Demographics mean changes in thinking

WASILLA -- Vasiliy Pavlus and Victor Ponkratov pull their school buses into the parking lot at Wasilla's Tanaina Elementary, ready to begin their afternoon routes. Inside the school, 21-year-old volunteer Nastya Carnaham, who moved to Alaska in December from the Russian Far East city of Vladivostok, helps Russian-speaking students with math and science projects. Victor's and Vasiliy's children are among the students Carnaharn helps.

"Tanaina has become the Ellis Island of the Valley's Russian community," said Tanaina principal, Scott Daugharty.

With 106 students from Russia or the Ukraine, Tanaina is home to more than one-third of the Russian-speaking students enrolled in Valley schools. Teachers here work to make Tanaina a place where all students learn and feel comfortable.

Pavlus and Ponkratov say they're succeeding.

"My children are happy here," said Pavlus, who has four children attending Tanaina.

Ponkratov said his children are proud of their school.

"When we drive by Tanaina, they shout 'That's our school, that's our school!'" said Ponkratov, who, like Pavlus, has four children enrolled here.

And both men say their children are learning English.

"When my youngest child started speaking English, it was very interesting for me. My wife doesn't speak English at all and I'm just learning," said Ponkratov, speaking through an interpreter.

Matt Jorgeson, the school's English as a second language teacher, said he tries to keep the anxiety level as low as possible for every child learning English. He spends a lot of time playing with the children. Just as babies learn to comprehend and respond before they learn to speak, Jorgeson says children learn another language by watching and mimicking.

Third-grade teacher Karen Marie agrees. She said the school's Russian-speaking students, or English-language learners (ELL), need a quiet time, a time to simply be immersed in English with no expectations that they will speak. Like Jorgeson, Marie said students should be expected to read only when they are comfortable speaking English.

Many teachers at Tanaina use a teaching concept called realia to help their Russian and Ukrainian students learn English. Realia involves making nouns tangible. For example, a teacher talking about a bracelet would actually touch a bracelet as he or she says the word. And teachers strive to make instructions as explicit as possible: Instead of simply saying, "Open your book and turn to Page 27," a teacher here would actually pick up the book and open it to Page 27, as he or she is giving the instructions.

Second-grade teacher Sue Hocker said realia is quite different from a "skill and drill" method that would attempt to teach English-language acquisition through reading and memorization drills. She said the expectations of teachers at Tanaina are more realistic than those of the proponents of skill and drill.

"Research shows that it takes seven years before kids who come into schools as English language learners have enough of our language to be reading and writing at grade level," said Hocker.

But recent changes in the federal regulations regarding bilingual education do not reflect this research. John Wheetman, the Mat-Su Borough School District's assistant director of federal programs, said ESL students used to be assessed every three years for English-language acquisition. Under the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act, however, these students are now assessed every year. By the third year, they must be tested in English.

"We're trying to keep up with federal regulations that are changing daily, as our Russian population is changing daily," Wheetman said.

Teachers like Hocker and Jorgeson say standardized tests such as the Terra Nova tests and Alaska's benchmark exams put ELL students at an unfair disadvantage. In a school like Tanaina, where 106 of the 507 students are considered English-language learners, the scores of these students can skew the school's overall score. Every student, regardless of his or her level of English proficiency, must take these tests. Hocker, who teaches second grade, said three of her ELL students are reading at a beginning first grade level. She said she knows there's no way those students scored successfully on this year's tests, taken in March.

"I just handed them the tests and said, 'Don't worry, just do the best you can,'" Hocker said.

Standardized tests aren't the only challenges teachers and students at Tanaina face. Tanaina principal, Scott Daugharty, said there's growing hostility from some of the American students and their parents toward the Russian students.

"When there is trouble on the playground or in a classroom, teachers are hearing more and more kids shout 'It's those Russian kids!'" said Daugharty.

And he gets calls from parents saying the same. He acknowledges that some of the Russian students have had behavioral problems. But he said he sees the same sort of problems among the American students.

"It's the stereotyping that concerns me," said Daugharty.

He hopes to add a tolerance program to the school's curriculum next year. He's added $1,000 to a grant that the school had already written to buy a program from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Alabama-based civil rights group that also helps teach tolerance.

"It's a wonderful education program that teaches about differences and about celebrating differences," Daugharty said.

In the meantime, teachers are taking other measures to combat problems. For instance, they avoid labeling students. When a distinction must be made, students are referred to as either English speaking or English language learners.

But teaching tolerance isn't Daugharty's only concern. He said he gets calls from parents who are worried that teachers might neglect the needs of the English-speaking students to meet the needs of the non-English or limited English-speaking students.

Sharon Ashe, a parent of two Tanaina students and president of the school's PTA, is one of those parents. She said she thinks teachers are doing a phenomenal job trying, but it isn't enough.

"Kids in general aren't getting what they need because teachers have to take extra time to teach the Russian kids," Ashe said.

Daugharty admitted that meeting the needs of all students has been a challenge. The school district's $3 million budget deficit that led to the layoff of 48 classified employees in December hit Tanaina especially hard. The school lost Russian-born Olga Clark, a Title I tutor, in the cuts. Though the school still had one permanent bilingual tutor named Bev Cloud and an ESL teacher, only the ESL teacher, Jorgeson, is fluent in Russian.

Clark had been with the school for more than four years and had served as an informal liaison between the school and the Russian community. She translated newsletters, helped Russian parents register their children and tutored Russian students in English. She also conducted after-school classes for teachers to teach them the Cyrillic alphabet as well as some Russian words and phrases.

Daugharty was able to re-hire Clark in April. She now works as a foreign language tutor adviser. Laurine Domke, the school district's director of federal programs, said the new job classification is funded through Title 1, a federal program that gives extra money to schools based on the percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced lunches. Unlike tutors funded through the federal bilingual program, a tutor filling this position must speak the language of the students he or she tutors.

Daugharty said it's great to have Clark back. And he said Tanaina will continue to welcome its Russian and Ukranian students and their families. He is confident his teachers and staff will do their best to meet the needs of all the students, he said.

"Some people look at this situation as a burden," Daugharty said. "I see it as a great challenge."