ELL News Headlines

A new survey shows that serious obstacles impede Latino families' quest for autism diagnosis and treatment in the United States. Challenges include a lack of information about autism and a concern that consulting experts might bring them legal trouble. The findings may help explain why Latino children with autism are diagnosed later on average than non-Latino white children in the U.S.

Traci Chun, a teacher-librarian at Skyview High School in Vancouver, Washington, is all done with shushing. "When my library is quiet, that's a red flag," said Chun. In fact, the busier it is, the better — whether it's kids experimenting with the Makey Makey circuitry or uploading designs to a 3D printer, or a class learning media literacy or a student seeking advice on a video she’s editing at one of the computer workstations.

Linnea Van Eman, the gifted education coordinator for the Tulsa school district, sees too many gifted students who simply don't have the language skills to show what they can do. The 36,000-student Oklahoma district has been pushing hard to bring more students from traditionally underrepresented groups—and English-language learners in particular — into its gifted program. Using a combination of more-diverse testing, greater parent outreach, and closer observation, Van Eman and her teachers are working to fill equity gaps in the district's advanced programs.

For months this year, shootings on Chicago's West Side kept hundreds of students at one school inside for recess. Some students protested gun violence by marching for peace and going outside to play.

An Arizona-born charter school known for its call-center-like appearance has run into trouble as it attempted to expand to other states. Carpe Diem schools, which rely on computer-based lessons and some in-person instruction, began in 2006 and opened five additional schools in Texas, Ohio and Indiana about five years ago. This week, one of the schools in Indiana is closing. The management agency charged with implementing the expansion has been disbanded, leaving the four remaining spin-off schools to rethink their strategy. Some have ditched the cubicles and are giving teachers more autonomy to go off script, as they scramble to boost anemic enrollment.

Maria Blanco did a double take when the Google alert popped up in her inbox late last week: President Trump had reversed his campaign pledge and decided to continue a federal program temporarily suspending deportations of young people who are in the country illegally. The news thrilled Blanco, an attorney who heads the University of California Immigrant Legal Services Center — the nation's first and only university system to provide free legal aid to students without legal status and their families. But her excitement was quashed within hours, when administration officials clarified that they still had made "no final determination”"on the program — called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA — leaving in question the fate of 750,000 young immigrants under its protection. An estimated 3,700 students without legal status attend UC campuses.

A kids-centric dual-language center in the Financial District that provides "complete immersion into the Russian language and culture" is opening a second outpost on West 50th Street. Enrichment programs will include drama, art and dance classes conducted in Russian; math classes conducted in English; gifted-and-talented test prep and bilingual speech therapy services, she added.

The Department of Education is scaling back investigations into civil rights violations at the nation’s public schools and universities, easing off mandates imposed by the Obama administration that the new leadership says have bogged down the agency.

There's a growing movement in the nation's schools to overhaul parent-teacher conferences. In hundreds of schools in the District and elsewhere, these conferences look drastically different as educators seek to build stronger relationships with parents and equip families with tools to reinforce classroom concepts at home. Teachers and parents meet in a large group setting at least three times a year, sometimes with students present. They discuss how students are performing on key measures such as reading comprehension and mastery of math concepts. Parents leave the meetings with games and other activities they can use at home to reinforce classroom learning.

In this column, Mary Mélon from The Foundation for Oklahoma City Public Schools writes, "The fact that Oklahoma City Public Schools now has the opportunity to keep participants in The Foundation for Oklahoma City Public Schools' Bilingual Teacher Pipeline Project receiving pay and benefits is very good news and worthy of celebration. This program (BTPP) launched in January 2016, with the mission of providing financial support to bilingual paraprofessionals working in the district as they work to earn their degree and become certified teachers. There is an understanding that, barring any personnel issues, they will be hired by OKCPS as bilingual teachers and will take over a classroom of their own. Building this pipeline of bilingual teachers is vital for the district, which has a student population of 52 percent Hispanic students."