116. Streamlining Newcomer Welcomes: Setting Up Your Schoolwide System

Hey there, and welcome to another episode of the Equipping Ells podcast. Now, I had originally plan for these next few episodes to be about collaboration, and we will get there. Hang on. But I've also had many of you reach out just sharing about the increase of newcomers that you are experiencing in your school, in your district, in your area. And this is happening across the entire country. And so I wanted to slow down, take a few episodes to speak into this because there's some really clear, practical ways that you, as a school system, can get set up for the success of your newcomer students. And by success, I mean being set up to welcome them. For them to feel comfortable and excited about this new adventure they're on. Success means having teachers feel prepared and not extremely overwhelmed like I did my first time. My principal came in and said, tomorrow you're getting a new student who doesn't know any English. And so that's really what I want to hit on in the next couple of episodes, is really revolving around that topic of what can you do as a school, not just you alone, as the ESL teacher. Because it really is about all of us working together to create systems to get material set up so that you are prepared as best as you can be for your newcomers. I'm not going to say that it's going to make everything 100% easier, or it's going to be easy when you have increasing numbers continually each week of newcomers entering, that is a lot on you to continue to adjust, to look at your groups, to figure out how to support these students. But I do believe that when you have the proper systems and resources set up, it's going to help you really have some peace about newcomers coming into your school. You're going to be able to have more peace about how the students and homeroom team, I really believe and have seen the power of having systems and resources. Set up to help alleviate a lot of that extra stress that comes just because we don't know or we're not prepared when newcomers enter. So, hopefully, this next few episodes are really helpful for you. Today, I want to really hit on what it looks like to set up a school wide system for successfully welcoming newcomers. Because it really cannot all fall on your shoulders. I know that as teachers of Ell, you might feel that weight, that burden on your shoulders to be supporting every newcomer that comes in, and that it's all on you, but you can't do it alone. And that's where we really need the whole school to get on board and to really talk through a lot of these questions I'm going to be asking today. And to create a school wide support system. Because then, once your school is set up with a system and you know exactly who is in charge of each piece of this newcomer welcome. It's going to help every student that comes into your school, whether they're newcomers or not. But it's really going to help you as a school to be that initial support that those students and those families need. So I'm excited about this. I want to encourage you. Our word for the year is advocate. And I really want to encourage you to bring on other people in your school. We'll talk about that in a minute. But like I said, you cannot do this all alone. I know some of you are seeing multiple newcomers enter your school each week, and that is a lot for one person who already has a full caseload. So if this sounds impossible, it's not. And that's what I'm going to walk you through today. And we're going to walk step by step on how to set up a school wide system for welcoming newcomers. If you are feeling alone in this and you're feeling overwhelmed with this increase of non english speaking students entering your school, again, advocate. Share this episode and the supporting documents that I'm sharing today with other staff in your school, with administrators. So that your school can be in a place that helps your newcomers transition well. And also helps the teachers really have that confidence to show up and support these newcomers that are entering your school. So to set up a school wide system, what we really need to do is walk through a variety of questions. Because every school is going to be different in how they are going to go about this. And the type of resources, the amount of teachers, the amount of support systems you have in place already. All of those things really make a difference in the type of system you want to set up. So today, I'm really going to walk you through five questions for you and your school to answer, along with some considerations that I'll throw in. And along with that, I'm going to be sharing with you. Editable download where you it's a newcomer snapshot. Because I think part of the big issue is just there's so many people that are going to be in contact with this newcomer. And we want to make sure there's a lot of clarity around who is the student? What's their native language? How do you pronounce their name? Who's their homeroom teacher? I know that's a lot of the confusion that I experienced. When I had my first newcomer of throughout the day when she was going to the PE class. Now I needed to share this information about new student with the PE teacher. And then the secretary was really the first one who was making the first contact with the family and the student. So how can we create a system where each person in this process really knows their role and then completes it? And we have a really awesome snapshot of the student. So everyone can quickly come on board and know who the student is. And know how they can help best support the student. So let's dive into these five questions. There's a variety of questions, but I'm breaking them down into kind of five categories. And so let's talk about it. The first category or area of questions that I want you to think about and tackle is this. Do we have a newcomer welcome team? All right, if you are seeing an increase in newcomers, this is a really important group of people to get together. Because this will really help to communicate clearly with the school. What's the plan? What's the expectation, who these students are? How can they help all of those things? I would recommend that you should have the ESL teacher. So that might be you, at least one homeroom teacher. And then one specialist teacher. So it could be as easy as three staff members are on this newcomer welcome team. And the importance of that is because then this