ELL News Headlines

Immigrant students and their families require a variety of linguistic, educational, and social-emotional support so they can have the same shot at academic success as their peers born in the United States. Researchers and educators working closely with these student populations came together on Sept. 18 in a webinar to share insights on how schools can best support multilingual English learners and their families.

In this guest post, author José Pablo Iriarte writes, "In my book, I was particularly conscious of showing a Miami that wasn’t all Art Deco and Ocean Drive, but banyan trees and cypress and wetlands. I wanted to portray the things I grew up with in a way that was recognizable to locals, not necessarily in a way that matched what we see on television."

Some 37% of teens said they were unsure if their school had developed rules on AI use, according to a Common Sense Media survey.

These ideas for using exit tickets for formative assessment and to quickly see how students are feeling may be particularly helpful for new teachers.

As falsehoods circulate about Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio, schools can help immigrant students feel safe and welcome

Maryse Emmanuel-Garcy came to the U.S. from Haiti in 1970 and enrolled in high school on Long Island in New York state. When she heard her classmates’ comments about Haitian students, she decided to speak up and push back. She later became a social worker and one of the co-founders of the Haitian Family of Long Island, known as Hafali. As a community leader, a counselor, and through her family and social connections, she knows the hurdles that confront Haitian students and adults and the discrimination they’ve long faced.

Sometimes the best teaching partnerships happen by chance. For me it began one day when I was working as a school librarian at Pocantico Hills School in Sleepy Hollow, NY. The English as a new language (ENL) teacher, Joy Scantlebury, came into the library seeking a quiet space to work with her students. Over the next few months, I got a peek into Joy’s impact on these kids. Though I knew these English language learners (ELLs) from my library classes, I had been missing out on getting to know them as well as I could. I also realized that as a school librarian, I could do more to support their learning and sense of belonging and that collaborating with Joy could help me do that most effectively.

It was a day of scrapped lesson plans. On Friday, the second graders in Lisa Pankratz’s class in Springfield, Ohio, were supposed to practice taking measurements, read a story about a chameleon desiring a color of his own, and attend their favorite special – gym class. Instead, before the school day officially began, teachers at Snowhill Elementary School were rounding up students who had already arrived and turning away others whose parents were dropping them off. A bomb threat tied to a rumor-turned-lie about the city’s growing Haitian immigrant population had forced an evacuation. Ms. Pankratz addressed it delicately.

National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. Lupita Aquino, also known as "Lupita Reads" on social media, shares a few book recommendations by Latino authors.

These titles feature Haitian American representation or are by Haitian American authors, including picture books by Tami Charles and YA novels by Ben Phillipe and Ibi Zoboi.