ELL News Headlines

An enrolled tribal member, Sadie Perry lives in the southeast corner of the Navajo Nation on a property with three buildings, two horses and 11 family members, including her six grandsons and one of her daughters, who is ailing. When the coronavirus began sweeping across the world last year, Perry quickly loaded up on pandemic supplies, including food to feed her family, diesel to power her generator and water to fill her tank. But there is one essential that has always been scarce in this part of the country and that she couldn’t stock up on: Broadband access.

It’s not just the delta variant that makes Zhenghao Lin, a Chinese immigrant, nervous about returning to school next month. Zhenghao, a rising senior at Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, said he has been subjected to racist comments at school since he arrived in New York City as a fourth grader. His anxiousness about interacting with non-Asian peers only grew over the course of the pandemic.

The start of a new school year can be scary for all students, but especially younger ones. Share these stories to help them laugh, find someone who understands what they’re feeling, and give them tools to help navigate the new year.

As more Afghan refugees flee from Taliban rule and resettle in Central Texas, Austin ISD’s Refugee Family Support Services Office will facilitate additional trainings to assist teachers in identifying mental health needs of incoming students.

Larry Ferlazzo collects responses to the question: "It's possible that a number of schools might be welcoming Afghan refugee students soon. How can teachers/schools/districts best support them?"

As students head back into another pandemic school year, the Biden administration is announcing millions in new funding for mental health awareness, training, and treatment. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is expected to announce the funds at Children's Hospital New Orleans on Friday morning.

A school-based center for the parents of English learners has opened in Bridgeport. The Newcomer Arrival Center will support new arrivals to the United States and non-English speaking families in the district’s schools, according to Make the Road Connecticut, an immigrants rights group.

Over the next two years, 11 organizations will each be granted up to $1 million to improve Algebra outcomes for Black and Latino students, English-language learners, and students experiencing poverty. These grants are courtesy of the Gates Foundation, through its Grand Challenges platform—an initiative that targets persistent challenges in global health and development.

The country’s 5 million English-language learner-students—three-quarters of whom speak Spanish as their home language, federal data show—faced unique challenges during the periods of remote schooling last year. Some worry that these students may have regressed in their English skills during that time. But experts say that these students also experienced potential benefits from spending more time at home immersed in their families’ languages and cultures. They say teachers will need to give English-learners proper support going forward, which includes ensuring they are learning language within content and not in isolation; doing holistic assessments that take into account any gains made in home languages; and most importantly, avoiding assumptions on how much or how little progress was made in English-language skills.

This upcoming webinar on 8/25 at 2pm ET explores these and other support strategies for educators working with English-learners this fall.

Months of isolation away from the classroom has helped bring down the emotional well-being among many students in the Castro Valley Unified School District, they and their teachers told KQED. School officials hope to start the healing process through art and increased access to mental health professionals.