helps for you to delegate some of that communication that needs to happen. So when you have those three staff members in your group, in your team, then you can put it on to the homeroom teachers. To go out and share with the other homeroom teachers. What the protocol is or what this student snapshot will look like and what to expect when they bring. When the student comes in. All of those types of things. And the same with the specialist teachers. Because I found that that was sometimes where the biggest frustrations happened were during things like art and PE and music. When those teachers were really unclear about who the student was. They didn't realize they didn't speak English. They weren't prepared for how to help them. And so it's really important that we have the specialist teacher involved as well. So that they can help go back and communicate to the other specialist teachers of the new plan and protocols. This also is a powerful way for you as the ESL teacher to know how to best support the teachers in their different areas. So in this small team, they can bring back some concerns they're having. Or maybe they're saying the newcomer is coming into my classroom, my homeroom classroom, but I don't have the materials prepared and ready. I don't know what to do. That initial time they come into the. Classroom. And that's where you, as the ESL teacher, can really help coach, help give them materials, help say, here's exactly what you can do in that situation. Same for the specialist. So having the small team put together as the newcomer welcome team really helps you delegate some of that communication that's so critical. But it also helps give you a place that you can listen to what's going on, how you can help the homeroom teachers, the specialist teachers, as they work with the newcomers as well. So it's really a win win. So start there. If you don't have a newcomer welcome team, I would really start with creating one so that this can be something that becomes part of your structure in your school and maybe meet monthly every other month. But just putting a team in place that's responsible for helping the transition of newcomers into the school is going to be extremely helpful for the success of this. All right, the second category question that I want you to think about is, what does the initial contact and registration look like? So a lot of times in my school that I was in, the initial contact person was the secretary at the front desk. And so the family would come in, she would have them fill out the paperwork, the home language survey. Sometimes right then, if the psychologist was available, they would do any testing that needed to happen. That kind of happened before the students even started school. What we also found was that wonderful secretary, she had been in that role for many years, and so the change in the demographic really kind of left her frazzled, left her not prepared, and she didn't really think of many ways that she could change how she would approach these new families. And so that's where maybe you would come in as that newcomer welcome team and come up with some ways to make that initial contact much more welcoming for the families, for the students, and really making it a smooth process. So this could look like maybe having a device that's set up with Google translate right at the front desk, right by the front where the secretary is sitting, and the parents and staff can easily talk to each other. That initial contact person knows how to use Google Translate. With a conversation, they're able to easily convey information. I can't tell you how many times I saw a new family come in that did not speak English. And time and time again, it was kind of, like, frustrated, really. Nothing changed. Over and over and over again. It was just like, well, let's see how we can proactively connect with these families and not initially and immediately make them feel like they're not welcomed here because they don't speak English. So there are things. So having that Google translate device right there at the front, it stays at the front desk. It's. Always there as a translation device for any teacher that needs to use it or for the front desk staff. Now, I also want you to think about how are parents given information about what to expect? Remember, school is extremely different in other parts of the world. I was recently talking to one of my friends here who their kids go to public school here in Panama, and they start an week, and so she was sharing with me how the public school they go to, actually, I said, oh, do they take a bus to school? And she said, yeah, they have to take two different public transportation buses. They have to walk 15 minutes, get on one bus, get off and get on another bus. And they're 14 years old, they're twins. And I just was thinking like, wow, that is so different than a school bus coming to the front of your house or the corner, picking you up, taking you right to school, knowing what time the bus will drop you off. So it's a very different mindset around all of the information that goes into what is expected in the school, how things are run, all of that kind of stuff. So think about the information that's given to your parents. Is it translated? Are there at least visuals really clear and simple? If they're taking the bus, here's how they sign up for that, or here's the time the bus will pick them up. Just making it very clear of what to be expected from the parents and what the school is expected at the school. Because if you are handing them pages of information that's very dense in text, most of them will probably not read it. I know myself as a native english speaker. A lot of times I get lost in that. It's just a lot of information at once. And so how can we really look at the information, how we're conveying that information and making sure that they understand? And that might mean just moving right into immediately getting them set up with whatever talking points, remind app, whatever your system of communication is, getting them set up right away so that maybe then all of the information is set up and goes through a text message that's translated. So thinking through this process, and how can you make sure that every family that comes in to register their child has a clear understanding of what is going to be happening over the next couple of days, over the next couple of weeks? And you can kind of space that out. You don't want to overwhelm them and