Out of the Ashes: Phoenix Academy Allows Newcomers to Soar

By Kristin Bair, ELL Outlook™ Staff Writer

Gainsville City is located sixty miles north of Atlanta, Georgia. It was originally called "Mule Camp Springs" and was established in the early 1800s near the crossing of two Indian trails that were often used by settlers. Two centuries later, this growing town continues to be a center for the coming together of cultures. Over the last ten years, Georgia's Hispanic population has increased by 300%, and many of the families who make up this population have settled in Hall County, where Gainsville City is located.

Known as the Poultry Capital of the World, Hall County generates more than $720 million in poultry-related products each year. This industry drives the increase in the Hispanic population; as the number of jobs increases, families from Mexico and Central America move to Gainsville City, where they qualify for migrant benefits and where they can secure a solid education for their children.

In 1987, when Laura Herrington began teaching at the high school in Gainsville City, she was the only ESOL teacher. "I taught the beginning, intermediate, and advanced classes," she said.

Back then, the ELL population in Gainsville City was small, nothing like that of Miami, Florida where Herrington had begun her teaching career a few years before. But today, of the 5,000 students currently enrolled in the Gainsville City School System (K-12), 50% are ELLs.

To accommodate the burgeoning population, the school board and administrators of Gainsville City have made a number of progressive choices. "Today we have four or five full-time ESOL teachers between the middle and high schools, as well as sheltered classes," said Herrington. "And, of course, we now have the Phoenix Academy."

The Phoenix Academy opened its doors at the start of the 2004-2005 school year. Like many newcomer programs, it is designed to address the needs of ELL students who have limited or interrupted formal schooling in their native language. Herrington is one of three full-time teachers and one part-time teacher exclusive to the Academy.

Robert Thorpe, director of the Phoenix Academy, and Cheryl Wienges, the ESL director and the director of the International Registration Center of the Gainsville City School System, played key roles in the creation of the Academy. "We got the charge from our superintendent to create the Academy in late April of this year," said Thorpe. "It was serendipitous for us because at that time Cheryl, myself, and a few other teachers in our district were part of the University of Georgia's CLASE team."

The Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education (CLASE) is an initiative of the University of Georgia that was created in January 2003. Its mission is to make sure that Latino and Hispanic students have the best opportunities to pursue and achieve an education in Georgia's public school system, and to that end, it offers a summer institute to its members. "In order to participate in the summer institute," said Wienges, "you had to have a project. And boy, did we have a project!"

Their goal was to plan, create, and implement not just a newcomer program by the start of the next school year, but an entire academy designed to meet the needs of a growing at-risk population. "We wanted to create a cocoon," said Wienges, "where there is a risk-free environment in which the students understand that everybody else in the room is low-literacy as well as low-language in English. But we didn't want them to feel so cocooned that they couldn't go out of here and feel confident." With CLASE's support and guidance throughout the summer months, the Gainsville City team achieved its goal.

"The Phoenix Academy is unique," said Wienges proudly. "We have one middle school and one high school that back up to one another, so we purchased a brand-new modular six-classroom unit and situated it in the parking lot that is contiguous to both schools. So even though it sounds like a school within itself, it's not. And that's an important piece of the program."

Thorpe agrees. "The students of The Phoenix Academy are enrolled at either the middle or high school," he said. "They arrive to school on buses with the native English-speaking population. They eat lunch at their respective schools and have their fourth-period class there as well. It's very important that we don't isolate the kids from the resources of the schools or from their peers."

Currently, twenty-two students are enrolled in the Phoenix Academy (there are also five more in the GED program). The seven girls and fifteen boys come from a number of countries, including Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras.

"Most of our students have a third- or fourth-grade education in their native language," said Herrington, "and we have one student who has never been to school at all. It's very different from teaching in an ESOL classroom. When the students have skills that are transferable, it makes a big difference. But here, if I say we are going to list or circle verbs, most students don't know what a verb is. It's challenging, but extremely rewarding because everything is a learning experience."

In order to meet the needs of the twenty-two students enrolled in the Academy, the teachers and administrators divided them into three groups by ability level, as opposed to age or grade level. Middle school students are mixed in with high school students in all three groups. In addition, the groups rotate from teacher to teacher on schedule with the 90-minute block schedule of the high school.

"By rotating among us, the students get to learn English from different people," said Herrington. "Throughout the years I've learned that when students hear the same voice every day, they become dependent on that. I had this happen to me at the high school; a student went to another class and came back to me and said, 'Mrs. H, she doesn't speak English.' She did, of course, but the student had become used to my accent and my speech patterns."

The amount of English spoken in each class depends on the level of the group. With the beginning-level students, the teachers spend a good bit of time speaking in Spanish, while at the advanced level, they speak mostly in English. In all groups, the students are encouraged to talk with one another in English, since this is often the only place they have to practice their skills.

