About 23 students in combined categories were taking a math quiz on exhibitors at Thornton High School’s newcomer high school on a Friday afternoon.
Lively elegance. The scholars helped each other.
“If we’re not sure, that’s fine,” instructor Adriá Padilla Chávez confided to her students. “We’ll go back and be briefed again. ” He then repeated his orders in Spanish.
Padilla Chavez and other members of the Newcomer Center are running to help students who are new to the country adjust to life at one of the best schools in the U. S. U. S. As the program grows, students earn much more than just English classes. They make friends from all over the world, participate in their learning and prepare to graduate. It’s helping them dream of a future they might not have imagined before.
“We love welcoming our students into a network where they feel like they belong,” said Frida Rodriguez, youth and family advocate at the center. “It’s very important to have a position where you know you belong. They relate to staff who provide them with a sense of help, support, and love. Feeling truly enjoyed is vital.
Seventeen-year-old Joan Madrigal Delgado has been studying at the Newcomer Center for a month, her first experience in an American school. You may already feel that your life is changing.
He is inspired by the way teachers teach him and asks him to reflect and participate in discussions.
“I didn’t have any chance in my country,” said Madrigal Delgado, a local from Cuba. “It feels good. Now I aspire to everything. “
He started thinking about school and a career as a veterinarian.
The Newcomer Center, the first of 12 five-star schools in Adams, opened in August with 30 students. Now, a few months into the school year, the middle school has more than 90 students, new students enroll every week, and families are spreading the word. in the community.
Students come from many countries, but one of the main drivers of the center’s progress has been the influx of refugees who arrived from Afghanistan about two years ago. Many of them in the Thornton neighborhood, around the main school.
Adams 12 was one of four school districts that won a grant this year from the Rose Community Foundation to help with the schooling of new arrivals, specifically from Afghanistan.
The base worked with the Colorado Refugee Services Program, a unit of the Colorado Department of Human Services, to create the Refugee Integration Fund, which distributed the grants.
The district used that money, along with some federal COVID relief money, and pulled $868,000 from the general fund to get the center up and running and pay staff. The center has its own registrar, who calls families who are referred to it through other schools. and invites them to attend.
Dominance gives transport. About forty-five students from the newcomer center are bused to the high school. And advocates like Rodriguez, who speaks Spanish, and Imran Khan, who speaks Pashai and Dari, are also providing resources to families in the community.
A unique feature of the center, says Principal Manissa Featherstone, is that it has its own counselor to help students chart their path to graduation. He said many centers for newcomers focus on teaching English to students, which means delaying courses that would earn them the required credits. be on track to graduate.
In the Thornton High program, students take all of their core courses within middle school, but join regular high school for electives or when they need a more complex course. A pedagogical trainer who works for middle schools to customize the program for students. .
“We’re going to offer those courses,” Featherstone said. It simply depends on the wishes of each student and the education they have pursued. »
Students also participate in extracurricular activities, clubs, and sports at the best school.
The program can accommodate up to 150 students, Featherstone said. It is designed for students to spend a year there after arriving in the U. S. and then move on to a top-notch regular school curriculum.
Mohammad Ali Dost, 14, arrived from Afghanistan a few years ago and first attended a secondary school in the district without a dedicated program for new arrivals. Now at the center, he says he’s glad it helped him with his English.
Dost said he would tell other students, “If you need to improve your English quickly, come to the newcomer center. “
Dost is also helping scholars who speak his local language, Pashai, the kind of peer-to-peer learning and interaction he celebrates.
Featherstone said existing students volunteer to show new students around and help them get acquainted with their new school.
“We see academics step in and say. ” I’m going to take them,” Featherstone said. “They get excited when a student comes in. “
Advocates first teach scholars the basics, such as how to use a pigeonhole. Recently, scholars have also enjoyed the gathering and Spirit Week.
“A lot of scholars had no idea what it was. What happened to the football game? Rodriguez said. We show them videos. They were excited to have the experience. They kept saying, ‘I can dance by. ‘»
Some scholars also say they are inspired by the protection of schools in the U. S. They come from other backgrounds where they didn’t feel safe.
“They’re very prepared,” Madrigal Delgado said.
Ismael Piscoya, 17, from Peru, said he was amazed by the amount of generation available. Every student in the district, not just downtown, gets a Chromebook.
It doesn’t take time to search for information, Piscoya said.
Maria Fernanda Guillen, 18, from Mexico, feels empowered in her education.
“In Mexico, we didn’t have a voice in school,” Guillen said. Now, thinking about a long-term career in biotechnology, she’s excited about her debut at the center.
“It’s about having friends from other countries,” he says.
Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat. org.
Chalkbeat is a non-profit news story that covers instructional adjustments in public schools.
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