bombard them with so much at the beginning. So really maybe talk with whoever would be in charge of sending this information and talking about, okay, what are the things we want them to know immediately. Things like what time school starts, lunch program, bus schedule, who their teacher is. That might be enough for the first week and then the second week. How can we make sure they know how to contact the teacher? Or should we set up a meeting with the teacher? All these types of things, it really depends on your school and what works for you. So that's why I'm just prompting you with questions so that you can get started, okay? One other quick thing, and this is where I felt like there was always a disconnect in my school, is the psychologist would do the screening of language, but we would never really get those results. There was definitely a disconnect between what she saw with that screening. And then as a homeroom teacher, the student entered my classroom and I was given really just, here's a newcomer. Good luck. And so talking that through, bringing the psychologist or whoever does your screen, maybe you're the one that does the screening. Thinking of how you can easily, without doing more work on your part, how can you convey those results to the homeroom teachers that are mainly going to be with the student most of the day? Okay, so that's another area that we want to just make sure to connect those pieces. And this is why I want to talk about this whole system, because there's so many people involved in this and so when we have a clear system set up, that's when we're really going to have success and we're all going to be aligned on what's expected. All right, number three, I want you to think about and question what does the first day of school look like for a newcomer in your building? Okay. And this is where, like I said, I'm going to share this student snapshot page with you. But this is where it will be helpful because this is something that can go along in a folder with that student. I recommend having a newcomer folder ready. This is something you could prep 20 of them, the same folder, and then you just put in that student snapshot page at the beginning. And that folder goes with that student throughout all their classes for the first week. And it just helps every teacher who's working with that student know when they pull out the snapshot page or when they look in the folder, they're going to have the same materials and they know how to use them. The more we can create consistency across the school, the better. So that's why I really want to encourage you to use this snapshot page so that every teacher is familiar with it and they don't have to figure out, okay, what's this excel document? Okay, what does this mean? But they can quickly and easily look and say, okay, here's the student's name, this is where they're from, here's their native language. They've been here for three weeks. All of this quick overview of the student. So instantly that teacher can start to connect with that student. So thinking through questions like who is going to welcome the student on the first day? Is it the ESL teacher? Is it someone in the front staff that's going to welcome at the door, walk them to the classroom? Is the student going to come on a bus, or are they going to get dropped off? Maybe a paraprofessional can help with this someone. Maybe if they speak their same language, they can meet them and really kind of just talk them through a lot of that overwhelm that happens when you enter a school for the first time, all of those things. So think through who is going to welcome the child on the first day? And then you really want to identify. I know when I was in the homeroom position and I was given my newcomer, I did not know when the ESL teacher would come. And so that was very overwhelming to me because I did not know what to. To do. And I didn't know when she was going to come. So really clearly setting that up and putting that in that snapshot, I will be there at 09:00 and I will take her for half an hour and do some activities with her. But then the rest of the day, here's three things that you could be doing with her from the newcomer folder. Again, keeping that consistency. Teachers don't want to learn new things every time a newcomer comes in and they don't have to. We can use what's in this newcomer older, which I'm going to be sharing with you next week, so stay tuned for that. And then I think another thing that's really important is what is expected of the classroom teacher. I know, like I said when I was just kind of looking at the door, waiting for the SL teacher to come, not sure when she's supposed to come, not sure what I should be doing, not sure what's expected of me. There's just so much that was really unclear and that added a lot of anxiety to me. And so the more that we can clear up and just making it really simple. Okay, I will come at this time. Here are three things that you can do. Okay. I think any teacher can look at that and say, okay, great, I have those activities right here. I can do that today. I can get to know this student. So as much as you can walk through that first day is really important to set up those points. Set up who is in charge of that and really have clarity around it, that is going to be really a helpful step to take for your newcomers to be welcomed into the school and for their learning journey to begin successfully. Now, next week I'll be sharing five free resources that will help all teachers easily have what they need to teach newcomers. So if you're like, yeah, this newcomer folder sounds great, but I don't have that and I don't have time to make that up. Don't worry. I'll be sharing that next week. So stay tuned. Next week's episode. All right, another thing that you will want to discuss is your scheduling and grouping. What's the plan going forward? So this is where it can get really tricky. I know for some of you who already have very high numbers, and so adding more newcomers feels really stressful. And again, it's going to come back to that word that we've been talking about, advocate. You have to advocate. Maybe right now you're meeting with each grade level by mixed groups, but you're seeing, hey, if I could actually group all of my newcomers together, it would free up my time, and I would be able to give them a lot more of what they need. So go and talk to your administrator about that. Go and find what fits best for you, what would