As more immigrant families locate in outlying areas,
schools struggle to cope with shifts in their student bodies' needs,
such as help with basic English.
By Susannah Rosenblatt, Times
Staff Writer
"What's that?" Jenny Wright asks fourth-grader Michael Lopez, pointing to a
drawing of a foot.
The boy shrugs.
This fall afternoon, as the rest of Wright's remedial reading class at Park
Hill Elementary School in San Jacinto completes language exercises on
worksheets or computers, Wright is coaching her newest student, Michael, one
on one.
He knows what a foot is, of course, but to him it's el pie. The
9-year-old arrived last year from Culiacan, Mexico, and speaks barely a word
of English.
"What's that?" the teacher prompts, moving to a picture of grass. Another
shrug.
"Grass. Does grass have the same ending as glass?"
Michael nods. As he laboriously colors the grass with green marker, Wright
casts a harried look at the two dozen other pupils reading at their desks.
Scenes such as this unfold in nearly every classroom on Park Hill's tidy
campus, where teachers struggle daily to balance the intense needs of
immigrant students with the overall demands of educating everyone.
Instructors at Park Hill, however, are more strained than most. In the more
than 16 years since it opened its doors, the suburban Riverside County
school has seen a dramatic rise in "English language learners" — mostly
Latino immigrants. The tally has risen from nearly none in 1995 to 362 as of
this month — one of the steepest increases in the region. Such students now
account for more than 40% of the student body.
"It would be great to have much smaller classes and be able to give more
attention to everybody," Wright said. "That would be ideal."
Instead, "You just do what you can."
Each day at the school is a lesson in patience, frustration and
adaptability, offering a glimpse of the challenges that arise as immigrant
families around the nation spread from metropolitan centers and older
suburbs into fast-developing outlying areas.
The trend is sharply evident in Southern California. A Times analysis showed
that between 2000 and 2005, the latest year for which data are available,
the enrollment of English learners increased in 80% of San Bernardino,
Riverside and Ventura County elementary schools — making them look a lot
more like campuses in the traditional immigrant gateways of Los Angeles and
Orange counties.
At Park Hill, the change has been especially dramatic, and the staff is
rushing to adapt. Just four of about 40 teachers are fluent
in Spanish. Although bilingual teachers are preferred among new hires,
veterans such as Wright sometimes labor to communicate — using pictures, ad
hoc Spanish phrases and, in a pinch, student translators.
A formal bilingual education program is not an option. In 1998, Californians
voted to curtail the controversial practice in public schools.
"For me the hardest thing is keeping up with the pace," Wright said. "If
they don't get something the first time, there's not a lot of time to go
back."
Park Hill, like every other public school, must hew to strict state and
federal accountability standards — even as some students arrive unable to
formulate a basic question in English, let alone read a sentence or write
their name.
Teachers say they struggle to engage immigrant students and involve their
parents, only to see many families leave in search of better jobs in other
towns.
Then there are the parents of English-speaking pupils who worry that their
children are being shortchanged.
And yet, there are small successes every day.
In Wright's classroom, she asks for Lopez's homework. "La tarea," she
says. He pulls out the rumpled sheet with words like "do" and "to" written
five times each.
Wright is pleased. In just a short time, Lopez has learned to write simple
sentences and read from simple books — "This is a cat. That is a cat" — in
his soft, accented English.
The boy's progress, she said, is "amazing."
*
Librarian Debi Jones started working at Park Hill when it opened in 1990.
The school was the pride of the district, tucked into a neighborhood of new
homes near parks and playgrounds.
Its few hundred students, most of them white, could walk to school. "We were
like all this little community, all the middle-class people coming in" to
volunteer, Jones said. Parents "maybe had a little more money, a little more
time."
In the last several years, a boundary change brought several apartments and
mobile home parks into the district, and the area's population swelled with
families seeking affordable housing. Park Hill now has more than 860 pupils
and operates year round.
These days, "we hardly get any volunteers" in the library, Jones said.
"Parents are either working or they don't feel confident speaking English."
Jones laments that teachers don't send their classes to the library as they
used to; there isn't time.
Test scores have fallen below state targets, drawing scrutiny from
Sacramento. The school has missed its goals on the Academic Performance
Index for the last three years, scoring 692 on a scale of 1,000 last year.
(It slipped compared to schools with similar demographics, dropping from a
four to a two on a scale of 10 last year.)
With no district orientation for new arrivals, immigrant students without
strong language skills are at an immediate disadvantage in the classroom,
Principal Eric Reinhard said — thrown into the curriculum before they have
even learned their way around. San Jacinto School District officials are
discussing implementing an orientation program next school year.
Park Hill must lift its performance for two consecutive years or a team of
experts could step in to essentially take over the school. Teachers must
adhere to strict guidelines, scheduling virtually every minute of the day.
Art, social studies, physical education and library visits have all been
drastically reduced.
State oversight has "brought about good things," Jones said. But now instead
of reading to youngsters, Jones said she, like the rest of the faculty, must
spend much of her time filling out paperwork to prove the school is meeting
state goals.
In the process, she said, "Hopefully, we don't lose sight of the students,
of the children."
*
For immigrant students at Park Hill, adapting can be a long process —
academically and socially.
Melisa Richards, 11, came to Park Hill two years ago, unable to communicate
and paralyzed by shyness. The feeling, she said, was "kind of desperate."
As they walked to school each day, Melisa used to beg her mother, Martha, to
let her stay home. Martha would watch sadly as her daughter returned home
alone — while other neighborhood children joked and laughed together. "It
was terrible," Martha said.
