Each year we give a short presentation to the Norfolk Board of Education to showcase what Washington Elementary has been doing, which we refer to as Focus on Students.
Fifty-six students qualified for the English Language Learners (ELL) program that make up approximately 20% of the student population at Washington Elementary. A group of non-English speaking kindergartners presented their learning to the members of the Norfolk Board of Education as part of "Focus on Students" during the January meeting. These students demonstrated their progress in acquiring English through an activity focusing on playground nouns, verbs, and pronouns. The board members were then asked to "walk a minute in these students' shoes" and complete the same task with all directions given in Spanish. This provided an opportunity for the students to work cooperatively with the board members functioning as their interpreters, and for the board members to understand the challenges ELL students face.
