ELL News Headlines

In 2016, Shabana Basij-Rasikh created Afghanistan's School of Leadership for girls. When the Taliban took control in 2021, she helped her students flee and continued their education abroad.

Donna Barba Higuera is still "a deer in the headlights" over her 2022 Newbery Medal, truly stunned by the recognition of her novel The Last Cuentista. It is the first book to win the Newbery and the Pure Belpré Youth Author award.

The paths Leslie Torres-Rodriguez and Madeline Negrón took to lead Connecticut’s Hartford public schools share important similarities—and the end results seemed unlikely when they themselves were students in the state’s schools.

For school-aged children and teens, their formative years changed all but overnight in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The jobs of social workers who work with youth and the roles of school counselors also changed in a flash as the professionals grappled with how to safely help those coming of age in a time of global crisis.

Someone who can communicate in many languages has mental flexibility, an expansive vocabulary, and more. Students in our classrooms with languages other than English in their linguistic repertoires have advantages. The question for us educators is how we tap into that linguistic capital — especially if we do not speak or understand the languages that our students know. How and why do other languages fit into the mainstream classroom?

A group of 12 parents stood inside the Glendale-Mountain View Community Learning Center's learning lab in Salt Lake City Friday morning waiting to receive their diplomas. They were the latest cohort to graduate from the Padres Comprometidos program.

For the past 25 years, the American Library Association has been granting the Pura Belpré Award to young adult and children’s literature that “allows Latinx children to see themselves represented, and for all children to see Latinx protagonists in their books.” But the history of how storyteller and librarian Pura Belpré ended up at the 115th Street branch and her contributions to New York City's public library system are not always taught to younger generations.

When Luis Paulino started eighth grade at a new school in a new country, he was made to feel like he didn't fit in. Paulino, who arrived in New York from the Dominican Republic in 2006, remembered being bullied for his differences. By 2010, Paulino was no longer the new kid in school. He was a tutor in algebra class, where he first met Angel Gonzalez, another Spanish speaker who had just moved from the Dominican Republic.

Evolving COVID rules have been confusing enough for native English speakers. Parents who speak limited or no English have found it difficult to understand and get answers about the protocols, say educators and advocates who work with immigrant families. That communication gap is often filled by parent leaders and community groups when families can’t get assistance from their schools or are waiting for translated versions of guidance from the education department.

Sylvia Acevedo has been many things in her life —entrepreneur, business leader and a literal rocket scientist. Her journey on the dirt streets of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Acevedo said, and education was the thing that helped her live the "life of my dreams."