By Bill Husfelt,
Superintendent, Bay District Schools
It’s not a surprise to anyone that the beach is growing by leaps and bounds. With that growth comes change and diversity and that’s something that we’re embracing at Bay District Schools.
Hutchison Beach Elementary School houses the beach’s self-contained English Language Learner (ELL) program for newcomers in kindergarten and for fourth and fifth grades. Those programs blend both English and the child’s native language to create a seamless curriculum delivery model that helps the child assimilate and acquire English fluently. According to Principal Glenda Nouskhajian, ELL students in grades 1-3 are served in their mainstream classrooms with the support of bilingual paraprofessionals and a host of curriculum materials in their native languages.
Since the ELL students have many peers at Hutchison Beach, they are able to gather in small groups and converse in their native languages as needed which helps ensure rich discussions and deep understanding of new material. Currently, students at Hutchison Beach speak a staggering 12 different languages at home, but that diversity ensures the school has a rich cultural heritage.
At neighboring Surfside Middle School, Principal Matt Pitts says 93 of his 771 students speak a language other than English at home. Surfside ELL students speak a total of 14 different languages and the school has an on-campus translator to assist parents in meetings.
Surfside’s comprehensive ELL program includes multi-lingual and native-language groupings for class activities and daily push-in and pull-out services with bilingual paraprofessionals who can provide support in the student’s native language. Computer-aided instruction is also available in multiple languages and students are provided picture and word dictionaries to help in language acquisition. Surfside’s teachers are well equipped to help their ELL students with individual support provided as needed.
At West Bay Elementary School, three bilingual staff members help their 18 ELL students with individualized academic support. West Bay Principal Deniece Moss says her school provides all students with social and emotional lessons to support diversity in the classroom and throughout the school.
The ELL students at Patronis Elementary School are supported with a vast array of library books in their native languages, according to Principal Ellie Spivey. Housed together in the school’s media center, these books ensure students have access to grade-level literature in English and in their native languages. In the upper grades, teachers have found that visual aids and photographs really help with comprehension of science and social studies materials and so Patronis teachers ensure they include many of these materials in their lessons.
The staff at J.R. Arnold High School are currently supporting the high school version of the newcomer’s program with a diverse, culturally-rich curriculum and several bilingual employees. Recently, Arnold took their guidance department “on the road” with pop up guidance offices set up throughout the beach community. A specific outreach into areas where Spanish is the prevalent language was designed to “help our Spanish-speaking families make a connection in a community setting or environment that is less intimidating than the high school campus,” according to Principal Britt Smith. With more than 100 ELL students at Arnold currently, Smith said their campus is always rich with a variety of languages including Arabic, Batu, Bulgarian, Creole, Czech, Mandarin, Mongolian, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Uzbek and Vietnamese.
And finally, at Breakfast Point Academy, Principal Clint Whitfield has a cadre of bilingual paraprofessionals who assist students throughout the day and are able to quickly translate curriculum materials as needed. One of those paraprofessionals is the district’s only Portuguese translator.
Approximately 86 students at BPA are identified as ELL and information at the school is available in English and a host of other languages.
To continue to support our families, information on our BDS website is translated into Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese with just the click of a button (on the upper left-hand corner). We embrace diversity at all of our BDS schools and our beach schools are no exception! The beach will continue to grow and change and become more diverse, and Bay District Schools will continue to be ready to support students from throughout the world.
