Hoover's limited English students dwindle
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
TIFFANY RAY
News staff writer
After years of growth, enrollment in Hoover City Schools' program for students with limited English proficiency has dropped for the first time.

School officials say it's an indication that some immigrant families may be moving out of the city in search of jobs or more affordable housing.

Hoover's English Language Learners program, which provides instruction to students who are not proficient in English, is among the largest statewide. The number of students in the program has increased every year since the school system's inception in 1988. Between the 2002-03 and 2006-07 school years, ELL enrollment increased 77 percent in Hoover, compared with 63 percent statewide.

This year, despite a larger student population overall, the number of English language learners in Hoover declined. According to state data, there were 734 such students in Hoover schools last year. A recent internal report shows 714 students now, said Barbara Mayer, director of instructional support for Hoover schools.

Although the most current numbers show only a slight decline, last year's enrollment was as high as 815 at one point. And halfway through the current school year, the number of ELL students had dropped to 651, Mayer said.

Hoover school officials say they don't know why enrollment is down, but anecdotal information from teachers and others suggests immigrant families may be leaving Hoover for economic reasons - to purchase homes in more affordable communities, or to find lower rent.

Brenda Bullock, coordinator of the Multicultural Resource Center in Hoover, said a slowdown in construction has driven some Hispanic families out of state in search of jobs. Hispanic students represent more than half of Hoover's ELL students. Bullock said 40 or so families visited the center in December and January seeking help to pay rent. "They can't afford to pay the rent if they're not working," she said.

Dr. Robert Parsa, who operates QuickCare Family Medicine on Lorna Road, said business at his clinic, which serves a large number of Hispanic patients, has leveled off in recent months after three years of consecutive increases. He said November and December were particularly slow.

In some cases, men are leaving the Birmingham area for work and returning home to their families on weekends, Parsa said. In others, entire families have moved away.

Mayer said more students scored high enough on tests to exit the Hoover ELL program last year after the state eased requirements for doing so. And some Japanese students whose families moved here to work at the Honda plant in Lincoln have returned home, she said.

At Hoover High, ELL students have not been moving away so much as graduating, said Jamey Schollian, an ELL teacher there. The number of students entering the program this year was small, she said.

Megan Romero, an ELL teacher at Simmons, said new students continue to flow into the system, but more are leaving than arriving.

Romero said some of her students have returned to their home countries, while others have moved elsewhere in the metro area.

Russann Wood, another ELL teacher at Simmons, said she lost a lot of her students to Pelham, and others to Alabaster, Chelsea and South Carolina. Brian Cain, the principal at Simmons, said the students didn't all move out at once, but slowly, over time. The drop in enrollment was a surprise, he said.

The Shelby County school system, which had the largest ELL population in the state last year, has taken in a lot of Hoover's ELL students, said Leah Dobbs Black, the program's supervisor. "Progressively we have been getting more and more," she said. Dobbs Black said enrollment changes daily in the large program, but there now are about 1,500 students - about the same as last year.

State data shows ELL enrollment declined in Shelby County last year, to 1,498 from 1,586 in the 2005-06 school year. But Dobbs Black said the state numbers are based on the number of English learners who take language proficiency tests in early spring each year. The total number of English learners Shelby County served in 2006-07 was actually higher than the previous year, she said.

State data for this year will not be available until August, but recent numbers provided by other school systems in Jefferson and Shelby counties suggest the decline in Hoover is not happening elsewhere. Eight of the 13 school districts in the two counties indicated enrollment in ELL, which is often called ESL (English as a Second Language), is up this year.

Only two systems other than Hoover reported declines, and their populations are much smaller. Mountain Brook reported five ELL students this year, down from 10 last year. Midfield reported two, down from five. Efforts to obtain current numbers from Fairfield were unsuccessful.

Mayer said English language learners tend to be highly mobile, creating a lot of fluctuation in the program. "It's the hardest population to predict," she said. But this year's downward trend is a first for the system and appears to span grade levels from elementary through high school, she said.

Hoover officials had been anticipating another increase this year and added four new ELL teachers to the payroll, increasing the total number to 18 systemwide, Mayer said.

More teachers and fewer students has reduced ELL class sizes in some schools, giving ELL teachers more time to work with students in their other classes. Mayer said administrators have not yet made staffing decisions for next year's ELL classes.

In Hoover, Spanish remains the most common native language among ELL students. The former No. 2 language, Japanese, has been replaced by Arabic, followed by Urdu, Mayer said. ELL students in Hoover speak 35 languages in all, she said.

News staff writers Kim Bryan, Anita Debro, Patrick Hickerson, Marie Leech, Bill Plott, William C. Singleton III and Hannah Wolfson contributed to this article. tray@bhamnews.com



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