group might be seen in a small group 4 days a week, I still try to ensure my higher kids get seen 3 days a week. And yes, it helps that the reading specialist also pushes in daily and can help see groups. But my kids who only speak English truly are not sitting there bored or doing tons of independent work. Every kid reads independently for 15 minutes each day, but all abilities are doing that.
I think the misunderstanding here is that K classes ALWAYS have a huge range of kids. I've had kids who come in who don't know the difference between letters and numbers, kids who are 5 and not potty trained, kids who don't know how to hold a book. And every year, I have kids who come in reading at a first or second grade level. That's in schools with high levels of multilingualism and those with very low levels. My lessons are scaffolded to get at all learners.

Here's an example: It's writer's workshop time in February. I'm doing a lesson on how to write a note to mom or dad. I model what the letter could look like. I give the sentence stem "I love you, _____." The kids decide who they want to say that about and they all turn and talk with their partner. John says, "I love you, Dad." Jose says, "I love you, Mom." Then, we all count the number of words in one of those sentences. I write 4 lines on the board. Amy comes up and writes the word "I". Abed comes and writes the word "lov". (he forgets the e, but this is kindergarten and that's developmentally appropriate. Alejandra comes to write the word you, but is really struggling. I write the letter Y and she traces it. Kids learn to write the first letter of a word before they write more, usually. And Carl comes up and writes Mom. When they sit down to write themselves, yes, some struggle. And my kids who are flying in writing? When I drop by their table and see they have a perfect sentence with a cute picture, I ask them, "What more would you like to tell your mom? Can you write more? What would you say?" They tell me and they get started on writing more. I make a note of the 3 kids who are writing more and the next day, I pull them over for a small group conference on just that.

Kindergarten teachers are masters at differentiation and while I do believe that a very small percentage of teachers are still just teaching to the middle or to the lowest group, this has not been my experience.

I think when you have large groups of kids, living in poverty, also trying to master English, and you have large class sizes and underfunded schools, that's where things get dicey. But I really encourage you to embrace your multilingual school. At least, give it a shot. You might find that it's not propaganda at all. My classroom has kids who speak English, Spanish, Polish, Urdu, and a few other languages. By year's end, 90% of my students are at or above level. As the mother of two very high achieving kids, I made sure my high achievers (whatever language they speak or whatever their economic status is) have the opportunity to excel. You might be surprised how many other teachers feel this way and make that happen, too.

Hey - thanks a ton for taking the time to write out this response. I really appreciate your take on this. You sound like an amazing teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IME as a teacher 20-30% EL is the sweet spot—you have your core curriculum and then have groups for enrichment, remediation, or language support. Particularly at the lower grades and particularly for literacy, key instruction happens in small leveled groups. I see much more of an impact on the gen ed curriculum when you get to 70% EL or more.

0-5% is the sweet spot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have an average or above average kid they will spend a lot of time on the iPad or own their own chilling.

I'm so out of the loop, are kids doing self supported learning on iPads in school these days?? Like remote learning but in person? wtf?

Yes, why do you think 20% of kids in wealthy districts of APS left for private?