There has been a steadily growing population of ELL students in our district within the last couple of years, many of them having moved from Central and South America with little resources. Most parents do not speak any English and we are currently modifying and changing our district website to be more accommodating. It can be hard to not only move (changing schools is always a scary process for kids!) but also to move to somewhere with very few things from home, a new culture, and a new language adds more stress to many students coming into school. I am very grateful this year to have a great group of very empathetic 3rd graders who continuously seek to help others in different ways and ask questions to gather more information and understanding. The group easily understood why she was nervous, as we have had many talks about immigration and how our ancestors also moved to different places, including America, for either a fresh start, a new life, or other reasons.

As we read, students thought about how Abia was feeling and then continued the discussion into what they could do to help students in our school. We have 2 students who use communication devices in our class (one is also hard of hearing) and we’ve noticed how we accommodate both of them to help them feel safe and welcome in our classroom and wanted to make sure others knew how to help. The students recently added ASL posters in different parts of the school so that others had a way to communicate with our classmate who is HOH. They connected this to asking if we had books in different languages, and wanting to add welcoming signs in different languages around the school and translations of common words that might be used in a school. I hope to see a continuation of these kind and thoughtful behaviors in other classrooms and with other teachers as well.