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School
de Verano
In the summer, teachers might want to sleep in. Instead, Ashland elementary school teacher Stephanie Bartlett wakes up in an RV parked in the driveway of her daughter's Eugene house and starts preparing for class. Last summer, she looked over information about Pancho Villa or Subcomandante Marcos; this year, she's double-checking exercises on the geography of Oaxaca and Jalisco. In the summer, kids should definitely get to sleep in. But in Junction City, Creswell and other far-flung Lane County outposts, older kids wake at 6 to prepare themselves and their siblings for the school bus that breaks the summer morning birdsong. They will spend this and many other days learning what Bartlett — Señora Steff, to her students — and others have to teach.
Señora Steff and her 28 fifth and sixth graders, along with 112 other kids and 18 adults, converged on Guy Lee Elementary School in Springfield Tuesday, June 27, when la escuela de verano began. The summer school for children of migrant agricultural workers, supported by funds from the federal government's Migrant Education Program and staffed by the Lane Educational Service District (ESD), runs for four weeks each summer. It gives students, director Guadalupe Moreno hopes, the opportunity to "reinforce their education and provide support in closing the achievement gap." In 1965, the U.S. Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which contained a provision for the education of children of migrant workers. One goal of the federal program is ensuring that children of migrant workers keep up in school. That can be challenging if their families move around during the school year or between school years as opportunities for agricultural work wax and wane. Another goal is to help the kids "overcome cultural and language barriers" that might make it tough for them to succeed in a primarily monolingual school system. Most of the pre-kindergarten through eighth grade students in the Lane ESD program speak Spanish as their first and primary language. Moreno, who is bilingual in Spanish and English, says that it helps the kids to know there are other students like them. "Sometimes, to be in a classroom with all Anglo students," she says, "it's hard — they get a little shy and don't want to raise their hands. But in a classroom with all Hispanic students, their confidence gets better." Many of the teachers speak some Spanish, and a bilingual assistant helps in each classroom. The principal, Jackie Turle, speaks "a little" Spanish. Last year was Turle's first with the school. She says, "I wen through a steep learning curve!" Hearing Spanish all day and having to listen carefully to a language she barely knew helped her understand "how exhausting it is to be an immigrant, how tired people are at the end of the day." Research in bilingual education indicates that children who are literate in their first language learn a new language much faster, so instruction comes in both languages.
On the first day, after a quick breakfast of Rice Krispies and an apple, the kids poured onto the playground. Moreno blew a whistle and called, "ÐTodos los estudiantes!" The lounging eighth graders walked as slowly toward the asphalt as some clearly terrified pre-kindergarteners. As they lined up by class, the students looked around for friends. "¿Quién es?" the teachers asked, checking names.
Pre-kinder began with kids sitting in a circle. Their teacher, Susie Kyle, strummed her guitar in the traditional tune of "Frère Jacques" but with different words: "ÐBuenos días! ¿Cómo está? Muy bien, gracias. ¿Y usted?" Some of the children stared at her, wondering what she was doing, but others picked up the cue and began to sing along, giggling and pointing at each other. To learn more English, older kids might look at books such as Gathering the Sun: An Alphabet in Spanish and English by Alma Flor Ada. Each letter begins a short poem, accompanied by illustrations of work in the fields or Mexican cultural heritage. In the library, there are also books like Doble Fudge and Las Aventuras del Capitán Calzoncillos, even Harry Potter y la Órden del Fénix. Older kids complete projects that fit with state standards. Last year, in Bartlett's third and fourth grade class, each child researched a historical or contemporary Latino figure like Dolores Huerta or Pancho Villa. The class created a timeline for their famous people, and traced and colored portraits, writing a few sentences of information under the portrait. This year, who knows? With geography as the focus, they might create a huge map of Mexico, helping them see where many of their parents came from, the places their grandparents and cousins call home.
