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Teachers prepare to assist families with enrollment at a Welcome Center event particularly meant to help immigrant families, held in the Lee\u2019s Summit R-7 School District Stansberry Leadership Center (Vaughn Wheat\/The Beacon).<\/p>\n
It might be easy to miss, but the Lee\u2019s Summit R-7 School District is changing.<\/p>\n
English Language Development Coordinator Melisha Otero is in her sixth year with the district. In that time, she\u2019s seen the number of English language learner (ELL) students increase dramatically.<\/p>\n
During the 2020-21 school year, the number of ELL students hit a recent low of 222, according to state records. By the 2023-24 school year, the latest state data available, that number had nearly doubled.<\/p>\n
Otero said it\u2019s even higher now as the district prepares to enter the school year with about 550 active ELL students. Another 184 who recently learned English are being monitored.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s only about 3% of the district\u2019s most recently reported enrollment. But it represents one of the ways Lee\u2019s Summit has become more diverse, requiring it to adjust to meet the needs of its current students.<\/p>\n
Last year, the district introduced a phone interpretation service called Propio. Events such as family culture nights attempt to build inclusivity. And a two-week welcome center in the district\u2019s central office is open to all but specifically geared toward immigrant families.<\/p>\n
Otero said the number of teachers for English language learners has roughly doubled since she joined the district, to 17.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d like to see even more staff. She also wants the school district and broader community to understand how rapidly the ELL growth is happening and how to support and include students.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s challenging, just because I feel like we are the unseen population in the district,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you look at numbers, it\u2019s obvious that our department has grown. But Lee\u2019s Summit is still slow to grow in accepting the fact that there\u2019s a huge change in diversity in our population here.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s diversity among ELL students as well.<\/p>\n
Slightly more than half speak Spanish, 9% Arabic, 5% Urdu and 5% Vietnamese, Otero said. With 38 languages represented in the district, there are lots of smaller percentages as well.<\/p>\n
Jermaine Wilson, assistant superintendent of equity and student services, also named Pashto, Russian, Korean, Pohnpeian, Mandarin, Haitian Creole, Turkish and French as among the district\u2019s languages.<\/p>\n
Otero said many of the families have fled hardships in their home countries. Most are refugees or asylum seekers.<\/p>\n
Refugees have permission to move to the United States because of persecution in their homelands. Asylum seekers arrive in the U.S. and go through a legal process seeking to stay because of persecution in their home country.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur department has really worked on being welcoming to our families,\u201d Otero said. \u201cThey feel safe here.\u201d<\/p>\n
ELL students make up a small percentage of the district, but that percentage is increasing.<\/p>\n
In 2009, the earliest state data available, ELL students were less than 1% of the district\u2019s enrollment. By 2023-24, the percentage had tripled to about 2.5%.<\/p>\n
The 550 students Otero counted for this coming year would be more than 3% of the district\u2019s most recently reported enrollment.<\/p>\n
The increased ELL enrollment comes as the district has become more diverse overall.<\/p>\n
Lee\u2019s Summit schools were more than 95% white in 1991, the earliest data available from the state. Enrollment is now less than two-thirds white.<\/p>\n
The percentages of students receiving free and reduced-priced lunch \u2014 often used as a proxy for the number of low-income students in a district \u2014 has also significantly increased.<\/p>\n
Otero said it might take time for the district to register that it\u2019s also becoming more diverse linguistically.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people think of diversity, they think of skin color, or they think of socioeconomic status, and that\u2019s not the only thing that\u2019s diverse,\u201d she said. \u201cCultural and linguistic diversity is important.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a Thursday in July, Otero and two English language teachers were stationed in the district\u2019s central office to help families enroll. Snacks and school supplies were lined up on tables.<\/p>\n
The event, known as the Welcome Center, was especially intended to help non-English speaking families with school enrollment.<\/p>\n
Otero said the event drew eight families the first year it started but had far exceeded that number less than halfway through its two-week span this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that we\u2019ve still helped 140 students enroll with what\u2019s going on politically, just lets us know that we\u2019re doing our job, having them feel safe,\u201d she said. \u201cOur teachers work really hard to not just teach their students English but to also build those relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n
English language development teachers are trained to teach students English even if they don\u2019t share a language in common, Otero said. About half of the English language teachers in Lee\u2019s Summit are bilingual, which is helpful in communicating with some families.<\/p>\n
The teachers go above and beyond to help with needs outside the classroom as well, Otero said, such as making sure families have food, school supplies or reminders to sign paperwork. It could even mean accompanying a teen to an ultrasound appointment.<\/p>\n
Otero said the teachers take care of families so well that it helps the program fly under the radar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not the squeaky wheel,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But she tries to be loud in advocating for more resources, reaching outside the district to groups such as churches for extra support.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey donated calculators because we don\u2019t have any money right now,\u201d she said. \u201cWhatever my teachers and my families need, I\u2019m always willing to advocate for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Awareness and support outside of the department are growing too.<\/p>\n
ELL students used to be bused to centralized sites, Otero said, which gave the impression that regular classroom teachers weren\u2019t responsible for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say there\u2019s not acceptance. I think it\u2019s just ignorance,\u201d Otero said. \u201cOur program is kind of invisible because, in comparison to other departments, it\u2019s significantly smaller. But the amount of growth is 10 times more than any other department.\u201d<\/p>\n
ELL teachers have worked hard to provide professional development and help classroom teachers feel a shared sense of ownership for their students, she said.<\/p>\n
The district also recently invested in Propio, a phone interpretation service that staff can use to help communicate with families.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can walk into a school and say that they have a language need, or (if) anybody in the front office suspects there\u2019s a language need, they can offer the services,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cWe can get somebody on the phone within five minutes to help interpret. \u2026 That helped out a lot with families feeling welcome in our buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n
While families usually prefer in-person interpretation, Otero said, the service helps fill in the gaps when a staff member who speaks the needed language isn\u2019t available. That\u2019s especially key for languages like Pashto where it can be hard to find local interpreters.<\/p>\n
Otero said she\u2019d always like to see more resources, particularly more ELL teachers.<\/p>\n
And the political climate has made things more difficult as well.<\/p>\n
Throughout most of July, schools were in limbo over whether the federal government would release funding<\/a> for migrant education and English language acquisition.<\/p>\n Otero has also worried some immigrant families won\u2019t come to school.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I have my families not feeling safe, or have my high school kids dropping out because they don\u2019t feel safe, that doesn\u2019t resonate well with me,\u201d she said. \u201cWe find ways to graduate these kiddos. They work really, really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, Otero said, the goal is not just to help students achieve academically.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want our students to learn and be successful, but we also want them to feel accepted and part of a community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce they graduate and have a piece of paper that says, \u2018You graduated,\u2019 I want them to have (something) beyond that, so they \u2026 can have a good future,\u201d she said. \u201cThey came here for that.\u201d<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>. Teachers prepare to assist families with enrollment at a Welcome Center event particularly meant to help immigrant families, held in the Lee\u2019s Summit R-7 School District Stansberry Leadership Center (Vaughn Wheat\/The Beacon). It might be easy to miss, but the Lee\u2019s Summit R-7 School District is changing. English Language Development Coordinator Melisha Otero is in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![](\"https:\/\/thebeaconnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/iconbeacon-150x150.png?crop=1\"\/)
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