'These kids are isolated': Arizona lawmakers weigh how to teach non-English speaking students

Every year, Monica Mesa, principal of Longfellow Elementary School in Mesa, has to decide which school activities her more than 100 English-learning students will miss. 

Sometimes they'll miss electives like band. In past years, they've lost out on recess. Enough time for math is almost always hard to come by — ELL students stay an extra hour after school twice a week to supplement their math lessons. 

The scheduling dilemma, common for school administrators across the state, is due to an oft-debated Arizona law that requires non-English speaking students to sit through four-hours of language instruction each day. 

But Arizona lawmakers are close to overhauling the state law that education advocates and researchers say has resulted in unintended segregation in Arizona's schools.

Senate Bill 1014, introduced by Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Phoenix, would decrease the required English instruction time to about two hours per day. Boyer said he's heard from educators who believe the existing law actually hurts students learning English, because it takes time away from other lessons and time spent with English-speaking peers. 

"That is a huge interruption into the school day," he said. "These kids are isolated. They’re not talking to native speakers." 

The Senate and House approved Boyer's bill unanimously. It is awaiting approval from Gov. Doug Ducey. 

Four-hour instruction mandate

The four-hour instruction time has long been a point of contention for educators, many of whom say keeping students in language class for much of their day takes away from other subjects, particularly math. 

"This is the most prescriptive thing that we've ever done," Rebecca Gau, executive director at Stand for Children, said. 

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The mandate stemmed from a long-running debate over how English Language Learners should be taught. In 2000, voters approved Prop. 203, which repealed previous bilingual education laws and approved a new law requiring every class be taught in English, paving the way for lawmakers to enact the four-hour mandate. 

Boyer's plan would halve the required instruction time and direct the State Board of Education to adopt alternative English instruction models "that are based on evidence and research."

The hope is to add more flexibility for ELL instruction, to find new models and ways of learning so more students get on track to graduate. Arizona's ELL students have the lowest graduation rate in the country, according to a report from NPR. 

Unintended consequences 

At Longfellow Elementary, the unintended consequences of the four-hour block are acute for teachers and students.  

English learners make up about a third of Longfellow's student population, depending on the year, Mesa, the principal, said. The mandatory instruction period is more than half their school day, which starts at 8:20 a.m. and ends most days at 2:55 p.m.

English learners in Robin Watson's second-grade class have time for 20 minutes of math every day, she said — not enough to meet state standards. Those students have to stay an hour after school twice a week for more math time. 

"That's putting a whole extra hour on 8-year-olds," she said. 

Mesa said it takes years for some of Longfellow's students to be reclassified as proficient in English, even though state statute dictates that the structured English Immersion should generally last one year.

"If you're in that program for even more than a couple of years, you're already behind," she said.  

Last school year, 14 percent of ELL students were deemed proficient enough to exit the program, according to information from the Arizona Department of Education.

In 2010, researchers from Arizona State University concluded that the four-hour block made an impact on more than just a student's language ability. The ELL students "are physically, socially, and educationally isolated from their non-ELL peers" because of the four-hour block they wrote. 

Some schools even have to schedule different lunch and recess periods for ELL students, further separating them from their English-speaking peers. 

This year, Mesa said she was able to mix ELL and non-ELL students during scheduled recess times. Scheduling often depends on how many ELL students she'll have every year, she said.

But as schools phase in a mandatory recess law passed last year, and if Boyer's bill does not pass, ELL and non-ELL students at Longfellow may be separated during recess. 

And even when the children are together at recess, dividing them for more than half their school day leaves its mark. Watson said she notices that ELL students tend to cluster together on the playground. 

"It did feel very segregated," she said. "They stayed with the kids they felt comfortable with."