LEWISTON – More and more students with limited English skills are enrolling in Lewiston and Auburn schools even four years after the influx of Somali families began.
There are now 402 students in Lewiston’s English Language Learners program, formerly called English as a Second Language. That includes more than a dozen Somali students who lived in New Orleans and came to the area after Hurricane Katrina.
Foreign speakers now account for about 8 percent of the Lewiston school population. Most are Somali, school officials say.
Across the river, Auburn is seeing a slower, but still steady, growth in enrollment. Last year, it had slightly less than 100 kids in its English Language Learners program. This year it has 107, with about 60 percent Somali.
The increase isn’t staggering, said teacher Robin Fleck, who helps run the Auburn program. But unlike earlier students, who spoke some English, many of the newest students have no experience with the language and need intensive help.
“We’re working a lot harder,” Fleck said.
Four years ago, both cities ran small programs to teach foreign-born students how to read and speak English. Lewiston, for example, had 30 kids and a single teacher.
That changed within months when hundreds of Somali immigrants moved to Lewiston from Georgia and other parts of the country. A few families moved to Auburn.
Since then, growth has been steady. The latest spike came in the spring, when several families moved to the area straight from refugee camps. Lewiston schools gained 60 students within six months.
Unlike earlier immigrants, those new students knew no English and had little, if any, schooling. Both Lewiston and Auburn had to learn how to help these new students, while keeping up with the Somali students who had been in school for years.
“We’re really trying to fine-tune the program. It gets better every year,” said Althaea White, who teaches at Montello Elementary School in Lewiston.
Montello has more than 100 students in its English Language Learners program, the most of any school in the city. It has started separate morning classes for kids who need intensive help. Those students go to their traditional classrooms in the afternoon.
Lewiston High School has just over 80 students who need to learn English; Lewiston Middle School has just over 50. Those older students spend some time in separate classes and also have a tutor.
The remaining 170 students are spread among the elementary schools. To reach them all, Lewiston has been on a four-year hiring spree.
The city, which started with just a single teacher, now has seven teachers, nine teaching assistants, two tutors and a parent liaison dedicated to students who are learning English.
Auburn keeps most of its 107 foreign-speaking students at three schools: Sherwood Heights Elementary School, Auburn Middle School and Edward Little High School. It has four teachers and five teaching assistants. This week, the School Committee will discuss hiring another teacher to work at the middle school.
The state typically helps school systems pay for extra teachers or programs when they have large numbers of students who need help with English.
Lewiston, Auburn and other school systems have changed the name of their English as a Second Language programs because many of their foreign students spoke several languages, and English might be their third, fourth or fifth. Officials thought English Language Learners would be more accurate.
Although most students in the local English Language Learners programs are Somali, others come from other countries and speak more than 18 languages, including Russian, French, Spanish and Chinese.
Comments are no longer available on this story