ELL News Headlines

Iowa's Teacher of the Year for 2024 comes from Hoover High School in Des Moines. Ann Mincks is a 16-year teacher of English language learners at one of the state's most diverse high schools, where around 25% of students are English learners. During the award ceremony Monday, Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts congratulated Mincks and unrolled a "Teacher of the Year" banner to hang in the halls at Hoover.

Middle school students have a wide range of vocabulary knowledge. Many have developed a depth of knowledge from reading, verbal communication, and previous educational experiences, but some students lack the vocabulary skills needed to understand grade-level content.

The CUNY Initiative on Immigration and Education (CUNY-IIE) premiered its new video series, featuring school-wide projects produced by three elementary schools in New York state. “Not Too Young: Immigration in Elementary Schools” illustrates the ways in which schools can be responsive to their immigrant communities and prioritize immigrant students and families at their schools.

Spring 2024 Scholastic Book Fairs will integrate books that were controversially separated out this fall in a now-discontinued elementary school collection of titles related to diversity and LGBTQ+ issues, the company has announced. The company has also enhanced its online title previews, saying they’ve become necessary to help educators navigate around state and local curriculum restrictions.

As part of a new program, every third grader in Albuquerque Public Schools spends a day at the Los Padillas Wildlife Sanctuary just outside the city. There, a wide variety of local landscapes are packed into five acres: a meadow, piñon, juniper and cottonwood trees, an arroyo and even a pond — a rarity in the desert. The sanctuary borders the black mesas to the west and to the east and the Rio Grande bosque — a term for a forest near a river bank. To the south is the Pueblo of Isleta, one of New Mexico’s many Native American communities: There are 19 different sovereign Pueblos, plus Apache and Navajo communities, across the state.

Mastering algebra in middle school can give kids an advantage for the rest of their educational trajectory. But in Chicago, access to the course before high school has long been inequitable. Schools without algebra in the middle grades have been largely located in predominantly Black and lower income neighborhoods on the south and west sides. For students who do take algebra in eighth grade, state data shows white and Asian American students in Chicago Public Schools are more than twice as likely to pass than Black and Latino students. But the district says it is trying to address the inequity and has found some success.

María Emilia Martin, the pioneering radio journalist and founder of Latino USA, media educator and tireless advocate for Latinos, Latinas, and Indigenous voices in journalism, passed away due to health complications in Texas over the weekend. Born in Mexico City and raised in California, Martin dedicated half a century to her work on public radio. Her 2020 book, "Crossing Borders, Building Bridges: A Journalist's Heart in Latin America," chronicles her journey overcoming racism and sexism in U.S. media. She paved the way for new generations of Latino journalists, particularly women.

This obituary remembers Dr. Jean Pierre-Louis, a pioneer in the field of Bilingual Education. His family writes that he believed "in equal opportunities for immigrant students and in making learning accessible to all students, regardless of their language proficiency. In this regard, Jean was one of the first Haitian resource specialists hired by the New York City Board of Education, Office of Bilingual Education. Moreover, he worked with other advocates to establish and support Haitian Creole Bilingual programs in New York City schools." 

Community groups have been working with Detroit school communities on absenteeism for more than a decade. Despite their limited staff and budgets, they help fill gaps in the strategies schools and the district use to improve student attendance, focusing on specific barriers, such as inconsistent transportation, food insecurity, and lack of clean clothes.