ELL News Headlines

Many school districts have long struggled to hire teachers prepared to work with students with disabilities and with those who don’t speak English as their first language. It’s even harder to find a teacher qualified to do both. The BUENO Center for Multicultural Education, at the University of Colorado Boulder, has secured a federal grant to expand its ongoing work to get more teachers earning those dual certifications.

Maritza Lopez-Gonzalez moved to Philadelphia when she was 13, after Hurricane Maria ravaged her native Puerto Rico. She knew no English. That Lopez-Gonzalez, now 18, won a prestigious award from Major League Baseball last week — and is about to board a plane for Houston to watch the Phillies take on the Astros in the World Series as a guest of the league — is a little bit about luck. But it’s mostly about the kind of person Lopez-Gonzalez is: brave, kind, hardworking, smart, strong.

The number of homeless students is rising, especially in Queens, where families have lost jobs during the pandemic.

Despite measures meant to protect renters during the pandemic, homelessness among Latino residents has spiked in San Francisco.

Friends and family members are remembering Alexzandria Bell as a bright and energetic young woman with a strong personality who looked forward to moving from intermediate dance classes to more advanced training. Bell was less than a month from her 16th birthday when she was killed in a shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School on Monday.

It’s not uncommon for teachers to remain in the same school their entire careers. Even when they do switch schools, they often stay within the same district. Venturing across state lines for a new teaching job, let alone leaving one’s homeland, was once exceedingly rare. But as school districts seek to address stubborn teacher vacancies and hire educators who reflect the diversity of their student bodies, some are extending their recruiting efforts beyond the United States mainland.

In the Cuba, N.M., school district, where one-third of the 741 students are homeless, the creation of a community school district was a response to vast needs. The three-school district — elementary, middle and high school — is 79 percent Native American and 20 percent Latino. In 2018, 62 percent of the students graduated high school. But the state of New Mexico, which has long struggled with chronic absenteeism and poor academic achievement, has embraced community schools. The concept, which more districts are adopting since the pandemic highlighted the central role of neighborhood schools, involves, among other things, integrating nonprofits, businesses and colleges on the school site to offer services to students and their families.

We know students need support from schools and their families to cope with academic and mental health challenges. We’ve seen over and over that children’s academic learning can’t be separated from their social and emotional lives. In the wake of pandemic disruptions to schooling, it’s more important than ever for families and educators to come together and form meaningful partnerships that nurture children’s social, emotional, and academic development.

In the multiverse of superheroes, some comic book and graphic novel creators are using Latina characters to challenge real-life issues. New Yorker Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez created La Borinqueña, a Puerto Rican superhero who crusades for issues affecting the Caribbean island – including climate change, economic displacement, renewable energy and Black Lives Matter.

Diwali, a holiday known as the "Festival of Lights" and celebrated primarily in South Asia and the Caribbean, will become an official school holiday in New York City, local leadership announced Thursday.