Carrie Richardson, a teacher at Place Bridge Academy in Colorado, has noticed the enrollment at this newcomer center for Denver Public Schools is continuing to climb higher and higher.
Place Bridge Academy enrolls around 850 students in preschool through 12th grade, said Richardson, who is a grade 4-5 educator of newcomer students. Over 50 languages are spoken at Place Bridge Academy, as well. Other schools in the district are also facing a surge in this population, she said, which is driving concerns that schools’ budget cycles can’t keep up with growing enrollment.
In the district, for example, a school’s October enrollment count determines its budget and funding for staffing that year. Yet in January alone, Richardson said one school in Denver Public Schools had about 120 new students enter through its doors.
“You can’t really feasibly work from the budget in October when there’s that drastic of a change,” Richardson said. “So there’s definitely a shortage of teachers.”
A lot of newcomer students joining Denver Public Schools are from Venezuela and Afghanistan, Richardson said. There’s also been a rise of families who are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but more recently lived in Rwandan refugee camps.
This year especially, Denver schools that have not commonly taught newcomers are now enrolling a lot of these students, Richardson said. “They might have enough teachers, but they might not necessarily have enough teachers who have experience with newcomers.”
As schools see an influx of students identified as English learners or as newcomers — who are broadly categorized as students newly arrived to the country and in need of EL supports — the demand for multilingual educators in classrooms is rising as well.
To address multi- or bilingual educator shortages, the U.S. Department of Education proposed the National Professional Development Program, which would prioritize grants to higher education institutions — alongside partnering districts and state agencies — with professional development programs geared toward filling these needs.
As often happens, some schools and colleges are ahead of the game while others are trying to catch up.
At Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, 64% of the 22,000-student population are ELs, according to Wendy Maestas-Padilla, a multilingual teacher on special assignment for the suburban California district. Maestas-Padilla primarily oversees multilingual educators at the district level and works with students across all grade levels.
Because the district has such a high population of multilingual students, all teachers are fully expected to have an EL credential, she said. Additionally, the district has 45 multilingual teachers who teach in dual immersion programs, where students receive instruction in both English and an additional language.
Besides English, the most popular languages spoken among students at Hacienda La Puente USD are Spanish and Mandarin, Maestas-Padilla said. Other students speak Korean, Ukrainian, Russian, Arabic and French.
While the district can find EL-certified teachers, Maestas-Padilla said it does struggle to hire teachers who are fluent and can teach in dual immersion programs. Hacienda La Puente USD currently offers two primary dual immersion programs in Spanish and Mandarin. However, district leaders want to start other dual language programs and also expand an existing but small-scale Korean dual immersion program.
Higher ed partnerships begin stepping up
Dual immersion programs have grown increasingly popular in California schools over the last several years, and Maestas-Padilla said she hopes colleges will catch up soon and train more multilingual teachers.
Hacienda La Puente USD is working with California State University affiliates to communicate with and recruit teacher candidates for dual language programs. California educator preparation programs also require aspiring teachers to earn an EL credential even if they only speak one language, Maestas-Padilla said.
“By having that credential, you are taking classes in college that are preparing you to work with multilingual learners,” Maestas-Padilla said. “That’s very important because there’s so much more of an aspect to it that goes beyond language in that you need to understand the importance of recognizing multilingual learners as bringing assets to your district.”
California has “absolutely” been at the forefront of formal coursework in EL and multilingual training in teacher preparation programs, likely because of the state's own rapidly changing demographics, said Patricia Rice Doran, principal investigator at Towson University’s ELEVATE program in Maryland.
The ELEVATE program is a five-year $2.6 million initiative funded by the U.S. Education Department in partnership with Maryland's Anne Arundel County Public Schools to provide professional development and build capacity by training teachers on enhancing literacy for EL students.
“Educating multilingual learners isn’t any one teacher’s responsibility,” said Rice Doran. “Part of the solution is creating more ESOL [English for Speakers of Other Languages] and multilingual teachers, and part of the solution is making sure everyone in your school community has access to that knowledge.”
For both future and current teachers, the ELEVATE program covers tuition for any ESOL-related coursework completed toward certification. The program aims to support, in total, about 96 undergraduate teacher candidates and 32 teachers working toward a master’s degree, according to Rice Doran.
Diane Fox, director of bilingual and alternative education at Hampton Bays Public Schools, said that over 30% of the 2,100 students in the New York district are ELs. Fox added that the district is in “desperate need” of more bilingual teachers, especially at the secondary level for advanced courses like math and science. Without bilingual teachers in those higher level courses, Fox said, equity concerns can arise.
Like Hacienda La Puente USD, Fox's district has reached out to local colleges in search of more bilingual teacher candidates. Hampton Bays Public Schools has tapped into a grow-your-own strategy, trying to hire educators who are already bilingual and then encouraging them to get a bilingual teaching certification. Generally, grow-your-own programs focus on recruiting high school students, community members or paraprofessionals by supporting them to earn a teaching degree.
It’s equally important to focus on retaining bilingual teachers, Fox said.
One effective retention strategy Fox shared is “making sure that they [bilingual teachers] feel supported, because we have new students arriving all the time. A lot of the times it’s kids coming in and you might not always have the tools to support your newcomers as soon as they come in, especially when your roster is just increasing.”
Fox added that professional development helps keep bilingual teachers in the district. District leaders need to remind bilingual teachers of their value and help them see the positive effect they’re having on their students.
Districts also need to show they value multilingual diversity when recruiting and retaining multilingual teachers, said Richardson from Denver Public Schools. School leaders should explore various pipelines for hiring new teachers, including encouraging bilingual paraprofessionals to become certified teachers.
Retaining bilingual teachers is crucial, especially to serve newcomer students, Richardson said. “The predictability and the consistency of a newcomer’s classroom experience is even more important because they’ve already gone through so much trauma and so many changes. To lose a teacher in the middle of the year is a really, really big deal.
