Reply to Fairfax County Public Schools -- Article on Demographic Changes

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]I am an ESOL teacher in a FCPS high school. I would agree with the part in bold for the most part, but while many of my students' parents want the best for their kids, many of them are working so long and so many hours that they are not able to participate much in how to make that happen. Also, many of our parents are uneducated themselves, so when it comes to teaching their children good study skills and how to graduate from high school, they don't really know how to help their kids. While the majority of my students are sweet and hard working, they come with so many challenges that make it difficult from them to graduate. Many of my students come here when they are 15-18 years old, with only an elementary education from their countries so that they are essentially illiterate. While they work on learning English, they are just so far behind that even though they can stay in high school until 22, that is not long enough to learn everything they need to know to graduate from FCPS. I cannot tell you how many kids I have seen come to my school for a year or two and then just drop out because they get frustrated and realize how far behind they are. Some of them actually stay, but then they remain in the lower levels of ESOL for years which is not really serving them well at all either. It is frustrating, but unless the county really makes a change on how to educate these kids (maybe a different kind of school or diploma?), I think they will just keep dropping out or spinning their wheels in ESOL classes without moving toward graduation. My school's program is one of the smaller ones, so I am not sure how schools with higher ESOL populations do it (Stuart or Falls CHurch for example).  
 
 
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Thanks for this explanation.  It makes sense.  We need to give them the opportunity, but when it is not the right fit, we need vocational education of some type.[/quote]

Yes exactly.  Everyone would like to believe that all kids can graduate and go on to college, but when you arrive here at age 17 with a 3rd grade education, the typical high school program is not going to work for you.[/quote]

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