Schools expand ELL programs, but lack funding

When Yunior De La Rosa first arrived in Peekskill two years ago at age 14, he was shy, scared and didn’t speak English.

De La Rosa and his family had moved to the city from the Dominican Republic and he was placed in seventh-grade classes where mostly English was spoken, which made it nearly impossible to keep up.

Two years later, with the help of a new language acquisition program, De La Rosa is translating Spanish to English for his peers, he’s on the honor roll for his sophomore classes, and is set to graduate in two years.

“In this program, I learned English so fast,” he said. “I got surprised how I learned so fast.”

His success is in large part because of the Newcomer Program developed in Peekskill at the beginning of the 2015-16 school year for a growing population of students who are high school aged and have just come to the United States, don’t know English, and have fewer years to get on track to graduate.

Last school year, Peekskill’s English-language-learner (ELL) population was 21 percent of the district’s enrollment, an increase of seven percentage points over five years, according to state data. Around the same time, the drop-out rate increased annually from 2 percent to 6 percent during the school years from 2010 to 2015.

The drop-out rate decreased — for the first time in six years — to 5 percent in 2015-16, the same year the Newcomer Program started.

“Three years ago, we planned with the vision of this as a priority,” said schools Superintendent David Fine, who oversees a student body of nearly 3,200. “If we can’t create that structure where they can feel comfortable enough and then grow and transition up through the other classes, then they’re just going to fall through the cracks.”

Peekskill’s Newcomer Program is designed to transition new students and get them up to speed in their new surroundings. For three periods each day, for between three and six months, they work on intensive language acquisition, academic skills like note-taking, and learn about American culture and the education system’s expectations.

In addition, Peekskill offers bilingual classes in such content subjects as algebra and U.S. history, as well as traditional English-as-a-second language courses.

Merlyn Rodriguez, 18, moved to Peekskill from the Dominican Republic four years ago, before the Newcomer Program started, and found herself sitting in all-English classes that left her feeling frustrated.

“I used to cry every single day because I didn’t want to come to school,” Rodriguez said. “My high grade was 70 (but), when I got the bilingual class, my grade was 90, 95, 85, and you can see the difference because it was too difficult to understand what they say if you don’t know the language.”

For many of the ELL students, learning the language and doing better in classes has allowed them to make friends easier and be more excited about going to school.

“I couldn’t have a conversation with someone who speaks English,” said Britney Diaz, a 16-year-old sophomore from Spain. “I was like I have to learn because I want to be friends with them, so that was the hard part.”

As she got better at English, Diaz said her confidence grew, too. She’s since joined the school’s cheerleading squad and prefers classes in English because it helps her learn the language better and now she knows how to ask about a word she doesn’t know.

In New Rochelle, where the Hispanic student population has become the largest group of students at 46 percent, educators have also sought to address the growing needs of older students who come to the district mid-year with limited English skills and interrupted formal education.

“They were 19 years old, but they have no credits, so we would have to put them in ninth grade, which means they have almost no chance of graduating high school,” said New Rochelle High School Principal Reginald Richardson. “When we were doing this in the past, 100 percent of students within the first three months of enrollment would drop out.”

As an alternative, the district started offering a program for students ages 16 to 25 that affords them an opportunity to attain a high school equivalency diploma in Spanish, work on job skills, learn a trade and take English classes.

The program, which started last school year, is housed at the high school, but offered through a partnership with the Guidance Center of Westchester, a nonprofit the district has partnered with since 2007 for additional guidance support staff.

Daniel Bonnet, executive director of the nonprofit’s Center for College & Careers, said the goal was to provide a safety net for those students at risk of aging out of the school system at 21, or those who might drop out.

“We know they’re going to age out of high school, so we’re going to give them an option of obtaining their GED and going through a vocational career path,” Bonnet said, adding that, by extending the age to 25, “we’re giving them that cushion, saying don’t worry, just because you hit 21 means you don’t have to give up.”

The Guidance Center’s services at New Rochelle don’t cost the district any money because the program is largely funded through a $120,000 grant from the Westchester-Putnam One-Stop Career Center.

Peekskill, on the other hand, relies on “foundation aid” from the state to fund its Newcomer Program, which costs the district hundreds of thousands of dollars last year, posing a challenge to expand it to the middle school, according to the schools superintendent.

“It’s difficult because we’re not provided the amount of funds that allows these types of programs to run, so we have to pull blood from a stone,” Fine said.

Last month, the state Board of Regents’ passed its budget proposal asking for an additional $100 million for ELL education, and that will be considered by the governor and the state Legislature this budget season.