ELL News Headlines

As President Joe Biden announced the end of the longest war in U.S. history, schools across the nation prepared for an influx of refugees, who were among the more than 120,000 people that were evacuated from Afghanistan. 

When I was little, I used to love the books where you would connect the dots to make pictures. Some were very easy, you could tell what the picture was going to be even before you started, but some were very complex, and you had no idea what was going to emerge. The topic of Sept. 11, 2001 is very complex. On that day, when I was trying to comfort a classroom of terrified eighth graders — much less understand it myself — I couldn't see the dots that needed to be connected.

Debbie Reese reviews Sharice's Big Voice: A Native Kid Becomes a Congresswoman, a picture book by U.S. Congresswoman Sharice Davids with Nancy K. Mays.

Across New Orleans and southeastern Louisiana, families are still waiting to hear when their children can return to school, as districts assessed hurricane damage. Prior to Hurricane Ida, schools around Louisiana had been open despite widespread cases of COVID-19, although under a statewide mask mandate for all indoor locations.

Last year's COVID-19 lockdown disrupted the idea of school as we know it and it forced educators to think outside of the box. For one elementary school principal in North Carolina, thinking outside of the box had him heading outside — literally.

Students at Quincy High and North Quincy High schools can take college credit courses this school year through an arrangement with Quincy College. The Early College High School program, which is overseen by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, focuses on "high need" students — those from low-income families, with disabilities, or English language learners — who may not otherwise consider college an option, according to Quincy College Associate Vice President Meghan Cassidy.

Nooria Luddin and her younger brother, Samiullah, fled Afghanistan in March 2020 to live with their father in Annandale. Their father, Tahir, brought his five oldest children to the United States – leaving behind his wife and eight younger siblings –  to ensure their safety. He was worried the Taliban might target him and his family because he had previously worked for several western European and American journalism outlets. But Tahir noted it was also important to him that his children receive an education in the United States because they could not get it in Afghanistan. Tahir is awaiting the arrival of his wife and other children, who were among thousands of Afghans who fled after the Taliban takeover earlier this month. They are currently in Qatar.

It’s possible that a number of schools might be welcoming Afghan refugee students soon. How can teachers/schools/districts best support them?

Teachers are returning to the classroom with mixed feelings of excitement and anxiety as they ease students back into classrooms after 17 months of distance learning, according to a panel of educators during an EdSource Roundtable Discussion, the second in a new series.

The Newark school district has failed to properly educate many students who are still learning English, according to a nearly four-year investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice that found “wide-ranging failures” in the district’s English language program, officials said.