Springdale’s success with Hispanic students applauded

White House officials working to ensure Hispanic students graduate from high school and enter college are encouraged by programs Springdale schools have developed to reach migrant families.

“There’s something magical that’s happening in Springdale that we need to share with other communities,” said Alejandra Ceja, executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. “We have a long way to go. What we’re hearing and seeing in Springdale is a testament of what we can replicate across the country.”

Representatives from the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics began a three-day back-to-school tour in Springdale to learn about the school district’s efforts to improve opportunities for Hispanic students.

The tour began Monday with a town hall meeting on Hispanic educational achievement and migrant integration at Springdale High School featuring a panel that included Ceja; Springdale Superintendent Jim Rollins; and Nicolas Perilla, executive director of the Cisneros Center for New Americans.

The trip continues today with visits to Springdale campuses and ends Wednesday with another town hall meeting in Georgia.

Rollins said he remembers about 15 years ago when hundreds of migrant families began moving to Springdale. The district was committed to teaching all children, whether they were native to Springdale or a foreign country and whether they spoke English or a different language, he said.

In the 2007-08 school year, Lee, Jones and Elmdale elementary schools developed a model with what is now the National Center for Families Learning, Rollins said. The program has since expanded to 14 schools in Springdale.

Parents of migrant children come to campuses three hours a day, four days a week, to learn English, he said. They sit in classrooms with their children, reading with them and doing math problems together.

Rollins now sees that many migrant children are determined and succeeding, he said.

Springdale School District this year enrolls about 22,000 students, with 9,362 children participating in programs for children learning English, said Mary Bridgforth, district director of programs for English speakers of other languages. Spanish-speaking children make up 79 percent of the children in programs for children learning English, with another 19 percent speaking Marshallese and another 2 percent speaking other languages. The program reaches children who speak 40 languages.

The White House initiative has partnered with The Cisneros Center for New Americans, which established an office in Springdale, and is working to develop a national model for helping communities with emerging migrant populations integrate them into society, officials for the center and the initiative said. The model involves several aspects of a community, including education and health care.

The Cisneros center was founded by Henry Cisneros, who served under President Bill Clinton as secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Perilla, the center’s executive director, was born in Virginia but lived with his family in Colombia from shortly after his birth until he was 12, when his family moved back to Virginia. Perilla said his family and his community believed the American Dream should be a reality for everyone. He hopes to make that a reality for every family in Springdale, he said.

Between 2005 and 2050, demographic forecasts for the country anticipate that Hispanics will represent 60 percent of the country’s population growth, Ceja said.

The White House initiative aims to ensure Hispanics graduate from high school and enter college, but nationwide, about 15 percent of Hispanics from the ages of 24 to 32 have a college degree, Ceja said. The work includes a recent partnership with the Cisneros center to work with emerging migrant communities and to share and provide resources.

Other communities across the country have resisted demographic changes, but Ceja said the leadership, commitment and vision in Springdale are promising practices for providing key services to integrate a growing population.

“You have to have the right leadership in place,” Ceja said.

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