East junior Nassiba Maminova was the only student that spoke Russian when she started at East Freshman Campus in 2023.
She loved it.
“Actually, it was pretty easy,” Maminova told Spark. “I found friends on my first day.”
Maminova is one of over 2,000 English Language Learners (ELL) currently enrolled with Lakota.
“When I first started doing this at [East main campus], I think there were 60 to 70 kids, and now we’re around 130 to 140,” East ESL teacher Courtney Jacobs told Spark.
In an effort to hear specifically from English Second Language (ESL) families, the district organized four ELL Community Conversations in which the parents and family members of Lakota ESL students were encouraged to share their thoughts on the program.
Each meeting was and will be held at Lakota Hills Baptist Church from 6:30 pm to 8 pm.
On Jan. 22, the first conversation was held for Nepali speaking families, and on Jan. 29, the conversation for Arabic speakers was held.
The Community Conversations for Vietnamese and Spanish speaking families will be held on Feb. 5 and Feb. 12 respectively.
Translators and childcare are available at all of the conversations.
Community Conversations have been around for 12 years at Lakota, but each year, there are different conversations about relevant topics or focused on hearing from specific groups.
According to Lakota Director of Assessment and Accountability Deana Moss, all Lakota students are asked about which languages they speak at home in the Home Language Survey when they enroll. The district is then required by federal and state law to look into students who list more than one language.
Multilingual students then take the Ohio English Language Proficiency Screener, which is an assessment of their English reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills.
If students are not identified as fully English proficient, they are eligible for the ESL program, but will not be placed in it without the consent of their parent or guardian.
Once students are placed in the ESL program, they are still required to take the computerized Ohio English Language Proficiency Assessment (OELPA) annually.
“A student’s OELPA results determine whether the student is eligible to continue as an English learner or is proficient and ready to exit the language instructional education program,” Moss told Spark.
The OELPA assesses students’ English reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills by scoring each on a one to five scale. Once students are considered proficient overall, they are no longer considered an English learner, and may move out of the ELL program, but they still take the OELPA each year.
“There are people who came [to Lakota], six years, or seven years ago, and they were still taking [the OELPA] every year,” said Maminova. “I have a friend who basically speaks English, I think, better than Spanish, but she is still taking it.”
Day to day, ESL students have “intervention classes” which work similar to the foreign language classes at East. The classes have four different levels as the students advance, according to Jacobs.
She also said that ESL teachers offer language support in other math, social studies, science, and elective classes that ESL students might take.
“At least at the high schools, we work through an immersion based program,” said Jacobs. “The idea being that the more the kids are exposed to the language, the more that they will pick up.”
In order to connect with ESL families as much as possible, Jacobs makes an effort to communicate with them through various techniques including ParentSquare.
ParentSquare is an online tool that allows teachers and administrators to send messages to the parents or guardians of ELL students by translating it into the family’s spoken language.
“A lot of the families are just not super familiar with what our school
system looks like in the states,” said Jacobs. “The more that we can include, invite, send messages home, just let them know what’s going on in whatever way we can communicate that to them, that would be the best way [to improve communication].”
There are a few other resources available for ESL families at Lakota to ensure communication services for them that Jacobs mentioned.
“We do parent meetings where we try to hire translators,” said Jacobs. “Students also can get those services for their state tests. We also have a phone service, which works in a pinch, where you can call and have a three way call, where someone on the other line is translating into whatever language.”
According to Superintendent Dr. Ashley Whitely, their work is not done.
“Anytime you hear feedback whether you agree with it, disagree with it; small crowd, big crowd,” Whitely told Spark, “that is what we need.”
Each Community Conversation, which lasted approximately one hour, was dedicated to one of the four most spoken languages in the district, outside of English.
The translators present at each meeting had a microphone headset that was able to be heard in earpieces worn by each person who attended.
The translator interpreted the English conversation, and translated what that individual said to the non-English speakers in real time.
Guiding each conversation was Whitely, who asked attendees what was going well within the ESL program, and what Lakota could improve upon.
One of the recurring ideas throughout the conversations that she identified was the request for smoother communication.
“Since we have a large number of Nepali speaking students, if we had somebody from the community, acting as a liaison between the school and the community, that would be helpful,” community member and Nepali speaker Tapash Ahuyal told Spark.
He and other community members advocated for someone to actively be a “bridge” that would allow ESL parents and family members to be more involved with their children’s education.
Ahuyal cited the technology used in the district as one of the best things about it, but he said that this may create an additional barrier between ESL parents and those working in the school.
“A lot of parents don’t speak English, and then they have difficulty,” said Ahuyal. “Most people don’t know how to work technology and websites and all those things. Having somebody like that from the community who speaks the language would be helpful.”
Jacobs said that she was familiar with this issue.
“Sometimes we have families who are illiterate,” said Jacobs, “so even though those communications are going home, [parents] might not necessarily understand what it’s saying.”
Darine Rees, a translator present at the Arabic conversation noted this digital difficulty.
“[Parents] don’t have enough help in how to navigate the website. Some of them have computers but they are not literate enough to navigate them, while some don’t have computers at home,” Rees told Spark. “Expecting them to have all the information the same [as other families] off the computer, on the newsletter and all that stuff, is very hard.”
As a former ESL teacher, Rees said that it can also be difficult for ESL families to register and fill out forms alone, especially when first entering the district.
“We usually ask teachers,” said Rees. “[Teachers] end up being the ones helping [ESL families] with any applications they need.”
The concerns that parents and community members spoke about reinforced those that Whitely said she had heard from ESL teachers and students.
“We are brainstorming for someone in the enrollment center that can help with all of those forms and all of that technology,” said Whitely. “Right now, we have three or four people in the Enrollment Center, and any of those people can help, but sometimes that is not the same as having one designated person, so we are thinking about looking at that differently.”
Comments during the Community Conversation were not limited to administrators, parents, and community members. Students weighed in as well.
Ahuyal’s younger brother was present with him at the Nepali ELL Community Conversation. As a sixth grader at Lakota with an interest in soccer, he echoed others’ desire for sports and clubs to be available before junior high.
Whitely said that these conversations have opened the door for the possibility of more transparency within the district.
“I’ve heard about clarifying how ELL flows, meaning who handles what,” said Whitely. “In a district our size, it is easy to have that complexity, but we can’t use our size as an excuse; we have to get to that clarity.”
