Top-notch Davis High program’s success tests district’s patience

A battle is brewing over whether the most-effective program for educating new immigrants has to take them.

The Language Institute at Davis High School in Modesto has earned state and national awards over the past two years for its intensive high school program, moving even teens with no formal education forward multiple grades in one year. Of the program’s 35 graduates in the Class of 2016, 31 were headed to college.

Under federal law, young newcomers have three school years of free education due them through age 21. But Modesto City Schools has balked at providing those post-18 years, saying young adults belong at Modesto Junior College or adult school classes, not on a high school campus.

On Monday, Language Institute coordinator Lindsey Bird told the Modesto City Schools board that she and other immigrant advocates will pursue a federal discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, seeking to force Modesto City Schools to let eligible students stay.

Modesto Junior College professor Ruth Luman told board members the Davis program can do far more for these older teens than the community college can. “The time (for them) is now to provide Language Institute services,” she said. “We have everything to gain if we make this investment, and everything to lose if we do not.”

Reached by phone Thursday, board President Sue Zwahlen said she understands the desire but will reserve judgment until the district has better information on its legal position.

“Visiting the Language Institute, those students are engaged and excited about learning, and I would be in favor of helping them, however we can, to progress forward with their education,” Zwahlen said.

The California Department of Education in June had clear advice on its website that immigrants had to be served those extra years. It since has pulled its public pages on the topic, saying it is reviewing the matter.

When interviewed by The Modesto Bee in June, California State Refugee Coordinator Sysvanh Kabkeo said he was not aware of any other school district in the state that did not allow immigrant students to stay those extra years. He declined to be interviewed for this article. Los Angeles Unified, with 640,000 students, has a policy of allowing all English learners to stay through age 21 as part of its dropout-prevention efforts.

Modesto has a policy that prohibits longer stays and a regulation that allows them, but in practice denies years past age 18 except by special exemptions by the board. Two young women from Afghanistan received exemptions to stay as 19-year-olds this year.

Because of the Taliban’s ban on educating women, both arrived with little or no formal schooling. Both are making strong progress, but 12 grades are difficult to cover in one year, or even two.

Monisa Noor, now 18, is one of those women. She arrived in Modesto at 17 and enrolled at Davis High with only a first-grade education. By the end of 2015-16, she was speaking and writing English at a high elementary-grade level and pledged to become a nurse. But she must pass chemistry to make that happen, and that will likely take another year’s intensive study, Bird said.

Modesto’s policy stand does not suggest she will get it.

“We have not received clear guidance from state and federal education officials on the topic,” said Modesto City Schools spokeswoman Becky Fortuna in an email Thursday.

“An email from a CDE employee earlier this year stated that there is nothing in (California Education Code) that requires a district to provide general education students with course work past their 12th grade year to complete their high school graduation requirements,” she wrote. After The Bee’s inquiry, the district contacted the state again, and she said, “The CDE stood by their original response, but wanted to check with their legal team. We have not heard back.”

Fortuna conceded the district has conflicting policy statements on the subject and is working to craft a coherent stand.

“We have been researching this topic for some time now as we have the responsibility to be very thoughtful in our actions. Allowing students to stay in a comprehensive high school until 21 years of age could mean we would have a 21-year-old student in the same classroom as a 14-year-old student. Such a wide variance in age is a concern. We must ensure an age-appropriate educational environment for all of our students,” Fortuna wrote.

Modesto high schools already allow 19-year-olds who flunked or missed courses a year to catch up, and special education students can stay until 21. Districts receive full daily attendance funding, roughly $10,000 each, for students staying one extra year. Fortuna said it was unclear if immigrants staying a second extra year also would be funded.

But in any case, Modesto high schools do receive extra federal dollars for English learners. CDE figures show Modesto high schools will receive $129,691 in Title III funding to help English learners in 2016-17. Modesto elementary and junior high schools receive another half a million under the federal program.

It is this Title III funding that ties the district to federal rules ordering it to serve immigrant youth, defined in the law as someone age 3 through 21 who was not born in the United States and has not been attending a U.S. school for more than three school years.

In addressing the board, Bird said she had worked for years to match Modesto’s policies to the Title III requirement, lobbying district administrators and the board.

“As the numerous emails I have sent over the years have requested, some of our students who arrive older in age and/or without the benefit of a prior education need more time than the traditional graduation age of 18,” she told trustees.

Bird stressed that no immigrant children or families would be a part of the action. “They are extremely grateful for the education their children are receiving,” she said.

“We are here to hopefully give their children the educational access they are legally entitled to and to stop the perpetuation of past practice, which has led to numerous students being exited from a program that has proven to be life-changing,” Bird said.

A high school diploma is required for nearly all jobs, college or military service, and the Language Institute has been highly successful at helping new immigrants achieve them. Adult schools have GED prep, and a county charter school grants diplomas, but none offer the proven mix of daily scheduling, services and social supports the district brought together at Davis High for new immigrants.

Language Institute students take double periods of English, using group lessons interspersed with self-paced online learning, allowing kids to sprint ahead. Social studies and geography lessons fit in American customs, government, legal system and other essentials. They have classes with regular Davis students for physical education, math and science, with extra help where needed.

Mixing with American teens helps students make friends and learn to fit in. Being with fellow immigrants, many who have faced similar traumas escaping war zones or political violence, gives them a place to vent and feel normal while adjusting to a very different life. For some, even being in coed classes comes as a shock.

But the real secret sauce of the Davis High program appears to lie in handing students the keys to their own success. With Read 180 online tutoring and testing, teens chart their progress up the academic ladder. Teachers’ constant checking in and challenging teens is part of the program’s by-your-own-bootstraps ethos, as is bringing families into the plan through home visits.

The program has proven so successful that Bird was flown to the U.S. Department of Education in March to discuss refugee education with those implementing national policies. Future teachers at California State University, Stanislaus, mentor students in a reciprocal program that also helps them learn about working with English learners. Tim Allen, director of the Carlston Family Foundation, spoke at length at a Modesto City Schools board meeting about the rare achievement and atmosphere of the program – out of hundreds he has evaluated – in awarding Bird an Outstanding Teacher of America award in 2015.

Language Institute success, however, has not gone unnoticed by refugee placement teams and immigration advocates. The program stands at double its original size in 2010, and typically grows throughout the year as immigrants arrive. At midyear the institute has 242 students, 90 of them only sophomores, Fortuna said.

The district’s smallest high school, whose shrinking size caused a districtwide redraw of school boundaries in 2013, has nearly regained the size planners intended, 1,800.

“Will there come a time when we have to turn away neighborhood students to maintain the Language Institute?” Fortuna asked in concluding her email.

This story was originally published December 10, 2016 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Top-notch Davis High program’s success tests district’s patience."