During designated free periods at Franklin Community High School, students can catch up on work they haven’t done yet, make up quizzes or tests, meet with teachers to discuss class material or do group work for projects.
About 20 students use that time to improve their language skills, while native English speakers help them navigate conversations. Throughout Johnson County, the presence of English language learners, commonly referred to as ELL students, is growing.
For example, at Center Grove schools, there were 38 ELL students during the 2016-17 school year. This year, that number jumped to 161. At Clark-Pleasant schools, there were 188 ELL students during the 2017-18 school year. This year, there are 359, assistant superintendent John Schilawski said in an email.
Greenwood Community schools had 160 ELL students during the 2018-19 school year, and Edinburgh Community schools had 32, according to the Indiana Department of Education.
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Bonding through languages
Yovany Lopez, a Franklin Community High School senior, moved from Guatemala three years ago not knowing any English, which made life in central Indiana difficult, he said.
“At first, I struggled. I didn’t know anything,” Lopez said of his English. “It was hard for me to make friends.”
Brendan Couch, also a Franklin senior, met Lopez and gave him a tour of the high school. The two developed a friendship, and as they talked more, Couch improved his Spanish skills and Lopez learned more English with each interaction, Couch said.
“I was born in America. English is my only language. As a tutor, I can translate enough to Spanish sometimes. Yovani got here freshman year and we were together in Spanish 2 at one point. We were walking around the halls and I’d point to something and say, ‘What is this in Spanish?’ and he’d ask, ‘What is this in English?’” Couch said.
“It’s made me appreciate how hard it is for kids sometimes. Living in Indiana and having English as a first language, knowing personally the struggles students go through. Some of them don’t know any English.”
‘The support they need’
Michelle Dillon, the only ELL teacher at Franklin schools, serves students in fifth through 12th grades.
Students who grew up speaking another language are given a screening from WIDA, the World-class Instructional Design and Assessment, which tests students’ English skills in four areas: reading, listening, speaking and writing. If students don’t score at least a five out of six on the exam, they are designated as ELL students and test each year until they reach that mark, Dillon said.
Franklin schools is in the process of hiring a part-time ELL teacher, who would work at Custer Baker Intermediate School, assistant superintendent Brooke Worland said.
ELL teachers need to adjust to the individual needs of students, especially those who come to the U.S. when they are teenagers and need to master more advanced curriculum, said Shannon Carroll-Frye, director of secondary teaching and learning at Center Grove schools.
“We have to get really creative with students who come to high school brand new to U.S. education. We look at transcripts and do all we can to give them credit for comparable courses. At the high school level, that’s one of the places we’ve added staff. Those kids are going to so many different teachers and courses, they need that extra communication and support from staff," Carroll-Frye said.
"We have an English course taught by an ELL teacher, and students in there new to learning English get the additional smaller setting. There are very few students in that course. We want to make sure students get the support they need.”
What languages do students speak?
At Greenwood schools, most ELL students speak Spanish, but students also speak a variety of Asian languages, including Tagalog, Urdu, Vietnamese, Chin and Punjabi, said Maureen Wehmeier, an eighth grade English teacher at Greenwood Community Middle School.
In order to meet the needs of that growing population of students, the Indiana Department of Education recommends that there is at least one ELL teacher for every 30 students in a school district. The state department released a memo in August requiring each school district submit plans to make sure each ELL student is receiving adequate help.
In Indiana, there are an average of 83 students for every ELL licensed teacher, according to the department of education.
ELL teachers are responsible for helping students prepare for annual comprehensive exams on English proficiency, meeting with teachers to plan how best to assist ELL students and monitoring student progress. With the largest population of ELL students of any Johnson County school district, Clark-Pleasant schools has three ELL teachers and seven ELL instructional assistants, Schilawski said.
The languages spoken vary widely depending on the location of a school in the county. At Indian Creek schools, the number of students who aren’t native English speakers is in the single digits each year, and those students all speak Spanish, assistant superintendent Andy Cline said.
At Clark-Pleasant schools, more than twice as many students speak Punjabi as Spanish.
At Center Grove schools, the most represented foreign language group other than Spanish is Japanese.
At Franklin schools, the majority of ELL students speak Spanish, but others speak Mandarin, Punjabi and Bulgarian.
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Here is a look at how many English Language Learners each Johnson County school district has:
Clark-Pleasant;359
Center Grove;161
Greenwood;160 (2018-19)
Franklin;68
Edinburgh;32 (2018-19)
Indian Creek;6
Sources: Schools and Indiana Department of Education
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