The Greater Nanticoke Area School District will start its own English Language Learners program this fall to serve the growing number of non-English native speakers while saving the district $40,000 a year.
Previously, Nanticoke received services from the Luzerne Intermediate Unit, which provides services in language assistance and special education, among other services, to area school districts. The educational program has previously been known as English as a Second Language.
These ELL classes help non-native English speaking students learn and master the English language. It doesn’t matter from what country the students or their families are from.
GNA District Principal Michael Pawlik said the district has received an influx of students who speak Russian and Chinese over the past few years.
He said the district spent more than $100,000 last year for LIU teachers to work with the students.
He added he and other district officials were pleased with the LIU’s assistance, but the district now feels it has enough students needing services to assign an existing district teacher with an ELL certification to work with the students.
“We were looking for ways to be as careful as we could with our financial resources. One of the avenues we started to explore was if we had our own teacher, would we be able to save money? The ultimate answer is yes we could save money instead of contracting it out,” Pawlik said.
Last year LIU had four teachers, some part-time, assigned to work with 30 GNA students on their English skills, said Joelle Lussi, LIU English as a Second Language coordinator. Another nine students did not attend ELL classes, but were monitored by the LIU staff to ensure they were keeping up with their peers in class.
This fall the district is anticipating more than 30 students will need services, Pawlik said.
That’s up significantly from one or two students needing language skills classes about seven years ago, when the district first contracted for these services with the LIU, he said.
GNA officials plan for the district teacher to work with students two to three hours a day in a small group setting. Students would return to their classrooms after each session.
“It is important for them to establish relationships with kids in classes. What we find, kids are amazing at overcoming the language barrier,” Pawlik said.
Under the LIU program, ELL teachers are typically assigned to a district. By interacting with students from kindergarten through 12th grade, the teacher moves around between different campuses throughout the day, Lussi said.
“We as an Intermediate Unit support districts and provide services they can not provide themselves. Whenever a district feels they’ve developed the capacity to run the program on their own and it would benefit them greatly to do it on their own, then we continue to provide support to them,” Lussi said.
With GNA still being a part of the LIU as students receive other services, GNA’s ELL teacher can participate in ongoing teacher training seminars, she said.
Hazleton Area, Wilkes-Barre Area, Wyoming Valley West, Pittston Area and Tunkhannock also have their own ESL programs, Lussi pointed out.
Every spring the students must take state-mandated tests to evaluate their English skills.
Federal education mandates require a review of these and other test results, which, combined with a teacher-prepared evaluation of the student’s skills, are used to determine when students have mastered the English language enough to allow the student to be enrolled in an English class with their peers.