By Andrew Martins, Managing Editor
The varied ethnic and financial backgrounds of non-English speaking students in the Hillsborough Township School District were on display during a recent Board of Education meeting, as officials touted a summer program created for those pupils.
During the Sept. 12 Board of Education meeting, the district’s Supervisor of World Languages, Enrique Pincay, outlined the growth and success of students who attend the English Language Learners program’s summer program.
“I think it’s very important to understand the diversity that we have in our ELL group,” he said. “They all bring different dreams, different languages, different cultural backgrounds and economic backgrounds. They don’t share the same experiences (as the other students).”
Since its creation in 2010, the ELL Summer Program has given pupils a chance to hone their English language skills before the next school year begins.
When the program started, there were 74 students enrolled with four teachers providing instruction. Over the course of the program, two buses were available to transport students and there were two planned field trips.
This past summer, however, there were 118 pupils registered in the program, with seven teachers and one coordinator on staff. Three buses were available to cart the students to the program and officials planned three field trips and three educational presentations.
Additionally, Mr. Pincay said the approximately 59 percent of ELL students enrolled in the summer program in 2010 has since grown to 75 percent this year.
“After Christmas, I start getting phone calls from parents asking me when the summer program starts because they are that interested in participating in the program,” Mr. Pincay said. “The remaining 25 percent do not attend because they are probably not in the country at that time.” Nearly 12 million people between the ages of 5 and 17 years old speak a language other than English, according to a 2015 survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.
According to Mr. Pincay, more than 30 languages and 60 ethnic groups are represented in the district’s ELL program alone.
“If we talk about the entire district population, those numbers almost double,” he said. “This is not very typical for a New Jersey school district to have that much diversity.”
Focusing on the students enrolled in the ELL program, Mr. Pincay said 36.7 percent come from Hispanic households, while 33.6 percent come from Indian families.
That kind of spread presents an interesting challenge for teachers and administrators involved in the program, as each group comes with different circumstances.
“What I find very interesting is that our Hispanic group shares one common language but they can come from 21 different countries,” Mr. Pincay said. “The Indian population has a different situation — they come from one country but they have over 30 different languages and dialects.”
It’s that diversity that makes assessing students in the program much more difficult than students who are not.
“If you have a third-grade student who’s in ELL and another that’s also in ELL, it’s not fair to make a comparison based on standardized testing. They may be in completely different places,” he said. “One student maybe had a lot of English input in the first seven years of his life, while another student maybe didn’t.”
When a student comes to the district that does not speak English as their native language, Mr. Pincay said a series of assessments are conducted to determine how best to help them learn the English language.
Along with a language barrier, officials said many of the students in the ELL program live in homes where financial hardship is a norm.
According to information provided by the district, approximately 8 percent of the student body uses the district’s free and reduced lunch program.
Within the ELL program, just 17 percent of those students are part of the free and reduced lunch program, though nearly 61 percent qualify.
“I have seen the child whose very wealthy parents came here because they were hired for three years as consultants for a multi-national company, and I have seen the single mother of three who has to work three jobs just to put food on the table,” Mr. Pincay said. “We do as much as we can to make sure that our students’ needs are being met appropriately.”
Prior to the creation of the ELL summer program, Mr. Pincay said very few students were moving into mainstream classrooms. Once the program was implemented, however, the number of students who went on to join mainstream courses jumped substantially.
“We are exiting more students in one year, compared to 2010,” he said. “We’re not taking as much time to get those students ready for the mainstream classrooms.”
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jorden Schiff said the success of the program was a testament to the ability and passion of the district’s educators.
“The data (is) quite impressive at the improvement that our English Language Learners are making and that has to do with wonderful teaching, excellent leadership and kids that are very much engaged in the program,” Dr. Schiff said.
