By Maridith Yahl
NKyTribune reporter
Boone County Schools is global, having seen a big increase of immigrants from across the world. It has made the transition for newcomers easier with its growing English Learner program which will move from an Academy to a school-based program next year.
“The amount of growth that these kids have made blows my mind. I don’t think I could learn this quickly if I moved to another country,” says Stacey Owens, the teacher for the English Learner Newcomer Academy (ELNA) for Boone County Schools. “It’s amazing those who spoke nothing when they came in. They are verbal. They are engaging.”
The ELNA program was created in 2018-2019 school year and after this school year it will become a school-based program.
Photos provided
Dr. Geniene Delahunty, Director of Language Learners for Boone County Schools says, “ELNA was created in response to a growing demographic of students who needed a different instructional environment.”
Owens says, “It’s a program that serves our most needy English-learning students. These are students from all over the world.”
The program is rich in reading, writing, listening, and speaking while students are challenged yet in a safe environment. ELNA offered an academy for high school freshmen and sophomores, as well as for middle school students.
“The main purpose is to attempt to meet the needs of our brand new citizens to this county,” says Owens.
These students come to the U.S. with little or no English. In some cases, students have had periodic schooling. They’ve been to school but not regularly or have not been to school at all. Meeting their needs right away helps lead to an easier adjustment for the remainder of their schooling.
Dr. Delahunty says the majority of new enrollments are students from a background of little or no schooling.
“This brings far more challenges than just a regular Newcomer student or a student coming to us from another U.S. school system,” says Delahunty.
According to Dr. Delahunty, in the 2012-2013 school year, Boone County Schools enrolled 868 new English Learning Newcomers into its schools. By contrast, this 2019-2020 school year 1,367 new English Learning Newcomer students were enrolled in the program.
Owens sees ELNA help the student’s growth, not only in academics, but also in confidence, and a sense of self all, making her a proud mama bear. The students also become a tight-knit community.
“What I find most beneficial about the program is, when the kids walk into my classroom they know that the playing field has been leveled. Everybody in that room is the same because they all are an immigrant of sorts. They all have a different home language; they all struggle with the same things. They feel safe to make mistakes,” says Owens emphatically. She refers to the regular classroom where kids are afraid to speak up because they don’t want to look stupid or be made fun of. “I wish that we had the resources for every brand new student to our country experience this setting for at least one semester.”
Like all students, the ELNA students moved to Non-Traditional Instruction (NTI) Days when in-person teaching was suspended because of the COVID pandemic. ELNA students continued to do work through various online platforms used by BCS.
Anyone interested in working with Owens students is encouraged to reach out to her through Boone County Schools. “I would love it,” she says for community members to come in share and their experiences. Topics are endless and up to your imagination. Ideas include careers, life in the United States, where to go to get needs met, work opportunities, or even just have a conversation with her students. To learn American culture, Owens says that ELNA has a “great monthly instructional relationship with Boone County Cooperative Extension Office.” Students are given a life-skills lesson and hands-on cooking lessons with Agent, Christy Eastwood.
“ELNA will be school-based going forward. The model of having a separate academy, unfortunately, was not sustainable with our growth of EL’s across the district and a limited number of district personnel. Both Ryle and Boone County High Schools will have a dedicated ELNA type class for 9th and 10th-grade students. Middle schools will similarly enroll their newcomer students and create internal structures and programs to meet their needs,” says Delahunty.
Encouraging the success of the EL students is Owens’ passion.
“These young people want to succeed. We as a society should want them to succeed. If we don’t encourage them to learn, to succeed, to grow, and to accomplish, well then where are they going to be when they come out of high school?”
When asked how the community can help Owens says, “I think it starts with recognizing that the world is changing, the United States is changing, Kentucky is changing, and Boone County is changing. That’s not going to stop. They’re here. Embrace them, encourage them.”
