Newcomers in Massachusetts
by Sarah Bernadette Ottow, Founder & Director of Confianza LLC
Originally posted in NAELPA’s Spring 2024 Newsletter
“Massachusetts, like many states, has seen an increase in the number of newcomers enrolling in schools this year, both through and outside of our Emergency Assistance shelter system,” explains Allison Balter, Massachusetts Department of Education’s Director of English Language Acquisition. “In some cases, students and families are arriving in districts that have not yet had to develop an infrastructure to support newcomers. Confianza's Community of Practice is helping them to build a strong foundation to welcome students and families and collaborate with other districts that are experiencing similar needs.”
Confianza, a technical support organization focused on schoolwide equity, language and literacy, is currently partnering with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to support a network of district teams across the commonwealth who are experiencing an influx of students and families in communities’ Emergency Assistance shelters. District teams, consisting of instructional leadership, classroom teachers and ELL/MLL staff, opted to engage in Confianza’s newcomer-focused community of practice as a way to collaboratively learn, network and plan action steps for staff and student success. While each district is unique, all students deserve educators who model a strong vision and leadership teams who facilitate the change that Newcomers bring.
One major focus of the community of practice is to continuously focus on growth versus mastery. Making sure that Newcomer students feel welcome and safe comes first while also leveraging existing systems of support and building new ones if they don’t exist yet. Districts showcase artifacts of practice like data dive processes that honor the whole child including stressors that refugee families may be facing. Several teams are creating district-specific toolkits for staff new to working with Newcomers.
Another major focus is to build shared responsibility for Newcomers schoolwide by creating psychologically safe professional learning spaces for educators. “I feel motivated to create a supportive environment for general education teachers,” one EL specialist shared. “Listen to teachers’ and students’ needs and ‘give permission’ for everyone to get to know each other so learning can happen,” a district leader pointed out.
Participants meet monthly on Zoom, facilitated by the Confianza team, and they are encouraged to work together between meetings. Some participants are using this opportunity to earn professional development hours for re-licensure as part of this state-sponsored opportunity. An in-person component occurs in May where teams will bring their progress and challenges to get real-time feedback from peers. All teams get access to Confianza’s online resource hub, The Language Lens Academy, with field-tested, educator-friendly resources like an overview of levels of language acquisition, methods to integrate language and literacy, language scaffolds and other guidance. The Language Lens for Content Classrooms: A Guidebook for Teachers, Coaches and Leaders is also provided for all participants.
Since 2015, Confianza has supported over 20,000 educators across the US and globe using Sarah Ottow’s Language Lens® approach. Learn more at www.ellconfianza.com.