LEWISTON – The city’s Somali population continues to grow, and the school system is working to keep up.
Assistant City Administrator Phil Nadeau now estimates that 1,700 Lewiston residents are Somali, with 20 to 30 new people moving to the city every month. Forty-five moved in during one unusual week in February.
For the school system, that means hundreds of students struggling to learn English, including some who have come directly from refugee camps. It has added new teachers, tutors and special programs, and plans to add even more if the influx continues.
“It has gone from a school district that was not prepared at all to a school district that has a lot of mechanisms to assist these kids in place right now,” said Mohammed Abdi, Lewiston’s Somali parent liaison.
Lewiston’s Somali influx began in 2001. Within months, hundreds of black, Muslim immigrants had moved into a city known for its white, Catholic populace.
At the time, about 30 students were enrolled in the school system’s English as a Second Language program, which helps foreign-born students learn English. By 2002, enrollment had ballooned to 184. By 2003 it was 268.
Since then, both the city’s Somali population and the school’s English program have grown slowly but steadily. The English program gained 60 students in the last six months and now stands at 381.
In a new wrinkle, many of the newest students have come straight from refugee camps. Unlike earlier immigrants, these new students know no English and have had little, if any, schooling.
“All of the sudden we’re back to helping them with basic needs that we thought we were done with two years ago,” Abdi said.
To help, the school system has honed its enrollment procedures so it can quickly identify kids who need the most help with English. It arranges for Somali parents to meet with a Somali-speaking liaison. It recently hired Somali tutors to work at the middle and high schools and is looking to add at least one English as a Second Language teacher this year.
Montello Elementary School, which has the most Somali students at 100, also started its own language lab specifically for children who are not native English speakers. Lewiston High School officials have started working with adult education leaders to ensure that the newest teenage refugees have a place to go if they get too old to attend high school but still need help with English.
Abdi believes the school system has made progress. He said the English language program is better staffed, teachers are better trained and Somali parents are better informed than any year before.
“It’s helped a lot,” he said. “Parents are very enthusiastic.”
He credits the system for giving schools money and resources.
“We have not had trouble asking for and getting what we need,” he said.
The future
But while today’s 381 foreign-speaking students are getting help, some remain concerned about the future.
Janice Plourde, curriculum director, said some classroom teachers still struggle to teach students who don’t speak English. They could use more training, she said.
And there’s no way to tell whether the steady stream of Somali immigrants will stop or grow, whether school enrollments will suddenly drop off or spike.
Just in case the answer is “spike,” the School Committee last month set aside $156,000 for the next year’s English as a Second Language Program and more than $21,000 for English instruction through adult education. That budget still must be approved by the City Council.
For now, officials say enrollments remain steady. It looks like they will stay that way for at least a little while.
Kindergarten registration begins next week. Plourde has heard that 15 Somali kindergartners will enroll at Longley Elementary School alone.
Said Plourde, “That’s a whole classroom.”
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