National Boards or Bust! Our English Learners Need Us!
I need all 4 components of the National Boards Certification for English as New Language in order to enhance my teaching to meet the language needs of students in my district.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
I grew up, went to school and teach in one of the largest urban school districts in North Carolina. As a resource teacher for the district, I now serve over 45,000 Language Learners that is almost 1/3 of our entire student population.
My students are unique gems in every sense, and I am so honored and humbled to be able to share and continue this experience with them.
Currently, our district has English Language Learners from over 180 countries around the world with over 200 native languages spoken.
My Project
As a child that also immigrated to the United States at a young age, I sat in the same classrooms and schools that my students are in now.
I come from the same diverse, multicultural neighborhoods, and rode the same school bus routes back and forth from school.
Supporting language learners is dear to my heart and the (45,000+) students in our district need US. Our district needs more highly qualified and knowledgeable teachers that UNDERSTAND them and can support them with multiple layers of rigorous and engaging instruction in order to help them access the content.
As a resource teacher for the district, I also serve over 100 teachers that need help with bridging the language and content. I have found that we as educators need to move away from the out-dated misconceptions and "tricks" to teach English Language Learners and move towards providing students with deep meaningful educational experiences that will last a lifetime.
Our district's budget has been on hold for over 200 days with no end in sight, but we still work tirelessly and show up to work every day. WHY? As one of the states with the lowest teacher salaries in our nation, we show up every day for OUR STUDENTS. They are the reason, my own children are the reason. I have seen our district grow from having 1 English Learner (ME!) in the whole grade level to now having over 70% of the class filled with English Learners.
Achieving the National Boards certification will allow me to continue my learning and professional growth to make sure that I can support teachers and provide them with the most up to date research-based best practices for teaching language learners which will, in turn, provide students get the highest level of instruction.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. S and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
