• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Olympia District Weighs Increase for Non-Native English Program: Officials Want to Consolidate Classes

Posted on: Friday, 28 April 2006, 12:01 CDT

By Heather Woodward, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

Apr. 28--OLYMPIA -- Not being able to speak English was a tough obstacle for Davin Yeom when she enrolled as a third-grader at Hansen Elementary School last school.

The South Korea native had trouble understanding her teachers and her friends.

"I would say, 'No. Yes. No. Yes.' -- That's all I could answer," said Davin, 10, now in fourth grade. "Now, I feel comfortable. It's no problem at all, but writing is still a problem."

The Olympia School District is considering a proposal intended to provide greater assistance to non-native English speakers such as Davin who recently have moved to Olympia from countries around the world.

Under the plan, the district would consolidate its English Language Learners program at three schools. The program would focus on students who are new to the United States and need the greatest amount of help.

Last fall, there were 140 students enrolled in Olympia's ELL program. Of those, 98 were scattered across nine of the district's 11 elementary schools. Because the district's ELL resources are spread throughout so many schools, the newest students often receive specialized help learning to speak, read and write in English for two hours or less each week, Olympia officials said.

"We're very inefficient the way we operate," said Britt Nederhood, principal at Garfield Elementary School. "To say we underserve those students is probably an understatement."

A proposal to change the program would place one "newcomer center" at Madison Elementary School and two others at Garfield and Hansen elementary schools. The district's newest students would attend one of those schools until they reached a certain level of English proficiency.

Another benefit of the newcomer centers would be that larger numbers of ELL students would be able to interact with each other, district officials said. Such interaction can lead to learning but also provides the students with a set of peers who share a common bond.

That's already possible at elementary schools such as Hansen, where there are greater numbers of non-native English speakers.

"It's very cool," said Yva Nyhammer, 10, a Hansen fourth-grader who moved to Olympia from Vietnam in 2002. "When you have someone speaking your own language, then you can talk to them."

Once a student leaves the newcomer center, he'd return to his neighborhood school and continue to receive some form of ELL assistance there.

The change -- expected to be considered as part of the district's 2006-07 budget process -- wouldn't require schools to hire new staff members.

The biggest change in the district's ELL program in recent years has been an influx of students speaking an ever-growing number of different languages.

Two decades ago, there were two primary languages the district needed to serve: Cambodian and Vietnamese. Now, Olympia's ELL students speak 18 languages, with the largest numbers speaking Vietnamese, Spanish and Chinese.

"It really is a changing dynamic," Olympia Superintendent Bill Lahmann said. "We are a global community."

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

More News in this Category