Your Morning Boost - Beyond Words The True Challenges of English Learners

Welcome to your Morning Boost, your daily leadership advice to help you lead your school community, brought to you by AWB Education and sponsored by Grundmeier Leader Services, where together we are transforming education, one leader at a time. Now here's your host, Adam Bush. Hello, and welcome back to your Morning Boost. Happy Friday, everybody. I hope you've had a wonderful, wonderful week, and really, honestly, for me, it's been a fantastic week. It's great to get kids back in the building. We're only two weeks deep into this school year, and it's fun to see everybody starting to really dive into some academic work this week. Today, we're going to wrap up this monthly deep dive into the Fitting five with a topic that is important for creating an inclusive and supportive school community, and that is supporting our newcomer students. We're going to be looking at the challenges they face as that go beyond just language, and we'll explore strategies to help them navigate what it means to do school in the US. We will discuss how leaders can create a system that truly welcomes and powers these students to thrive. All right, Welcome back everybody. The challenge for many of our newcomer English learners isn't just learning a new language, it's also understanding the unwritten rules of our educational system. Things we might take for granted, like how to ask a question, how to navigate a schedule, or even participate in group work. All of this can be completely new concepts for students from different cultural backgrounds. Melissa Grinstead, and she's an expert in this field. Her article highlights this need for leaders to be proactive and addressing these differences. Now. She gives a few actionable strategies for you to consider. The first one starts with creating a school culture orientation. Beyond just a building tour, She says to consider a dedicated orientation for newcomer students and their families. This can be a friendly and a low stress way to explain things like grading systems, school wide exs, and the importance of things like attendants. Providing this information in their native language if possible, or with an interpreter can also make a world of difference. Now, another thing she talks about is creating this student ambassador group, so partnering newcomer students with a veteran student who speaks their language can be incredibly effective and can be just a great strategy. This peer to peer connection provides a safe space for students to ask questions and learn the roads. These ambassadors can help with everything from finding their classrooms to understanding lunch room routines. It'll just turn a confusing experience into a welcoming one. Now, another thing she talks about is focusing on that universal design for learning. So the principles of UDL are perfect for this. When we make lessons and resources accessible to all learners, we are naturally supporting our newcomers. For example, using more visuals and presentations, providing multi lingual instructions, or offering different ways for students to show what they know can help bridge the gap between their prior knowledge and our educational expectations. Now, I think Melissa's article is a perfect wrap up to Friday. Just remember that doing school is a skill in itself, and our job as leaders is to teach that. When we provide clear guidance, leveraging pure support, and designing our systems for all of our learners, we will ensure that every student, no matter where they are from, feels a sense of belonging and has the tools to succeed. The world truly is our classroom and it's up to us to make it a welcoming one. Thank you for listening. I hope you have a wonderful Friday, and I hope you have an even better weekend. Ahead of quick sneak peek next week, we have a guest that will be coming on with us. We will be talking with mister Shaka Mitchell all week as he really dives into the power of parent engagement and has some amazing strategies on how to help us with that can be kind of a troubling thing at times to get parents engaged in our school, So look forward to that next week. But outside of that, have a wonderful Friday and have an even better week yet, and we will talk with you again next week. You have been listening to your Morning boost by AWB Education in partnership with Grunmeier Leader Services. You can find out more about our services by clicking on the links in the description. Remember, you are doing this vital job that only a few can do. So until next time, thank you for your service to your community.