be your ideal and your dream, and see if you could make that happen. Because I find a lot of schools where they really get burnt out is when they're grouping and they're scheduling. It doesn't make sense when they're just having to fit in a way that is exhausting you as a teacher, because you're trying to plan for multiple groups or multiple language levels all the time. And so if you're experiencing an increase in newcomers, see if you can group all those newcomers together, even if they're in different grade levels. That is going to help you big time. Now, some other questions that you want to ask. Do we have a milestone. Stone program set up? If not, what are some small milestones or ways we can welcome these students in the school? All of us, all of us as humans want to have those moments where we have quick wins, where we feel confident, where we've reached a certain level, where we are encouraged and celebrated. All of those things are part of what we as humans need in order to continue to grow. The language learning journey is very long. I am still 20 years into learning Spanish and still a long ways to go. So it's very long. It's a lifetime. So it's so important. And this is where I think as that school, that newcomer welcome group, you can talk about and say, what are our milestones? What can we celebrate? What can we celebrate in the first two or three weeks that's going to help encourage these newcomers to keep on? So think about that. Break those things down, maybe have a few different milestones and do some sort of celebration, whether it's in your small groups, in the classroom, as a school, but really set up, what are the milestones that we want to celebrate? Because otherwise they are really going to get discouraged quickly when they think the only milestone is to be fluent in English and that's all that matters. That is not the milestone we want them to be looking at. We want them to look at the next milestone. Maybe it's speaking a sentence in English. Maybe it's just raising their hand and volunteering. It could be really little things. But having those milestones set helps you to keep your eyes open for them and to remember to celebrate their small successes, because that is what's going to help them continue on this long journey that's ahead of them. And then last, some other things that I want you to think about is if you are having a lot of newcomers joining you, that means you're having a lot of new families joining you. And so thinking about ways that you can provide that support to the families, because we know that home school connection is so important. So maybe looking at if you can host a monthly Zoom call to welcome them or an every other month Zoom call where you can answer questions or help them get connected to things in the use, there's a lot of different devices that can translate. I think Google had one out that it will translate automatically the video into whatever language the families speak. And so even if it's a pre recorded video that just gets sent out to them, just find ways that you can make sure they are getting established. They know what's available to them, both in the school and in the community. That they get connected and that they just kind of get over that hurdle of that first time experience in the United States. So that's an option. Some other things that you want to think about is what type of training will we continue to give our teachers? Okay, because it really is all about, and this is why we're going to move into collaboration in a couple of weeks. But it's really about that everybody is empowered, everybody feels confident, everybody knows what to do to support their ell students. And so if you're seeing an increase in newcomers in your school, ask, survey your teachers and find out what is overwhelming you the most right now about supporting newcomers. And then do a training on it or send out a newsletter about it. Anything that you can just show up and support them where they're at. You don't have to come up with it on your own, but really just taking time to listen to your teachers and then providing the support how they need it is really what you can do that's best for them. So just a quick recap on five things to look at when you're setting up a schoolwide system for welcoming newcomers. One is to set up a newcomer team. Two is to look over the initial contact and registration and what that looks like. Three is to walk through the first day of school assigning different roles or who's going to be doing what at what time. Four is scheduling and grouping, and maybe advocating for a different schedule if you're getting an increase in newcomers. And then five is to look at doing a monthly Zoom call, a welcome call with families, and to look at different types of trainings that you can do to support your teachers. Again, this isn't something that you cannot do on your own. You cannot change the culture of your school overnight. And so give yourself grace. Continue to advocate and so give yourself grace. Continue to advocate for yourself, for your students. And I promise these small steps are going to make big changes in your school. So download our student snapshot that we have for you available in the show notes, and start to see how your whole school can get on board with creating a system to set up to welcome your newcomer students successfully. Like I said, join me next week. I'm going to be sharing with you five free resources that will help all teachers easily have what they need to begin teaching newcomers. So don't miss out on that. If you love what you are hearing on this podcast, if you are passionate about this mission that we are passionate about, which is to empower educators to equip their english language, which is to empower educators to equip their english language learners, will you do us a huge favor? And one, either give us a five stars and leave us a review on whatever podcast app you listen to this on that helps other educators find this podcast, or will you share this with other educators, with other teachers in your building, other teacher friends and other administrators. That helps spread the word and helps our mission grow. Helps more people understand and implement best practices for teaching ells. We would absolutely love if you could do that. We appreciate it so much for your support with this podcast. All right, I will see you next week for this five free resources. So until then, keep equipping your ells. Bye.