Working With The SIFE English Learner Student

Have a new student?  Are they a Student with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE)?

New students enroll all the time. Generally, there is an uptick in enrollments around the semester change (just after winter holidays/New Year) or other major holidays. I have received new EL (English Learner) students just after Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year, and Easter/Spring breaks. There are many reasons for this, but no matter what, that new EL student is standing in your classroom/after-school program and needs your support.

The United Nations notes that over 57 million children (worldwide) are not enrolled in school (https://academicimpact.un.org/content/education-all, accessed, January 11, 2020). Wherever you work with students: In school, After-School, or Summer Programs—SIFE EL students are coming to you.

What happens when you begin to work with them and find out they are a SIFE student? What is a SIFE student? SIFE students have had their education interrupted. It may have been in their home country or in the U.S. There may be significant patterns of absences due to moving and gaps in attendance between the moves.

How does it impact your program (and your teaching) when that EL student is also a SIFE student? Let’s look at a few case study examples and their solutions.

Student Profile: Juan

Juan enrolled in 4th grade as a newcomer from a Central American country. He speaks no English and is classified as a Level 1 EL student. In working with Juan, you discover that in his home country, he often had to miss school to help care for younger siblings. While he should have had the equivalent of five years of school, probably he has had a total of about two years. His peers are working on 4th-grade math, while he struggles with first-grade math skills.

He also has a large gap in attendance between when he left his country and when he arrived in the U.S. He is a SIFE student.

For Juan, We WOULD

• Enroll him in the appropriate grade level based on his age. He needs to be with his peer group.
• Provide scaffolding and supports so that Juan can acquire English and the grade-level content.
• Use resources to help with Juan’s educational gaps (resource teachers, interventionists, etc.) in addition to his EL services.
• Connect Juan and his family to outside of school services (free tutoring, English classes, after-school programs, etc.)
• After-school programs may want some of their grouping to be grade-band based (think several grade levels and students grouped according to focus skills/language proficiency levels).

For Juan, We WOULD NOT

• Enroll him in a lower grade, even though he is missing those skills.
• Seek special education testing unless other indicators are present (IEP from another country, doctor’s diagnosis, etc.)

Student Profiles: Emily & Andrew

Emily enrolled as an 11th-grade student. From West Africa, she begins sharing her journey of coming to the U.S. She speaks seven languages and has spent most of her life moving countries and refugee camps, fleeing civil war. Arriving in your high school (and staying) is the first stability she has had in a long time. She is a SIFE Student

Her brother, Andrew, is enrolled in 3rd grade based on age. As you get to know the family, you notice that Andrew really struggles to attend and stay on task. When Emily explains that they have lived in 7 different countries in the last three years, she also explains that Andrew has only ever “sat” in a classroom for one month in Canada (while they waited to come to the U.S.). This is the “Aha!” moment for teachers and/or after-school providers. This student has never had the opportunity to be in school, due to their family’s extreme life situation. He is a SIFE student.

For Emily, We WOULD

• Enroll her in the appropriate grade level based on her age.
• Seek to transcript as many hours as possible (and where appropriate) from her interrupted schooling.
• Offer opportunities to catch up credit hours missed so that she can still graduate on-time.
• Offer opportunities to add native language credits to her transcript through testing out options.

We WOULD NOT

• Enroll her in a lower grade because of credit hours.
• Show anything negative on a transcript that would reflect poorly for higher education (for example, listing incompletes for two years of classes that she was a SIFE).

For Andrew, We WOULD

• Enroll him in the appropriate grade level based on his age. He needs to be with his peer group.
• Provide scaffolding and supports so that Andrew can acquire English and the grade-level content.
• Use resources to help with Andrew’s educational gaps (resource teachers, interventionists, etc.) in addition to his EL services.
• Connect Andrew and his family to outside of school services (free tutoring, English classes, after-school programs, etc.)
• After-school programs may want some of their grouping to be grade-band based (think several grade levels and students grouped according to focus skills/language proficiency levels).

For Andrew, We WOULD NOT

• Enroll him in a lower grade, even though he is missing those skills.
• Seek special education testing unless other indicators are present (IEP from another country, doctor’s diagnosis, etc.)

For further reading on enrollment and access to appropriate programs, refer to the National Clearinghouse of English Language Acquisition English Learner Toolkit and Dear Colleague Letter Issued January 2015. 

For further reading about SIFE students and supporting them, check out this article on Colorin’ Colorado!

In this new year, I want to extend my gratitude and thankfulness for all those BOOST members out there reading this. For those educators, administrators, after-school site coordinators, after-school team members—to everyone who encounters these precious students: Thank you! You are making a difference in their lives!

For breakfast this morning, I had two egg white bites and a LARGE cup of coffee!

Author: @nagromyelsel

Photo credits: Stencil