ELL News Headlines

Community groups have been working with Detroit school communities on absenteeism for more than a decade. Despite their limited staff and budgets, they help fill gaps in the strategies schools and the district use to improve student attendance, focusing on specific barriers, such as inconsistent transportation, food insecurity, and lack of clean clothes.

This North Country Public Radio news program includes the following topics: Governor Kathy Hochul summoned the likely Democratic nominee to run to replace ousted Congressman George Santos; we'll meet immigrants learning English at a literacy class in Plattsburgh; and renting woes turned DIY art.

Red Clay Consolidated School District shared plans last month to "phase-out" Spanish immersion at Marbrook Elementary, sending letters home on Nov. 6. After a heated parent meeting nearly a month later, it would become clear the decision is bigger than one elementary school and impacts several New Castle County families banking on immersive instruction for their kids.

Boston Public Schools has hired a new chief of its troubled Office of Multilingual and Multicultural Education, about one and a half years after the department’s last administrator was forced to resign amid another controversy over the way students learning English are taught. Starting in January, Joelle Gamere, assistant principal and director of the Toussaint L’Ouverture Academy at Mattahunt Elementary School in Mattapan, will lead the department, formerly known as the Office of English Learners, making her the seventh person to helm the office since 2019. Gamere assumes her new role at a time of political and strategic upheaval for the district’s English learners programming.

Back in her early days of teaching, Rebecca Bergey thought it was her job as a teacher of English learners to prepare her students with enough language to survive in content area classes. But as Bergey — now a principal researcher at the nonprofit American Institutes for Research — grew in her teaching, she realized that language learning operates at a systems level.

Mayra Calderon Diaz’s kids are all enrolled in Savannah public schools, between grades 2 and 7. The Mexican mother of three says she has tried to be as involved as possible in her children’s education, but a persistent language barrier has made that difficult. Over the years, communicating with front desk staff posed challenge after challenge, and meetings with teachers came with a $50 price tag – to cover the cost of bringing a translator with her. Once, a communication issue kept her daughter off the school bus route for weeks. During the pandemic, there was difficulty keeping up with the schools’ announcements about the shift to remote learning.

New York City schools have started preparing for a massive reshuffling of students as early as next month, as thousands of migrant families face a new limit on shelter stays, education officials said during a Wednesday city council hearing.

This collection of graphic novels published in 2023 includes a diverse range of stories and topics for upper elementary, middle grade, and young adult readers.

PBS Kids is developing its first-ever series featuring a lead character on the autism spectrum and his neurodiverse friends. The animated show called “Carl the Collector” follows Carl, a raccoon with autism who loves to collect things, and his friends in Fuzzytown, a place where everyone is learning about themselves and those around them.

Schools across the U.S. will soon be able to order free rapid COVID-19 tests from the federal government. The administration's initiative will make available millions of tests for school districts as they enter the winter months — a time when COVID activity is expected to peak. Already, emergency department visits and wastewater data indicate that cases are climbing in the U.S.