ELL News Headlines

At the Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center earlier this month, teams of 10 high school students, sporting red and blue uniforms stitched with badges representing four fire academies, raced to complete a series of tactical challenges that simulate a real-life fire emergency. For many students, the Palisades and Eaton fires became a turning point in their path to becoming first responders. 

The Education Department plans to dissolve the office that supports the country’s 5 million English learners. The Office of English Language Acquisition already was decimated in early rounds of layoffs. Last August, the Department quietly rescinded guidance that many states and school districts rely on to protect the rights of immigrant students.

Since January 2025, educators and advocates for English learners and immigrant students have raised concerns about support for these populations, even as schools' federal obligations to them remain intact.

Helping students identified as English learners to acquire the English language often requires funding on top of general education spending to cover the cost of additional instructional resources, teachers, aides, and other supports. But experts say the amount needed to meet these students’ needs can vary by thousands of additional dollars per student depending on factors such as language-proficiency levels, whether those students have had a limited or interrupted education, and what staffing capacity schools may already have on hand.

Successful co-teachers build their partnership on trust by establishing clear roles and making time to plan together.

School Library Journal interviews Curator Cynthia Leitich Smith and Editor Rosemary Brosnan about Heartdrum, a Native imprint that has published more than 30 books in five years and continues to grow.

Teachers don’t need to speak students’ home languages to use them as a resource for learning and creating a sense of belonging.

Dylan Lopez Contreras sat waiting for a copy of his class schedule in a sunny fourth-floor room of his Bronx high school as his counselor walked in wearing a “Free Dylan” button attached to the strap of his messenger bag. Dylan stood, and Hedin Bernard lifted Dylan’s more-than-6-foot frame off the floor in a tight bear hug.

Any child born on U.S. soil has a right to citizenship. It was established by the 14th Amendment in 1868, and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme court 128 years ago. On Wednesday, the high court is set to hear oral arguments in a case that could narrow or even end birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara.

While shockwaves reverberated from sexual abuse allegations against César Chavez this month, Maria Rodriguez-Salazar, a San Francisco mariachi teacher, immediately thought of her students. They were putting the finishing touches on the public school district’s annual mariachi showcase planned for that Friday, and a song that 100 of the high schoolers had spent months preparing, “Corrido de las Heladas,” referenced the late leader of California’s farmworker movement. She and the program’s director quickly swapped his name for “campesinos,” which means “farmers,” and the show went on. But in the aftermath of The New York Times’ investigation revealing allegations about Chavez, teachers across the state are grappling with how to address his widely studied and once-revered legacy.