Howard County's program to help limited-English-proficient students would get a major boost next school year under a budget proposal Superintendent Michael E. Hickey will submit to the county school board next month.
Teachers in the school system's English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program would teach full time at elementary schools with more than 25 students who have limited English proficiency and at middle schools with more than 21 such students.
Now, despite large populations of these students at some schools, teachers are assigned only part time. As a result, students who are new to the United States and know only a few English words and phrases get as little as four hours of specialized language instruction a week.
Dr. Hickey is proposing that ESOL teachers be able to work with classroom teachers to coordinate instruction for needy students.
And "there would be more opportunities for teachers to see the students on a regular, daily basis, probably to extend the amount of time they may see them," said Peggy Wilson, a school system ESOL project manager.
The county's ESOL student population is growing at roughly twice the rate of the county's overall student population.
The number of Howard students with limited English skills already has increased 9 percent this school year to about 550 students from 502 last year.
The ESOL growth rate during the last school year was 16 percent.
And if projections from the Columbia-based Foreign-Born Information and Referral Network (FIRN) are an indication, that population is going to continue to grow.
It projects that there will be more than 30,000 Asians and Hispanics living in the county by 2000, compared with roughly 12,000 in 1990.
Translation services
Among other possible changes, the school system will enter a partnership with the Air Force, which has agreed to provide translation and interpretation services for the county school system.
School officials also are deciding whether to sign up for the AT&T; Assistance Line, an 800-number that charges a per-minute fee for on-line translators.
The new ESOL program would cost roughly $125,000 more per year to hire one part-time and three full-time teachers.
The school system this year budgeted more than $700,000 for the ESOL program.
In the past, Howard County has spent on each student with limited English skills only about one-third the money that has been devoted to the average disabled student.
Teachers have said they don't know what to do with non-English-speaking students in the classroom because they were not adequately prepared to work with them.
Pat Hatch, FIRN director and a longtime advocate for local immigrant families, said the proposed changes are steps in the right direction.
"But I'm very concerned about the schools where there are one or two children," she said. "In many ways, they're going to be out of the loop, simply because they don't have enough students in the school. Their needs are probably going to be exacerbated."
Schools with larger populations of students with limited English skills are looking forward to the change.
"In the future, we're going to have more and more of these children who speak English as a second language," said Darlene Fila, assistant principal at St. John's Lane Elementary School, which already has 42 ESOL students.
"Unless we have the resources to help them, we're going to be faced with very difficult situations in the school," she added.
When her teachers have to get in touch with parents who don't speak English well, they must find families in the community that speak the native tongue to translate for them.
And when they can't, they often run into misunderstandings with parents, she said.
"It's difficult to deal with all the diverse populations without the knowledge and background we need," Ms. Fila said.
Coordinator sought
Ms. Hatch also wants the school system to hire a coordinator to help immigrant families register their children in school and ensure that they have proper immunization, among other matters.
A school system committee had recommended that position be filled next year, but Dr. Hickey and his staff did not put it in the budget.
"We felt we didn't have the money to do that and other things," Dr. Hickey said.
But he added that he might reconsider it, depending on the amount of money the state gives Howard to help foreign-born students.
Advocates say it's much-needed. "These people who come into the country, particularly the parents, have no means of getting information," said Fred Pausch, a Columbia resident who works with 60 immigrant children.
"It's very difficult for the parents to communicate at this point," he added.
Though they're eager to be involved with their children's education, some immigrant parents are shy about going to the schools because of their own language problems, said Ok Nam Kim, a Korean-American whose two daughters attend Glenelg High School.
She and her husband, Yu Jung Kim, used to be high school teachers in Seoul, but they have forsaken that profession to run a small Columbia deli.
Can't ask questions
Mrs. Kim, a 43-year-old Sykesville resident, wants to know from teachers how her daughters are faring -- whether they raise their hands and answer questions, what types of schoolwork problems they may have, and how she could help.
"I can't explain my questions to [the] teacher," Mrs. Kim said. "I have a lot of questions, but I can't explain. I feel so guilty about [not being able to contact] my daughter's teacher."
Several other school systems with large numbers of limited-English-proficient students already employ coordinators to help immigrant families get acquainted.
Baltimore County has had a coordinator since 1979 to register, test and place students and to ensure that they have proper immunization before they enter school.
"It's essential to make sure all the students are identified and referred to their home school," said Susan Spinnato, Baltimore County's ESOL coordinator.
This past year, Baltimore County also hired a full-time resource teacher to particularly work with Asian students and their families.
Last month, the teacher held a meeting with Korean families in which they asked a multitude of questions on topics that, in some cases, had been the subject of fliers already sent to parents' homes.
"They were just so hungry for information," Ms. Spinnato said.
"They had questions about everything. Everyone felt comfortable because the meeting was held in Korean."