But eventually one Spanish-speaking girl befriended Melisa, and her teacher
offered extra help, something Martha couldn't provide: She spoke little
English herself.
After several months, Martha rejoiced in a minor success: Melisa's teacher
reported that the girl had, for the first time, spoken up in English —
asking permission to use the bathroom.
This year, Melisa entered middle school, where most of her girlfriends speak
English.
"Now if I want to talk, I talk," she said.
In class, Melisa said, she keeps up fine. She's not fond of math, but she
loves social studies. She earns mostly Bs.
Michael Lopez is where Melisa was two years ago: in fourth grade at Park
Hill, saying scarcely a word in Spanish or English.
At a hot dog lunch celebrating the class' good attendance, a couple of his
classmates hovered protectively, mumbling to him in Spanish. When one boy
asked Michael in English how many frankfurters he'd finished, the boy didn't
answer until the question was translated into Spanish. Then, he held up
three fingers.
Yet in a recent oral test that measured English reading speed, Michael
performed better than many classmates. "I was really surprised," said his
teacher, Wright. The boy still struggles with reading comprehension and math
vocabulary, however.
Wright attributes Michael's progress, at least in part, to basic survival:
"It's more of a necessity for him to figure out what's going on."
Overall, assimilation seems to come more naturally on the playground.
Language "doesn't really make a difference, because you really just play the
same and do the same things," said fourth-grader Alex Castellano, who speaks
English.
If anything, native English speakers sometimes feel left out.
When fifth-grader Uzziah Kleinman's buddies start jabbering in Spanish, it
makes him want to know the language.
"They could teach you just in case you get in a situation" where you need
it, he said.
*
About six of the 16 second-grade students in Shelley Yager's classroom are
English learners.
Signs with vocabulary words — "squishy," "egg" — are affixed to the walls.
Each week, to learn a new word, students must wear it — literally — on a
card tied around their necks.
Homework must be self-explanatory. That means no new material or complicated
English instructions, because many parents can't read them.
Parents' limited involvement can be frustrating: Last year, just three
parents out of 18 in Yager's class showed up for Back to School night.
Part of the problem is cultural: In Mexico, parents are often discouraged
from visiting schools, said literacy coach Robin Navarro. Being asked to
campus often carries a negative implication.
At Park Hill, teachers say they need all the help they can get. Each year,
about 10% of the school's experienced teachers leave, Reinhard said. He
attributes the turnover to the desire to relocate, work a traditional school
year and perhaps find a less pressured environment.
Teachers' time is short, not just because the state is watching but because
many immigrant families are transient, often arriving and leaving midyear.
Yager ended a recent school year with just three of her original students.
This year, one often-uprooted second-grader arrived without knowing the
alphabet. He couldn't identify colors or write his name.
"I kept that kid with me practically the whole day," Yager said.
Until four months later — when he moved again.
*
As Park Hill struggles to accommodate such newcomers, Ann Helsel worries
that her son Billy, a San Jacinto Valley native, is being overlooked. In her
view, teachers are spending too much time with children who know the least.
"How much special treatment should this non-English-speaking] child get,
which is taking away from my child?" Helsel said.
After Billy graduates from Park Hill this school year, Helsel is thinking of
leaving San Jacinto, where she has lived since childhood. It has lost its
familiar, small-town feel, she said.
The family would not be the first to leave; whites in the district have
dropped from 42% to a little more than 25% in a decade.
Parent volunteer Julie Fellows has a different view. She too has
seen plenty of change at Park Hill. She has sent three of her children and
about 10 foster children there over the years.
She's noticed that Park Hill instructors are juggling more responsibilities
than ever. That's why she shows up every week to make copies and assemble
homework packets.
In spite of meager turnouts at PTA meetings, Fellows said, Park Hill
teachers "have a great desire to work with you as a parent."
As the school reaches out to immigrant parents, some are starting to
respond. One can see it in specially tailored activities: in the long lines
for pastries at morning meet-and-greets called Doughnuts for Dads or in a
popular literacy class to help Spanish-speaking parents learn to read with
their children. One can even see it in the library.
One fall morning, Maria Castro was one of three mothers inside, listening
through headphones to a free computerized English language drill. She could
always get her 8-year-old daughter, Priscilla, to translate but said she
wanted a more independent role at the school.
"I can't communicate with teachers," Castro explained between drills. "I
want to learn more."
susannah.rosenblatt@latimes.com
Times staff writer Doug Smith and data analyst Sandra Poindexter contributed
to this report.
*
(INFOBOX BELOW)
Spreading out
The movement of immigrants away from metropolitan Los Angeles between 2000
and 2005 swelled the number of English learners, particularly in Riverside
and San Bernardino county elementary schools.
English language learners (ELLs)
| County |
2000 |
2005 |
% change |
| San Bernardino |
43,097 |
53,657 |
25% |
| Riverside |
45,011 |
53,710 |
19 |
| Ventura |
18,830 |
19,536 |
4 |
| Orange |
96,749 |
90,387 |
-7 |
| Los Angeles |
376,459 |
307,458 |
-18 |
**
Percentage of schools losing/gaining ELLs (2000-2005)
San Bernardino
Losing: 18%
Gaining: 82%
*
Riverside
Losing: 18%
Gaining: 82%
*
Ventura
Losing: 23%
Gaining: 77%
*
Orange
Losing: 38%
Gaining: 62%
*
Los Angeles
Losing: 62%
Gaining: 38%
--
Source: California Department of Education. Data analysis by Doug Smith and
Sandra Poindexter
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