Buckle down, buckle up: Refugee youths get powerful push forward

When immigrants flee to America, the top criteria for living quarters are close to someone they know, affordability and a nearby bus stop. But the address where they unpack also will decide which schools the children attend, and it is increasingly clear that matters.

While every school in every neighborhood earnestly wants to help these newcomers, few have support systems ready to serve the vast range of needs that walk in the classroom door with refugee children, and fewer still can offer them friends with similar stories.

Modesto City Schools Language Institutes at Davis High and Roosevelt Junior High have both, and educational leaders from Sacramento to Washington, D.C., are taking notice.

“It’s pretty remarkable, what Language Institute has been able to do,” said resettlement caseworker Sarah Williams with World Relief Modesto. She sets up services and housing for incoming refugee families. Many of the children speak little or no English and have large gaps in their schooling, particularly girls.

“One (teen) literally picked up a pen for the first time when she was filling out forms with me. We had to show her how to make an X (to sign),” Williams said.

Besides the enormous academic challenge of entering high school at such a skill level, the young Muslim woman faced huge cultural adjustments, including having boys in her classroom.

Seeing success

Yet within a few years, most in the Davis High program will earn a diploma and aim toward college. The Davis High graduating class of 2016 had 35 LI students, 21 planning to go to a community college and 10 to a four-year university.

The Language Institute was developed for all new immigrants and serves many from Mexico and southeast Asia. As Modesto became a hub for families from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Syria, the cosmopolitan Davis student body reflected the change.

Language Institute successes earned it the California School Boards Association 2015 Golden Bell for high school language acquisition, given out Dec. 5. Davis teachers shared the stage with Newcomer Academy at El Cajon Valley High School in San Diego County, which came to Modesto to study the Davis program and modeled its program after it.

So many other districts and schools have started coming to Davis High to watch the Language Institute in action, the campus has limited visits to one day a semester.

The high school was awarded state Gold Ribbon School status in 2015, based on its LI program. For two years, future teachers in the California State University, Stanislaus, credential program have partnered with the program as mentors, as valuable to the adults as the teens, said Karen Breshears of the Stan State faculty.

“They were learning from each other,” she said.

Davis LI coordinator Lindsey Bird was named an Outstanding Teacher of America in 2015, one of five named by the Carlston Family Foundation from nominations by former students. In a presentation before the Modesto City Schools board, Executive Director Tim Allen spoke of the atmosphere of the Language Institute as rare among the hundreds of schools he has evaluated.

In March, U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. met with 10 teachers from around the country, flown to Washington, D.C., to share their boots-on-the-ground knowledge about teaching refugees. Davis High’s Bird was among them. To her knowledge, Bird was the only one of those teachers also sent on a round of appointments to discuss what she has learned about teaching refugees with other Department of Education officials.

Refugees all around

The United States takes in about 70,000 refugees a year from a variety of countries, and planned to increase that for 2016. Bird said managing that influx and helping families succeed is behind the push to learn more from educators about what works.

Many of the other schools represented had a concentration of refugees, Bird said.

“It was not a special program, that’s just the reality of their community,” she added.

Because resettlement efforts target areas where refugees have relatives or a community to link to, there tend to be clusters, she explained.

“Communities are going to become hubs of refugees, whether they know it now or not,” she said.

Some large districts have created standalone programs, but the Davis school-within-a-school approach appears to be unique, Bird said. Most school districts work with students individually to provide English-learner, family and counseling supports.

“We don’t have a canned program. We provide supports for wherever they’re at,” said Jay Simmonds, assistant superintendent of Ceres Unified. Ceres has a raft of support available for all English learners and low-income kids.

Turlock Unified also works case by case with new immigrants, said Heidi Lawler, assistant superintendent of educational services.

“We work to connect immigrant families to important services to develop a positive relationship with the schools and support their children’s transition to U.S. schools. At some sites, TUSD staff includes community liaisons, who are important resources for parents who may not speak English and need support in their native language,” Lawler said by email.

The Modesto program buses new immigrants from all its schools to Roosevelt Junior High and Davis High, with enrollment growing steadily through the year. Those numbers support more innovative classes and the mix of dozens of languages and home countries.

“They have shared experiences. They have the same struggles. They’ve lost homes, lost relatives. They’ve seen a lot of hard stuff,” caseworker Williams said. “That in itself is just amazing, how they are able to come together and just support themselves.”

But shared struggles are still struggles, as anyone who has tried to learn algebra in a foreign language can attest.

Starting over

Munisa Noor, 18, came to Modesto from Afghanistan, where fears of the Taliban had kept her home since first grade. An uncle tried to teach her to read in Farsi, but she admits she was a reluctant student. When Noor came to Davis at 17, she felt her situation was hopeless.

“I don’t understand anything, just sit in the back and I didn’t know how to say my name in English,” Noor said with still imperfect grammar. She speaks Farsi, Pashtu and Urdu, and in a year went from knowing not one letter in the Roman alphabet to reading at about a third-grade level.

“Reading and writing was boring for me. Now I love, love, love it! I just want to learn,” Noor said with a laugh. She dreams of becoming a nurse, believing for the first time she can make a difference as a woman.

“I will become something to show you!” she said with a wave of her fist at the uncle in Afghanistan. “When I graduate I will call him.”

