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International students thrive in Erie School District
GoErie.com
Monday, March 12, 2012

East High School seniors Hawa Koiwu and Hussein Mahamud have spent the past few months looking at colleges and planning for the future.

Dika Adhikari, foreground, finishes a math test in Jessica Coleman's English As A Second Language math class at East High School on March 5. Adhikari, 20, is an immigrant from Nepal./CHRISTOPHER MILLETTE/ERIE TIMES-NEWS



Mahamud, 19, will attend Clarion University of Pennsylvania in the fall. Koiwu, 18, has been accepted to Clarion and Cheney University and hasn't quite made up her mind between the two.

For the time being, they are content to enjoy the last few months of high school.

While that scenario might sound typical for an American teenager, it's a far cry from where they started their education.

Koiwu and Mahamud came to America unable to speak English. Mahamud, a native of Somalia, came to New York City in 2008 and resettled in Erie in 2009. Koiwu left Liberia for Erie in 2004.

They are among 1,125 current Erie School District students who graduated from the district's English as a Second Language program, which strives not only to help foreign-born students learn a new language but to prepare them for life in the U.S.

"My mom decided to come to Erie because it's a lot smaller than New York," Mahamud said. "There's less crime, and I could learn English at a fast pace. I speak about five languages, but English was the hardest one."

It was difficult to come to a new country, but it was helpful to come to a place with students from around the world, Koiwu said.

"It was great with all the different cultures," she said. "It gives you comfort that you're not alone."

The district has about 1,038 students enrolled in the English as a Second Language program.

Those students represent a diverse pool, drawing from countries around the world but mostly from Bhutan, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan.

The Erie School District regularly works with the International Institute of Erie, the Multicultural Resource Center, and Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Erie to help refugee students.

Based on how fluent each student is, the district's 25 ESL teachers will give instruction on American culture and English ranging from minutes to hours each day.

School officials said having such a high population of ESL students can be both a challenge and a benefit for the district.

Linda Cappabianca, the district's supervisor for special education, said explaining the need for certain rules to ESL students can be challenging. She supervised the ESL program until the beginning of this school year.

The challenges aren't isolated to the students. It is often difficult for school principals to navigate different cultural expectations.

"It might be something like a middle school girl from Iraq who doesn't want to tuck her shirt in because she doesn't want to show the form of her body," Cappabianca said. "But from a school standpoint, we try to reinforce the rules with everybody. So, it becomes a give-and-take situation."

Standardized tests can also be an issue for ESL students, because they are required to take the same tests as all other students.

But Cappabianca and curriculum coordinator Ina Fisher agreed that those challenges pale in comparison with the benefits of having the students in the district.

They pointed to Diehl Elementary School's multicultural day, where students learned about dozens of cultures.

"I think almost every student went through the booths," Fisher said. "They learned to write their names in different languages, and they even had a group from Saudi Arabia singing songs to our students."

Burton, Diehl and McKinley elementary schools all have a high number of ESL students, but East High School is tops. It has 240 students enrolled in the ESL program.

Principal James Smith said having students from different countries helps create a multicultural learning experience for the entire school, he said.

"The ESL kids are some of the best we have in the building," Smith said. "They work hard, are respectful and want to learn English."

Mahamud, for example, would go home after school and highlight words in the newspaper each day to expand his English vocabulary.

He said the district's program made a big difference. "ESL class really opened doors for me," Mahamud said.

And Mahamud wasn't alone.

Mari Ortiz, 17, and her family emigrated from Mexico in 2007, largely because her parents were unable to find work.

When Ortiz first came to the area, her mother enrolled her in the Iroquois School District. She said she hated living in the United States at first because she couldn't talk to anyone.

"I couldn't understand my teachers, so I'd just cry," Ortiz said. "I was the only one who didn't speak English."

She started to thrive when her family moved to Erie and she transferred to East to enroll in the school's ESL program.

She plans to enroll at Mercyhurst North East in the fall and to room with a fellow ESL program graduate -- Oma Khatiwada, 17, who came to Erie from Nepal in 2008.

"I want to start with my associate degree in nursing," Khatiwada said. "Then I'll probably work for a year, but I want to go back for my bachelor's degree in pre-med and eventually a master's."

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