File photo The Nashua School District is required to educate hundreds of students for whom English is not a native language, but teachers report they do not have the proper resources to accomplish this.

NASHUA – Civic leaders officially declared Nashua a “Welcoming City” in 2016, a designation which, among other things, is supposed to create an atmosphere in which “all people including immigrant newcomers are welcome, accepted and integrated.”

In order to achieve this goal, which Nashua officials list on their website, they must educate hundreds of students for whom English is not a native tongue. Mayor Jim Donchess acknowledged last week the city needs to bolster its English Language Learner (ELL) program within the Nashua School District.

In July, The Telegraph reported that students who need to learn basic English outnumbered their teachers by a count of 50-1. However, according to Bicentennial Elementary School ELL Teacher Jenna Hutchinson, the situation is only becoming more challenging.

“In other districts I’ve worked in, the largest case load I ever had was 28 students. Now I have 73 students. And that is challenging,” Hutchinson said during a recent Nashua Board of Education meeting.

“We are so understaffed,” she added. “We need all the help we can get.”

The Situation

English Language Learners in Nashua now constitute more than 10 percent of the student body. There are more than 50 native languages for the ELL students, with Spanish and Portuguese being the most common. A few of the other native languages include Telugu, Vietnamese, Tamil, and Arabic.

“It was really overwhelming, even with having seven years of ELL teaching under my belt, making the transition to Nashua,” Hutchinson said during the meeting.

Hutchinson said at a minimum, she spends an additional three hours at school, not counting what she does at home on her own time.

Sharon Saunders, an ELL teacher at Nashua High School South, shared with the board a book the U.S. Department of Education developed, stating that for an ELL student, they need to be able to access and participate in a meaningful curriculum that allows them to fulfill their education in a reasonable length of time.

“We are a city of immigrants… my accent proves it. People are not going to stop moving to America, and our student population has changed,” she said.

“What we’re asking for in our teachers, is that we can have a teacher so we have the ability to program to meet these student’s needs. And to give them, as the U.S. Department of Education says, meaningful access to an education. Right now we’re not able to do that,” Saunders added.

Saunders said placement of an additional nine ELL teachers would be a realistic number, but they also have to factor in a program for the teachers who are teaching the ELL students for over half the day in “mainstream” classes.

“I think we all understand that our ELL program is bulging at the seams. And we need to do better for our kids, and to support our teachers,” Director of Student Services Robert Cioppa said during the meeting.

Cioppa also referenced the amount of work ELL teachers put in outside of the regular school day.

“The ELL teachers, it’s not like they just go to work every day and teach language and leave,” Cioppa said. “They become almost like a case manager for the family because the family doesn’t have a lot of ties and the ELL teacher is the one the student is most comfortable with.”

Budget Issues

President of Nashua Teachers Union Adam Marcoux also addressed the BOE’s Budget Committee during a recent meeting.

“Our budget is big. But it does not meet the needs of our demographics that have changed so much in the last 10-15 years.”

Marcoux said he and other teachers do not have what they need to do their jobs the way they are expected to do so.

“It’s frustrating to be a teacher, a parent, and represent 1,500 people that work their tails off every day while missing the basic things,” Marcoux said. “Would we send the Fire Department to a fire without a ladder? We send out teachers to school every day without even pencils or erasers. Thank God there’s a dollar store in town.”

Superintendent Jahmal Mosley and Chief Operating Officer Daniel Donovan have began developing a recommended operating budget for the upcoming school year. For the 2019-20 academic term, Mosley is recommending a 2.92 percent increase in the operating budget, which would amount to a total operating budget of $112,546,590.

“As I work on the budget, I’ve certainly got the ELL teachers in mind and will try to do everything I can to make it possible for the school department to address that need,” Donchess said last week.