Grant targets local needs

Nicole Sayegh peeks from behind her fingers and says the word "peeked" in a slow, exaggerated manner.

"Be honest," she says to a student in the back row. "When you play piñata and are blindfolded, have you ever peeked?"

"Yes," says Eric Moreno, as the class giggles.

"He's a cheater," teases his classmate, Uriel Resediz, in halting English. His response helps the teacher determine that he truly understands what the word means.

The 10 students, ages 11-18, are in Sayegh's newcomer class that serves North Tahoe Middle School and the adjacent high school in Tahoe City. "This is a transition program," says Sayegh, who teaches in sheltered English. "The goal is to give the students enough English skills so they will be successful throughout the rest of their schooling. I also help them get comfortable with the school climate. I see that they get to know other kids and get into clubs and sports, so they are not so isolated."

Before she started working at the school last April, newcomers were put into beginning ESL classes. More often than not, they were lost, says Sayegh, a member of the Tahoe Truckee Education Association (TTEA). But now that they have a helping hand, they are on their way to finding academic success.

During recent years, the resort town of Kings Beach has seen Latinos flock to the area for service jobs, but the rural community lacked many of the resources to meet the needs of immigrant children. The S.H. Cowell Foundation stepped in to fill the void, providing the money to help the school district, teachers and community members use locally developed ideas to address needs specific to the area.

A foundation grant, which is designed to increase the Latino graduation rate in the Lake Tahoe community, provides full funding for a student advocate to help students and their parents at the two school sites, and partial funding for the newcomers' class and Sayegh's position. The grant also partially funds a family resource center to assist residents living in poverty, a Boys and Girls Club, and Project SABE (School Achievement Beyond Elementary), a program designed to ease the transition from elementary school to middle school and, eventually, middle to high school.

"I love working with these kids, because I get to watch them grow so much," says Sayegh. "One student who barely knew the words 'yes' and 'no' came back from Christmas vacation and couldn't stop talking in English."

Some of the newcomers arrived from Mexico this summer, others have been in the country only a few days. Most will stay a full year with Sayegh before transitioning into beginning ESL classes.

At Kings Beach Elementary School, Latino students, who make up 67 percent of the school population, get a lot of nurturing, explains fifth-grade teacher Linda Bendock, a TTEA member. "But when they go to middle school in Tahoe City, they are in the minority and can fall between the cracks. We heard complaints that the Latino population was not up to grade level once they left the elementary school. We are hoping this program will change that."

Teri Randall, a Kings Beach kindergarten teacher who serves as the case manager for the Project SABE grant, interviewed Latino middle school students about what was most difficult for them in the transition from elementary school. "Many of them had not attended the student orientation like the Anglo students, so they started out somewhat lost," she says. "The transition can be scary, and students may feel isolated. Parent involvement dwindles, because the secondary schools are 10 miles away from Kings Beach."

To help smooth the transition, fifth-grade teachers at the elementary school are given paid release time to visit former students at the middle school, talk with their new teachers and make sure their needs are being met. The grant also pays for buses to help transport parents to Back-to-School Night.

Bendock's former students are very appreciative when she visits them at the middle school. "I think they realize that we still care about them and they are very happy to know that."

Because of what they learned through the Project SABE survey, fifth-grade teachers are doing more to prepare students for the big move to middle school. Many Latino students have never seen a combination lock before and don't know how to use a locker, so Randall helps them practice beforehand.

Bendock has introduced a pen pal program to help her students establish friendships with the predominantly Anglo fifth-graders from Tahoe Lake Elementary School, who will attend the same middle school.

As her students excitedly prepare to meet their pen pals face-to-face after months of correspondence, she has them practice making introductions and encourages them to introduce their pen pals to other classmates. "Just be yourself; you don't have to go out of your way to act cool," she advises.

"I am very excited to finally meet my pen pal," says Navil Perez. "I wish that she is good and nice to me."

The grant has only been in effect for one year, but teachers say it is already paying off. "We think, in the future, we will have more Latino students graduating from high school because of our relationship with the S.H. Cowell Foundation," says Randall. "We really believe that we can help our students be successful."