Need for English as Second Language education growing in Westmoreland schools

Westmoreland County’s ever-­diversifying population is having an impact in public schools, where a growing number of students do not speak English as a native language and educators are facing increased demands as they to try to help bridge the language gap.

“The number of English Learners (students whose native language isn’t English) has jumped by more than 100% in Westmoreland County in the past four years,” said Rebecca Henderson, student services administrator at Westmoreland Intermediate Unit 7, which provides educational services to the county’s 17 public school districts.

There were 321 English Learners enrolled in the county’s schools last school year compared with 157 four years ago, she said.

“We’ve seen an increase in the past five years of between 20% and 30% each year,” Henderson said. “I don’t see any evidence of it slowing down.”

Intermediate unit officials began seeing the need for more assistance for foreign language students before the covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, said Executive Director Jason Conway.

The increase in those students came as Westmoreland County’s immigrant population rose to 6,300 from an average of about 5,800 immigrants from 2014 to 2018, according to the 2023 Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Westmoreland is home to about 350,000 people.

Statistics on English-­speaking immigrants are not available for Westmore­land County, but 78% of the 995,000 immigrants in Pennsylvania are proficient, according to the American Immigration Council of Washington, D.C.

Not all English Learners in Westmoreland County receive instruction through English as a Second Language, or ESL, services in schools because some parents opt out their children, Henderson said. Even if a parent declines such programs, the district must list the student as an English Learner when reporting to the state Department of Education.

Many dialects, challenges

Not only are there more English Learners than several years ago, but there also may be 35 to 40 different native languages spoken by them, Henderson said.

Most of the ESL teachers are not proficient in the foreign languages that are spoken by their students, said Shelley Muto, education director at Jeannette City School District.

The most-spoken foreign languages are Spanish, the Chinese dialect of Mandarin, Ukrainian, Nepali, Arabic and Vietnamese, Henderson said.

The Dominican Republic, India, China, Mexico and Vietnam are the top five countries of origin for immigrants to Pennsylvania, according to 2022 data from the American Immigrant Council. The Catholic Diocese of Greensburg also has launched an effort to help refugees from Ukraine.

Each school district is required to provide a program of instruction for a student whose dominant language is not English to help them develop proficiency in the language, Henderson said.

The level of ESL services the student needs is determined during an assessment, said Denise Kubistek, director of student services at Penn-Trafford School District.

Those proficiency levels range from Level 1, where a student knows very few words in English and needs more intensive instruction, to Level 6, where a student’s command of English is comparable to their American peers, Henderson said.

One of the problems for districts is the lack of teachers with an ESL teaching certificate, Muto said.

“The (Westmoreland Intermediate Unit) has struggled to find teachers. It becomes a big thing when the IU can’t provide teachers,” Burrell School District Superintendent Shannon Wagner said.

Burrell is looking to adjust staffing internally if the IU is unable to provide teachers, Wagner said.

EL numbers

Jeannette’s English Learner student population has risen from four in the 2022-23 school year to 23 students this year. In Penn-Trafford, English Learner enrollment has remained relatively steady at about 29 students, school administrators said.

Most of the students enrolled in Jeannette’s ESL program appear to be from Central America, where a number of Spanish dialects are spoken, Muto said.

Norwin School District has seen the number of students receiving ESL instruction increase from eight about six years ago to 58 this year, speaking 13 different native languages.

Greensburg Salem School District has the equivalent of 1¹⁄₂ teachers from the Intermediate Unit working with its 51 English Learner students, up from 15 students in the 2019-20 school year, said Todd McMillen, student services director.

Hempfield Area has seen the number of English Learner students double in the past four years, from 26 in 2020-21 to 52 this year, said Menas Zannikos, director of pupil services. Most of those students speak Spanish, while others are from Ukraine and Russia, Zannikos said. In all, the English Learner students speak 20 to 25 different native languages, Zannikos said.

Unlike some other districts, Burrell has few EL students, Wagner said.

“The number has not increased since four years ago. Roughly 10 students districtwide each year,” Wagner said.

The ESL teachers work with students whose native languages include Ukrainian, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Slovak and Arabic, Wagner said.

Burrell is among the districts that use the ESL teachers provided by the Westmoreland Intermediate Unit, Wagner said.

“The primary challenge with the increase in EL students is ensuring adequate support for both students and teachers. They (teachers) frequently ask how they can better support EL students in communicating with their peers and expressing their needs,” Muto said.

Educational cost

Costs for a school district depend on the number of students, how many ESL teachers are hired, whether they are full-time or part-time and how much instruction is needed.

At Hempfield Area, providing ESL services last year cost about $175,260, Zannikos said. Norwin pays about $54,000 for its ESL teacher, the district said.

The intermediate unit spends between $50,000 and $91,000 for each of its seven ESL teachers, based on their years of service and whether they have a bachelor’s or master’s degree, Henderson said. There are additional costs to cover benefits.

Penn-Trafford’s ESL teacher from the intermediate unit costs the district about $90,000, Kubistek said.

Norwin recently contracted with Pittsburgh-based Global Wordsmith to help with translation, primarily when communicating with parents. It is used on an as-needed basis for parent-­teacher conferences and to make sure parents understand what the district is communicating, McCracken said. Contact is done by phone or in person. The district also uses apps on iPhones to communicate or translate, she added.

Jeannette, Hempfield Area, Penn-Trafford and Greensburg Salem also use a translation service, mostly to communicate with parents, administrators said.

Jeannette uses Trans­Perfect of Pittsburgh, a translation service through the intermediate unit, for phone or in-person meetings, but also relies on various technologies to assist with translating written communication, Muto said.

An app allows Jeannette to send mass emails and individual messages to families, Muto said. There also is an app in which the district can send a message to the parents of an English Learner student in their native language and the app will translate their response to English, Muto said.

In the parochial schools operated by the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg, none of the students receive ESL instruction, said diocese spokesman Cliff Gorski. There are, however, four Ukrainian students in the Catholic schools who are being tutored in their own language.