Harrison County School District supporting students learning English
For students learning English, passing state tests comes with an additional challenge, learning the material while also developing their English skills.
The Harrison County School District is beginning a multiyear effort to better support those students.
Jakira Hunt with the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center shows us how the district hopes to improve English learner instruction.
Astrid is an 11th grader at Harrison Central High School.
She says her writing has improved since she began receiving English learner services two years ago. “I got better in how to use my pronouns, how to use verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and all that.”
Now, the Harrison County School District is partnering with the Mississippi Department of Education and the Gulf Coast Comprehensive Center to improve instruction for students like Astrid.
The district serves more than 750 English learners.
Federal Programs Director Melissa Garrison says the first step is a district self-assessment examining data the district already collects. “How did they score on the ELPT, which is the English Learner Proficiency Assessment? It’s things like, are they graduating on time? It’s those things that we already have information for.”
But student needs can vary depending on when they begin learning English.
District English Learner Coordinator Shelley Silvas says some students are now entering high school with beginning English skills. “The situation we’re seeing in our high school is we have a lot of new-to-the-country students, so they’re starting at a beginning level, the same level that that elementary kid is starting at as far as English acquisition is, but they’re just in a higher grade.”
That gives teachers less time to help those students develop their English skills before graduation.
English Learner teacher Debra Bird says she hopes the assessment will identify ways the district can better support them. “With all the information that the MDE is grabbing, I think they’re going to have some excellent ideas of how to move forward to improve.”