José, a sixteen-year-old student from El Salvador who has never attended school before, said that he works on math, English, and more English at the Academy. When he first arrived in the United States in 2003 and had to register for school, he felt sad and ashamed. But now, he said, he understands much more English and tries to speak more often. "I can read and write a little," he said. "Before I could not do anything."

The two areas of content instruction on which the teachers focus are math and language arts. Jim Bradley, who moved to the Academy from the middle school, teaches math; in addition to his own teaching tools, he uses a math program designed by the Department of Defense. Elaine Levitt, another transplant from the middle school, teaches English and language arts. Herrington, who also teaches English and language arts, uses a computer-based literacy program to enhance her classroom. Patricia Guerrero-Cook, originally from Colombia, runs both the GED program and the reading enrichment program for the Academy students. Reading enrichment is one of the students' favorite activities. Each day, the three groups convene for thirty to forty-five minutes of concentrated reading time.

"Right now, we're reading Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street," said Herrington. "Pat reads the book to the students in Spanish, but the students have an English copy to follow along in. When she finishes a chapter, we stop, talk about it, and outline the chapter on the board. The students have a notebook for the book, and they take notes the whole time. We've also read My Side of the Mountain [Jean Craighead George] and Esperanza Rising [Pam Munoz Ryan]."

In addition to strengthening the students' English and reading skills, the reading enrichment period gives the teachers a chance to observe their students' learning styles. "What we've found is that the students who may not be the strongest in class are often the ones paying close attention during this time and answering questions when they're asked," Herrington said. "We can use this information in other learning situations."

Working together as a team and finding opportunities in which they can observe the students have proven to be invaluable tools for the teachers as the Phoenix Academy continues to evolve. Each day they share a common planning period, which Herrington said she didn't have with her fellow ESOL teachers at the high school. In addition, the Academy features a laptop computer lab. For most of the students, this is their first opportunity to work on a computer and, according to Herrington, they love it. "It's exciting for them," she said. "Once they realize that the mouse clicks and makes things happen, they click on everything. I have to calm them down, because they'll just click and click and click."

The lab plays an important role in educating the students. Earlier in the year, the three groups worked on a joint project for Hispanic Heritage Month. In addition to making posters, researching countries, and gathering recipes from a variety of cultures, the students worked with the GED students to create a PowerPoint presentation.

As the weeks have passed since the grand opening of the Academy, Herrington said that the students have finally begun to trust each other and the teachers. "School started in August, but the students are just now starting to tell their stories," noted Herrington. "They often tell how they came to the United States. For some of them, their parents were here first and the children came later. Some traveled only with siblings, no adults, which I can't even imagine. One told me that he traveled on a train for five days with only water."

Herrington said that these stories come out at odd times, not when the class is having a discussion, but when the students are actually working on something. "All of a sudden," she said, "a student will just start talking about it. They obviously feel the need to share their stories, to express how they're feeling, to tell how they came to be here." And the fact that they feel comfortable enough to do so shows that the Phoenix Academy is connecting them to something important and creating an environment of trust.

Future plans for the Academy are extensive. "We're now working on a vocational component," Herrington said. "We've planned it from the beginning but, like everything else, it requires funding. Now that we've got the academic portion going, we can add in other components."

One such component that stirs a great deal of excitement in both Thorpe and Wienges is Plazas Comunitarias, an initiative of the Mexican government spearheaded by Mexican president Vicente Fox. In essence, Plazas Comunitarias is a Web site that provides access to learning in Spanish for people all over Mexico, throughout the United States, and around the world. On the site, people can take classes to improve their Spanish literacy, finish their high school degree in Spanish, or learn English as a second language. In addition, life classes are offered, such as parenting, how to deal with violence in the home, and much more.

"Plazas Comunitarias is designed to provide educational opportunities via the Internet to Hispanic students 15 years of age and older who have been left behind in the educational process in their native countries," Thorpe said. "For example, we got a student last year who was in her last semester of high school in Mexico. When she came here, she had to start all over again. With Plazas, she would be able to complete her degree in Mexico."

Thorpe and Wienges recently returned from a week-long trip to Mexico, where they participated in an introductory workshop for Plazas Comunitarias. They're looking forward to signing an agreement with the Mexican consulate as soon as possible and implementing the program at the Phoenix Academy.

As for the students in the Academy, the future looks brighter and brighter. Yami, a sixteen-year-old girl from El Salvador, said that she is rapidly learning to comprehend the English language. "I want more schools like this to open," she said. "It is a step ahead. I feel more ready for Gainsville High School."

If you have any comments about this article or questions for for the author, please send them to: alex@coursecrafters.com.