Month: September 2025

Dime qué hacer

A yellow sticky note is taped to the beige cinderblock wall near my desk. On it I’ve written the names of six online compliance trainings that I need to finish: WiDA Screener training (paper?), Level 1 Health Awareness, Level 1 Substance Abuse, Handle With Care, MCPS Test Security, PSAT Test Security. I cannot remember the deadlines for any of them, but I know I’m running out of time.

The PSAT training gave me a “test out” option, which I appreciated. But I failed. Now I have to take the entire online course. But I can’t remember which platform it’s on: Performance Matters? Canvas? Is it through PDO or do I access the program via a link buried in a slide inside an email? Who sent the email? What date? Who can I ask?

My school has pushed out the deadline for SLOs (Student Learning Objectives). I know it’s coming up soon, but I haven’t even talked about it once with my co-teachers. Since we’re teaching the same students, shouldn’t we be using the same template? Only because I happened to be in the office when my RT (Resource Teacher) walked through did I hear any guidance. She said that since the school focus was on the four language domains (Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing), that co-teachers should each focus on a domain. Glad to have a reminder of the school SIP. School Improvement Plan.

Last Monday, my RT held a department meeting and shared with all ELD teachers that we were going to complete the fall paperwork by ourselves this year and it’s due on October 1st. That’s 4.5 days to complete an onerous amount of paperwork that we had nothing to do with last year because their predecessor did most of the busywork herself. In fact, in my 25 years in MCPS, I’ve never had to print all the documents by myself.

Log into Synergy, find your students, upload the Parent Notification Letters. Print the PNLs, sign the PNLs, make three copies of each one. Give them to all your students, even if they’re getting the exact letter from another teacher in another class. Log the dates that you distributed the letters for parent signatures. Three times each. The photocopiers are never working. Wait. Synergy is down again. And my school-issued laptop won’t hold a charge. I have to leave school because my frustration level is peaking. A colleague walks in crying because of the pressure. I stay to comfort them.

Now the EL Plan, the English Language Plan, with official Accommodations for each student. There’s no list of students. We have to use our roster from Synergy to search for each student individually. Then click a bunch of drop-down menus with grade level, type of accommodations. Don’t forget to save! Then once it’s saved, you click on “Details” and actually check the boxes with accommodations. Open a new tab each time. This year we were advised to give bilingual dictionary accommodations only to Level 1 and Level 2 EML students. In the past everyone got this accommodation and extra time. Now I have to go back and check all the proficiency levels for all my students.

Do I have to complete a form for the No-Show students who are still on my roster?

I’m trying to focus on piloting a new curriculum in two of my ELD 3 Seminar classes, making slides, grading work in a timely manner, working with two new co-teachers who have never taught English 12, a new RT and five new colleagues all asking me what we’re supposed to be doing. We just finished Interims. But there’s not a moment to relax.

Several administrators from DELME Central Office will be visiting our school tomorrow, including the new Associate Superintendent for the Division of Multilingual Education, the DME division, pronounced “dee-may” like the Spanish word for “tell me.” The MCPS website can’t even keep up with all the acronym changes. ESOL, EML, ELD, SLIFE. Yet they expect me to keep up with all the paperwork, even when the deadline notification has probably violated my contract.

They want to see what’s going on in the classroom. But I want to talk to them about the ridiculous requirements for ELD teachers outside the classroom. I don’t want to be that teacher who always complains. But if I don’t speak up, who will?

DME. Dime! Tell me. What should I do?

Are ICEbreakers appropriate for EML students this year?

The school year has gotten off to a quiet start, against the most horrifying backdrop imaginable for immigrant students in the English Language  Development (ELD) program (formerly called ESOL). Images on the news show ICE agents throwing black and brown men to the ground and leading them away in handcuffs, disappearing them to unknown destinations, where due process is almost nonexistent. Law-abiding residents just going to work. The families and neighbors of my students targeted by armed men in masks.

I teach at one of the largest high schools in the state of Maryland, with a student population that’s 60% Hispanic, and about 25% actively enrolled in our ELD program. After sitting through a week of Pre-Service teacher meetings where not a single mention of immigration was made, I sent an email message to my supervisor pointing out my concerns that students might face unusually high levels of anxiety and fear as they come back to school this year. And maybe we could send an email to the entire staff. And share the robust MCPS web page for Immigrant Supports. 

I even mentioned that the typical classroom ICEbreakers might be triggering for some students.

Instead of support, I got called in to my supervisor’s office and reprimanded for sending out a “political” message using school email. Apparently now it’s “political” to express concern for EML students.

Is it that my supervisors are low-key MAGA enthusiasts? Are they afraid? Do they just not want to be inconvenienced? Why would someone in charge of a program comprising 100% immigrant students not be on the side of our students? Of their teachers and staff? (as an aside, one of my colleagues, whose spouse was born overseas, says he takes his U.S. passport with him to take out the trash so that he won’t be arrested). We are living in an era where our government is turning against us.

I am deeply distressed that school leaders have ignored my concerns and are trying to pretend that everything is normal. Even worse, they told me, “You need to be careful. I don’t want you to get in trouble” WTF?! I was pointing out that we need to be aware of pressures our students were facing outside of school that could affect attendance, participation in school events, grades, and social-emotional well-being. Isn’t that important any more?

If this what the school year will look like for 2025-2026, then I’m not sure how I’ll make it through. I will follow school rules and be compliant at work, but outside of the duty day, I will use my teacher voice to exercise my First Amendment rights while I still have them, to speak out in support of immigrants, the people who actually keep our country running.

Even though the Department of Education has quietly rescinded the federal guidelines for students learning English, I will support my students, whatever their immigration status, for as long as I am able. Which may not be very long, at this rate.

Through a confidential source, I learned that the MCPS International Office usually admits close to 1,000 newcomer students every year. Last year, they admitted 850. This year, only 12.

I hope I’ll make it another year. Or at least until a time when choosing the right ICEbreaker activity is my biggest back-to-school concern.