- Dec 3, 2006
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Teachers struggle communicating with migrant kids: ‘Breaks my heart’
Local school districts and governments say they are being stretched by an influx of asylum-seekers and new arrivals.
The U.S. has spent $5.5B on migrant medical care
Florida sheriff says migrants have caused jail overcrowding
Denver hospitals have seen 20,000 migrant visits in past year
In the rural town of Albertville, Alabama, with a population of under 23,000 and almost 42 miles to the closest airport, 65% of students are Latino, some of whom have never had a formal education, even in their native Spanish.
But for school officials and teachers alike, figuring out how to provide students — 35% of whom are learning English for the first time — with a proper educational experience becomes a task that is equal parts motivation and frustration.
Elisabeth Smith teaches a newcomer class in Albertville, meaning that everyone she teaches has been in the United States for less than two years, and the majority of the kids have been in the country for less than 12 months.
“Ten kids in a room at one time speaking three languages, and then two days a week, there’s not even a bilingual aide here that speaks their language,” Smith, an English Language Arts teacher, says.
Bart Reeves, the superintendent of the Albertville City School District, says the district picked up 30 English language learning students in January and another 29 in February.
Yet for teachers like Smith, who only speaks English herself, figuring out how to relate to students who come from backgrounds much different from her own can be emotional at times.
“It breaks my heart seeing these kids go from classroom to classroom not knowing what’s going on,” she said.
How migrants stretch US resources
Coupled with the communication gap are issues with funding as communities across the country continue to grapple with how to pay for the influx of migrants arriving from the U.S. southern border.
Martin County, Florida, is even farther from the U.S.-Mexico border than are towns like Albertville. Situated about halfway between Orlando and Miami, Martin County wouldn’t appear to be directly affected by the nation’s ongoing migrant crisis.
But one wouldn’t know that by looking at the community’s jail.
For the first time in his 12 years as Martin County’s top law enforcement official, Sheriff William Snyder says he has scores of inmates on sleeping mats that cover the common areas of the jail.
He blames the overcrowding on those in the U.S. illegally, which account for about 50% of the jail’s problems with overcrowding.
“We’re not a sanctuary city,” Snyder says.