“Some people might walk by and say, ‘Wow, they’re playing Trouble in there,’” the teacher said. Many of them may come to work, but they realize they like school, but they can’t stay past 18.”īeyond the English classes and the life skill lessons, Carlos knows that just as important for the students’ survival is them finding a community that they can call their own in Dodge City High School. They know they have a family they need to support, but our system says they need to stay in school until they’re 18. “They want to figure out a way to survive. “A lot of them come because they want to work,” Diana Mendoza said. Even the students who stick out the one or two school years in SLIFE often will lack the necessary credits to graduate, since students who enter SLIFE rarely come with the transcripts or transferable credits from their home countries' schools. Many, if not most, leave school to work the second they turn 18. That said, despite Carlos' encouragement for students to remain in school, only a handful graduate. More: New graduation requirements coming to Kansas high schools life skills credit falls short It is kind of hard to pull aside the new ones to catch them up, but that’s our goal.” "We’re really lucky, though, that our kids who have been here a while will step right up and help. "That can be challenging as teachers, since we may be working with the kids for several months, and then we get a brand new student who has maybe only been in school up to third grade," Carlos said. While there’s no clear-cut definition for who fits the SLIFE program, Diana Mendoza said the liaisons work with parents or other caregivers to figure out, on an individual basis, how much prior education each student has, as well as their level of English. More: Does Kansas see military enlistment as student success? Some districts say, 'Not enough.'Īnd with that, Dodge City High School's SLIFE program was born.Įvery student who arrives to the district meets with a parent liaison who determines the family’s needs, while also analyzing school transcripts, if any, that the students might bring them. To lead it, the school leaders tapped Corrina Carlos, a longtime special education teacher whose bilingual skills could help kick off the program. They found a new way to describe these students - Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education - and absent any specific state funding for teaching these kinds of students, the district used funds from its bilingual education funding to begin the one-of-a-kind-to-Kansas program. “They come to us to survive.”Īfter superintendent Fred Dierksen arrived six years ago, he and other district leaders looked to models around the country that could help. “These students come to us, and they don’t necessarily have a lot of prior formal education,” Diana Mendoza said. In teaching their younger peers, schools could at least attempt to lay an educational foundation for those students, but many of the teens had little to build on, and even less time to do so. More: Dodge City USD 443's migrant education program helps hundreds of studentsĮducating them has always required additional resources - federal and state funding ensures the immigrants receive support to learn and become proficient in English.īut while that kind of work takes place in any classroom with immigrant students across the state or country, district leaders in Dodge City USD 443 noticed a growing subgroup of students who weren't being adequately served - teens who had extremely limited, if any, prior education. About 46% of Dodge City USD 443's 7,100 students speak a language other than English at home, said Diana Mendoza, the district’s director of English for Speakers of Other Languages and diversity. Their children, similarly, have been large percentages of the local school district's enrollment. Immigrants, for decades, have been pillars of labor in the meatpacking city. While many districts in Kansas work with English-learning populations, Dodge City is one of a kind in its high percentages of immigrant students, many of whom come from Central America’s most impoverished and undereducated countries.
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