ELL News Headlines

B. Adriana Ontiveros is the bilingual education and community outreach coordinator for Las Cruces Public Schools. In this commentary, she writes, "Despite all the negative things happening around us, despite the losses, we suddenly find ourselves looking at our position in a new light. In difficult situations like the one we are currently facing, there are only two ways to react. We can either freeze and focus only on the negative, or we try to be positive and see the infinite possibilities to innovate around us."

Whether it happens in-person or remote, this year’s back-to-school season is bringing with it a host of new data privacy concerns. Chief among them: How to safely and legally store and share videos of classroom lessons featuring students, and what to do with all the new sensitive health information being collected by schools now administering health surveys, doing daily temperature checks, and tracing the contacts of students and staff who have contracted or been exposed to the coronavirus.

It has been one year since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried out the largest single-state raid in U.S. history and arrested 680 workers from seven chicken processing plants in Mississippi. Dozens of families were torn apart, leaving communities shattered, and educators, religious leaders and activists scrambling to restore a sense of normalcy, only to have many of those efforts disrupted by COVID-19.

When Kamala Harria first ran for public office, she had not spent much time trying to categorize herself. "That was one of the things that I struggled with," she recalled in a 2019 interview with The Washington Post.  "You are forced through that process to define yourself in a way that you fit neatly into the compartment that other people have created. My point was: I am who I am. I'm good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I'm fine with it," she said. On Tuesday, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, Joe Biden, named Kamala Harris as his running mate.

In this column, AZ Superintendent Jeff Gregorich writes, "The governor has told us we have to open our schools to students on August 17th, or else we miss out on five percent of our funding. I run a high-needs district in middle-of-nowhere Arizona. We’re 90 percent Hispanic and more than 90 percent free-and-reduced lunch. These kids need every dollar we can get. But covid is spreading all over this area and hitting my staff, and now it feels like there’s a gun to my head. I already lost one teacher to this virus. Do I risk opening back up even if it's going to cost us more lives? Or do we run school remotely and end up depriving these kids?"

For almost a decade, Simón López, the special education coordinator at Boston’s Sarah Greenwood School, has been fighting against the school district that employs him. He has lobbied principals, written letters to the revolving door of superintendents in the district, made his case to school board members and even contacted state education agency officials. All to no avail. His cause? López maintains that the Sarah Greenwood School’s coveted dual language program, which teaches students in both English and Spanish, is violating civil rights laws by intentionally excluding many students with emotional disabilities — including some native Spanish speakers who would benefit from a bilingual approach.

Parents across the U.S. are wondering what the next school year will hold for their children. While reopening decisions will ultimately be up to state and local officials, President Trump said Tuesday he'll pressure governors to resume in-person classes. Judy Woodruff talks to Noel Candelaria of the Texas State Teachers Association and Elliot Haspel, an education policy expert and former teacher.

When Carly Eddington needs someone to watch her four-year-old daughter Aylah in a pinch, her mother Kathy answers the call. The coronavirus pandemic, of course, changed everything. Now, Kathy's child-care duties have ramped up to around 20 hours a week. "My mom loves spending the time, but I battle with it. She has a physical disability and multiple health issues. She’s willing and able, but a full day with my daughter is exhausting for me at 32, let alone my mom at 65." Rachel Margolis knows exactly where this is heading. The Western University associate professor and sociologist expects parents in dual-earning households will either lean harder on grandparent assistance or drop down to a single income for the foreseeable future.

More than an estimated 10,000 displaced people in the D.C. region have uprooted their lives to escape terror and persecution in their home countries, only to encounter a new struggle, tinged by the virus, in the United States. Many work essential jobs and live in crowded apartments that make social distancing nearly impossible. And because many recently settled refugees have not yet filed for taxes, some could not receive stimulus checks, making their economic struggles more difficult. Language barriers add another layer of complexity.

With an urgent deadline approaching Wednesday, the collective force of California’s three public systems of higher education, which educate nearly 3 million students, have joined the legal fight to stop federal immigration authorities from banning international students from the U.S. if they take only online courses this fall.