ELL News Headlines

The runny noses, coughing and headaches flared inside the students’ biology classroom at George Washington Middle School in Northern Virginia — subsiding once the children left. They decided to take action, visiting classrooms to collect samples for a do-it-yourself mold-testing kit they ordered from a laboratory in South Carolina, then shipping the samples off to be analyzed. The results, which arrived a week or two later: 15 classrooms tested positive for mold. Spores were found on classroom ceiling tiles, in a main hallway and, eventually, the weight room, according to lab results.

A chaotic scene of sickness and filth is unfolding in an overcrowded border station in Clint, Tex., where hundreds of young people who have recently crossed the border are being held, according to lawyers who visited the facility this week. Some of the children have been there for nearly a month.

President Trump's decision to postpone the mass arrests of immigrant families with deportation orders offered a two-week reprieve to shaken cities and towns Sunday, but faith and immigration leaders said they will continue to mobilize for roundups in case talks between the White House and congressional Democrats break down.

Poet, writer and musician Joy Harjo — a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation — often draws on Native American stories, languages and myths. But she says that she's not self-consciously trying to bring that material into her work. If anything, it's the other way around.

The Trump administration is canceling English classes, recreational programs and legal aid for unaccompanied minors staying in federal migrant shelters nationwide, saying the immigration influx at the southern border has created critical budget pressures.

Employers in the United States are increasingly reliant on multilingual employees to advance their goals, but many have lost business opportunities because they don't have staff who can communicate in languages other than English, a new report from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages found.

A 16-year-old boy apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol was "found unresponsive" Monday morning in the facility where he was being held, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. A Border Patrol official said Monday afternoon that the boy, Carlos Hernandez Vásquez, died hours after a nurse at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas, determined he had the Influenza A virus.

Four years ago, more than 90 percent of students at John Ruhrah Elementary/Middle School were identified as poor. This staggering poverty rate meant the federal government provided the Southeast Baltimore school with free fresh fruits and vegetables for schoolkids. New teachers could qualify for special loan forgiveness, and a bevy of grants were accessible. Perhaps most important, Ruhrah qualified for Title I, a federal program that directs resources to poor schools. Next year, Ruhrah will lose its Title I status and the nearly $250,000 attached to it. The district’s method of determining poverty — which officials acknowledge undercounts children from immigrant families — considers only 32 percent of the school’s students poor.

Pregnancy, infancy, and toddlerhood are sensitive times in which families are particularly vulnerable to household food insecurity and when disparities in child obesity emerge. Understanding obesity-promoting infant-feeding beliefs, styles, and practices in the context of food insecurity could better inform both food insecurity and child obesity prevention interventions and policy guidelines.

Naomi Shihab Nye has become the first Arab American author to be named the Young People's Poet Laureate. Nye, a Palestinian American writer and longtime fixture of the San Antonio literary scene, is the seventh poet to be named to the post by the Poetry Foundation.