[ti:Uncertain Time for Immigrants' Children in School]
[al:Education Report]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2024-11-06]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:00.00]On the first day of seventh grade in Aurora, Colorado, this past August, Alisson Ramirez worried about making friends and not understanding lessons taught in English.
[00:17.92]"I was nervous that people would ask me things and I wouldn't know how to answer," the Venezuelan teen says.
[00:26.95]"And I would be ashamed to answer in Spanish."
[00:31.62]But it was not what she had expected. Her teachers had translated words from their lessons into Spanish.
[00:41.25]They gave out written instructions in Spanish.
[00:45.80]Some teachers even asked in Spanish if students had finished or had questions.
[00:54.19]"That made me feel better," says Alisson. 
[00:58.29]The 13-year-old is among the 3,000 new students, mostly from Venezuela and Colombia, at the Aurora public school system.
[01:10.94]While teachers have been working hard to educate children of immigrants, outside the classrooms, city officials are not as welcoming.
[01:22.57]They promised not to spend any money helping newcomers and tried to keep them from coming to the area.
[01:32.04]One city official even claimed that criminals from Venezuela had occupied buildings in Aurora. 
[01:39.98]The police investigated and found it was not true. 
[01:45.23]But the false claim continued to spread.
[01:49.50]Maria Angel Torres is Alisson's mother. 
[01:54.01]The family had left Venezuela to escape lawlessness and violence.
[02:00.57]They left behind a food truck business after being attacked for not paying protection money.
[02:08.06]The family then crossed the dangerous Darien Gap on foot to head north and seek asylum in the United States.
[02:18.68]Torres said she did not believe criminals had taken over buildings.
[02:24.14]But she worried that bad reports about Venezuelans would affect her and her family.
[02:31.94]Some organizations and churches wanted to help her family.
[02:37.77]But others are deeply afraid.
[02:42.63]Torres told the Associated Press, "I don't look like a threat. But people here act like they feel terrorized."
[02:52.18]Times have changed in Aurora
[02:52.52]Aurora is used to educating children of immigrants.
[02:57.13]The 2020 census reported that more than a third of people in Aurora speak a language other than English at home.
[03:07.33]Immigrants and refugees have been moving to Aurora because it is close to Denver and it has a lower cost of living.
[03:17.37]However, some schools in the area were not ready for the sudden arrival of many non-English-speaking students from Venezuela and Colombia.
[03:29.43]Before, a teacher might have had one or two new students in her class. 
[03:36.33]Now, teachers in some schools have as many as 10, or a third of their classroom.
[03:44.84]Marcella Garcia is the head of Aurora Hills Middle School.
[03:50.69]She observed that some new students were not talking in classrooms where only English was spoken.
[03:59.81]So, the school system advised teachers to use a method called "translanguaging."
[04:08.53]That means using Spanish or the home language at times to help new students understand English lessons and discussions happening around them.
[04:22.01]The method has helped Alisson feel more at ease.
[04:26.65]One day in September, Alisson and her friends spoke Spanish among themselves as their teacher spoke to the class in English about a drawing he was showing in front of the class.
[04:42.05]It was a drawing of an ancient Egyptian marketplace. 
[04:47.08]"What do you think this dude here is doing with the basket?" the teacher asked the class. 
[04:54.86]One girl who had been in Aurora schools longer than the rest translated for Alisson and the other new students.
[05:04.85]Before the school began using this new method, teachers may have stopped the new students from talking among themselves. 
[05:14.17]Now, they permit students to help each other in any language they can.
[05:20.45]So far, there appears to be little public criticism in the area against this method. 
[05:28.06]It generally requires more work for teachers, who have to translate materials or their talks in real-time.
[05:37.99]Recently, Alisson's mother received messages from Aurora Public Schools that there have been rumors of bomb threats at its schools and others across the state.
[05:51.99]The schools said there was no truth to the rumors.
[05:57.80]But that does not make Torres feel better. 
[06:01.94]She said in Venezuela, the country is in trouble, but no one there would think of threatening children at school.
[06:10.89]I'm Jill Robbins.