On June 5th, 4-year-old Judy Cervantes ran up the aisle between the tables in Westmoreland Elementary School's gym. Her black patent shoes tapped the floor; her face beamed as she accepted her "diploma" for participating in MEP during the school year. Just a few minutes before, she and 18 other small-to-medium-sized kids lined the front of the gym to sing about elefantes who kept doing something silly and losing some of their cohort, very like the counting song in English about the little bear who said, "I'm crowded, roll over!" Suddenly, it was time for las mamás y los papás to accept their certificates for completing a course in English or a computer course. The parents — Rosio Diaz, Teresa Figeuroa, Victor Ramos, and many more — blushed and smiled as the adults clapped and kids cheered. In Spanish, teacher Leticia Raspa said to the parents, "It's important to give an example to your kids. This is in order to give a better life to them." The kids ate ice cream and cake; older kids switched between Spanish and English or spoke Spanglish, a quick and easy mixture. Josefina Cardenas, who comes from the state of Sonora, near Arizona, understands much English but speaks mostly Spanish. Through an interpreter, she said that her 6-year-old son learned a lot in last year's summer school, not only about Mexican culture but also academic information that helped him continue to succeed in school. Olivia Hernandez, another mom, comes from Michoacán, an Atlantic state in central Mexico. All three of her kids have attended summer school, and she says learning about their own culture helps them when they go to "regular" school. Hernandez came to the first day of summer school, accompanying the children and making sure things were running smoothly.
Nancy Bray is the director of the English Language Learning program for the Springfield School District. With about 80 students qualifying this year as migrants or kids of migrant parents, and after years of work in the Migrant Education Program, she knows the "regular" school drill: families move across school district lines to work, say, on a nearby Christmas tree farm, or maybe the chicken processing plant in Creswell. After interviewing the family in their first language, officials say it's OK for the kids to enroll in migrant ed. In addition to school-year programs, that means they're eligible for summer school, at least for the three federally-mandated years from the date of their move. Bray remembers the first year, when la escuela served about 40 first to fifth graders. But teachers had a lot more to do than teach. Because many students come from far away, she says, "They need a breakfast when they get to school and a lunch before we put them on the bus." That first year, Bray and another teacher, with their two bilingual aides, were teacher-chefs. "We had to do all the shopping for the food and prepare it." Things are a little different now. For one thing, both breakfast and lunch come from FOOD for Lane County. Guadalupe Moreno says that at least 300 students from Lane County qualify for summer school, but only the least English-adept 140 may attend because of funding. Teachers have more experience. The bus rides have gotten longer as areas farther away participate. And, of course, there's No Child Left Behind, which means the teachers in summer school want to help their students meet "regular school" standards. But la escuela de verano isn't all reading, writing and 'rithmetic. Who could persuade 140 children to spend four summer weeks inside — and who would want to? "Kids who are having fun actually learn more," Stephanie Bartlett says. In Señora Steff's classroom, lunchtime creates community. "We eat together as a family," she says. Over lunch last year, Rossy Sanchez, Bartlett's bilingual aide, read Watch Out for Clever Women!/ÐCuidado con las mujeras astutas! This book, a collection of tales from the Southwest about "women who had to overcome adversity by being clever," helped the kids learn about problem-solving skills and their cultural background. When school's out after lunch, the kids usually hop on the bus for home. Sometimes, though, they go on trips — especially to Splash!, the Willamalane wave pool. The Boy Scouts, after taking some time to connect with elders in the Latino community, have planned a couple more after-school adventures and trips. But the focus is on state standards, geography and reading skills, and the students, Bartlett says, work hard to achieve their goals. When la escuela ends July 20 this year, Bartlett believes los estudiantes will retain skills and vocabulary they can take into the classroom this fall. They also will have widened their circle of friends, both kid and adult.
As class began on the 27th, a pre-kinder boy bawled. His mother comforted him and hugged him, but she gradually moved away until she was in the hallway, one ear cocked toward the door, listening to the sounds of 4- and 5-year-olds chatting in two languages. Bartlett loves la escuela de verano and its students. "They're just amazing little people. We're going to have fun!"
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