She will be back at Davis in the fall, granted fifth-year senior status by Modesto City Schools, but a third year may be a tough sell under the district’s policies, which require special permission for those over 18.

California State Refugee Coordinator Sysvanh Kabkeo said he was not aware of any other district in the state with such a policy. State and federal codes mandate education for recent immigrant children, defined as 21 or younger with up to three years of U.S. schooling.

Modesto has asked the state for guidance on exactly what is required, said Ginger Johnson, associate superintendent of educational services.

“There are programs at the community college they can take. There’s adult school,” she said. “I do think that all our educational institutions have to develop these programs. It can’t be solely on the shoulders of (K-12) schools.”

Young adults like the Davis program, Johnson said.

“The Language Institute program is very strong and I think people don’t want to leave a quality program, which is why it’s so important that other institutions do more,” she said.

The LI approach

The Language Institute programs at both schools use intensive English instruction and mixing with the mainstream to move kids forward.

At Roosevelt Junior High, LI students take a double period of English, with acculturation on things such as visiting a grocery store or recycling, said teacher June Forrest. The kids still take core courses, but in classes tailored to help English learners.

“This is only two years. For them to be on track to graduate, we can’t skip math and science,” said Roosevelt Principal David Sanchez.

“The goal is for them to be successful as students,” Forrest said. But it takes a balance of pushing and hand-holding, she added.

“There are a lot of adjustments,” she said.

The program drops institutional barriers to mid-semester class changes, allowing kids to move in and out of classes whenever teachers decide. Other barriers have fallen along the way. Language Institute students are encouraged to take choir as a way to practice their English. They take regular PE and can serve as office aides, getting still more practice.

“Everything is an opportunity to speak, and I’d never seen that before,” Forrest said. “It has changed the way I’ve taught.”

At Davis High, Language Institute teens start off with a double period of English-language development, an acculturation class and world geography, a curriculum Bird developed that steeps lessons about places in prepositions and other language-learning strategies.

PE, math and science classes are with the mainstream, with extra help as needed, and kids are encouraged to take electives and join clubs. Every teen has a computer, essential for instant translation as well as online work.

Vampires in hijabs

The acculturation class goes over housing, transportation, government structures and other new-to-America basics, using a picture dictionary as a textbook.

“These are words they use right away. They run home and tell their families,” said Bird, who counts home visits and working with families as a critical part of the program’s success.

Teaching holidays is a treat, she added – especially Halloween.

“I have to tell them, people in masks are going to knock on your door and ask for candy,” she said.

Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video and other holiday staples play a starring role in that lesson.

“I have pictures of girls in hijabs (headscarves) in goofy eyes and vampire fangs,” Bird said with a chuckle. Easter egg hunts, leprechauns and a Thanksgiving feast spice up other classes.

During the English time, teens spend independent reading time with an online program called Read 180.

“It’s a remedial product, but we use it differently, because for us it’s for acceleration,” Bird said.

With teens at every imaginable level of English instruction, teacher Victor Soria uses the computer to do the clerical work, calculating reading levels and recording progress, while he spends his time teaching. Soria was a National 180 Award teacher finalist in 2015, though Read 180 initially noticed his class because it raised red flags.

“We were using over double the segments of other teachers. The concern was that he had skimmed over them,” Bird said. But no, the LI students were just ramming through them and moving forward. Having students jump three or four grade levels in a year is common.

LI kids have captured the student National 180 Award for two years running, Martin Esho in 2015 and Borum Long in 2016. Long arrived from Cambodia in 2012 speaking no English, but by his senior year was taking three Advanced Placement courses. He heads next to the University of California, Davis, where he plans to study civil engineering.

Such stories do not amaze folks at Davis High; they hear them again and again.

“We let the kids soar,” Bird said. “It’s a mindset. We try to create an environment where they’re challenged. Every day they’re tasting success, and they’re motivated.”

Accepting of ‘difference’

Language Institute students move up in state language proficiency tests at about the same rates as the district’s English learners overall, with roughly half moving up the five-step state scoring to fluency, said Melanie McCleary, district director of state and federal programs.

Interestingly, long-term English learners at Roosevelt and Davis – those not in the program – did significantly better, with 60 percent showing at least one level’s improvement.

It could be a fluke, McCleary was careful to point out. But it also could have something to do with how the campuses adapted to their high-needs arrivals.

“Maybe additional awareness? More familiarity? Working with more supports, more collaboration? That conversation in core content?” McCleary mused.

At Roosevelt, Sanchez credited a positive, flexible mindset. “That mindset has affected the entire school. I’ve always thought effective instruction for English learners is just effective instruction for all,” he said. “(Roosevelt) is very accepting of,” he paused, “just difference.”

As Bird put it, “It brings them into the school system and makes them feel a part.”

Learning English, she said, “is a temporary roadblock. But if you don’t give them the supports, it will become a permanent disability.”

That should matter to everyone, she said.

“This program changed not just their lives, but their children’s lives. It shouldn’t take four or five generations for a family to figure the system out and get their kids into college,” Bird said. “There’s a direct benefit, but we’re also breaking that cycle.”

This story was originally published June 25, 2016 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Buckle down, buckle up: Refugee youths get powerful push forward."