Building Bridges Between ELLs and the Community

In order to help build those bridges between the people who have lived in my community for decades or even centuries, their families and our newer citizens, a lot of times when our school has functions, I will meet my families in the lobby; that will be prearranged. I'll meet them in the lobby, I'll help them get to where they need to be. I go to parent-teacher conferences with each of my students when they come in. I think that is reassuring to families, kind of helps build the bridge between our school community and also those families. But whenever we have a high school graduation, a play, something like that, I will often sit with my families and I think because I've lived here a really long time, that people see that and they develop a sort of trust with our newer members of our community because of things like that.