(gentle piano music)
- [Regina] I'm originally from Tanzania
and my parents were born in Burundi,
and then they moved to
Congo because of the war.
And then there was a war in
Congo, so we moved to Tanzania.
And then because we were not
safe, that's why we came here.
- [Abdul] My country
is, like, this country.
It's beautiful,
but because we feel like we
are not safe in my country,
so we go a different country
to Lebanon and it's the same,
but it's no war there, so we,
somebody there, they told
us to come here if we want
and so we came here and
it's a very good country.
So, we came here because
it's not safe in my country.
When I be in Lebanon,
I want to go to school,
but because there is no money
and a lot of things too
much money, so I work.
I don't go to school.
And their school is different
because their school
is French and they speak Arabic,
so it makes me confuse something,
so I don't go to school.
- [Riaz.] I'm from Afghanistan,
but I was born in Pakistan
and the only citizenship that
I have is from Afghanistan.
And we came to the United States because
it was not safe back in Afghanistan
and my mom wanted us
to go to better school
and then she applied
to IOM and we got here.
- [Angela] Highland High School received
their first newcomer in 2008.
And as far as APS schools,
we are the high school
that has the highest number of newcomers.
- [Regina] When I first
got here, I was scared
because I was not used to
the weather or the schools,
and it was very cold and
I didn't know any English.
It was very hard.
It's difficult at first because it's not
a language you're used to or born into,
so it's hard when you
pronounce something wrong
and students laugh about
it, and it's kind of hard.
- [Riaz.] When we got
here, it was difficult
and the hardest thing was
that I could not understand
anyone, and especially the teachers,
and as I said, back that day,
I took the wrong bus that day.
And, yeah, I couldn't
understand a lot of stuff
and the language was, you know,
a hard thing and a big barrier.
- [Abdul] My first 15 days
here, I don't go to school
'cause we're just wanna know,
like, something about here.
But after 15 days, we're just
starting to come to school,
but I don't know anything how
to go my class or anything.
But we have teacher, name is Ms. White.
Yeah, she just teach me how to go
to my classes and she helped me a lot.
- [Rachel] So, when
these students come in,
they're typically very
low English-proficiency,
which is difficult, but also,
there's large gaps in
education many times.
So sometimes the students
come in to high school
having absolutely no prior education.
Sometimes they come in with maybe
a third or fourth grade education
and they haven't been to school since,
and sometimes they're well
educated in their country.
So, it's difficult to be able
to address their academic
concerns as well as
their language concerns in the classroom.
So, last year I applied
for a Horizon Grant
for Headphones for Literacy
because the students that,
so I was in ESL One and two teachers,
so I would get the students who came
in with absolutely no English,
and in their ESL class, we would do
Rosetta Stone for about
an hour or so a week.
And Rosetta Stone is really important
because it gives the students
communicative English
to be able to have
conversations with people.
So, the headphones have
mics attached to them,
so when they're doing Rosetta Stone,
they can listen to a word
and will pronounce a word
or a phrase or a sentence
and then they repeat it
into the microphone and
it will either pass them
onto the next question or level,
or it will say, "Try again, try again."
And so, that was really essential
for them to able to practice
in a low-stress environment
because it's just them and the computer,
and it really gains their confidence
to be able to have
conversations with people.
- Well, this grant is life-changing
for me, for my students,
for students that aren't even my students,
students who come to Highland,
for all of our teachers.
It's going to allow us to
really provide instruction,
fiction and nonfiction, for
pretty much every grade level
that our students come to Highland with.
So that could be kindergarten
through sixth grade and
anything in between.
So, it's going to allow me
to do guided reading groups,
which is something you
would typically find
in an elementary student classroom,
where I would work with
three to six students,
each student would have their own book,
and we're working on specific skills.
It could be phonics, it could be decoding,
it could be fluency, it
could be inferencing,
it could be sequencing, comprehension,
anything that maybe students have been
exposed to or they are not fluent with
or they need extra practice with it.
Also, our science and social studies,
any teacher that teaches ESL students,
which would be 33% of our population,
would be allowed to check out these books.
So, say a science teacher
teaching biodiversity
can go get leveled sets of
books at three different levels.
Maybe beginning first,
middle second, end of fifth,
and be able to really provide
differentiated instruction
with content to the
students in their classroom,
ensuring that they know their students
are grasping some of the concept.
It might not be everything
and they might not get all the vocabulary,
but they're still being active
participants in the classroom.
- [Adrian] Today, what you're
going to have an opportunity
to see is just one example of how funds
that you have put into the foundation,
how it is going back into the classroom.
- Well, we have already been
working with the APS schools,
and what our business does
is restoring the buildings
when they experience damage, and we wanted
to keep finding out what
can we do to give back.
And when we were told
about the APS Foundation,
it was like, "Oh, that's
a fantastic opportunity
"to be able to give back to the
"Albuquerque Public School System."
- [Marco] Wow, this morning
was an amazing opportunity
for us to thank the
amazing business partners
that have support, or
are looking to support
some of the innovative opportunities
we have on this campus,
i.e., like acquiring this $25,000 dollars
via the Success Grant to purchase
a guided reading library.
- [Kristi] Oh my goodness.
Well, today was huge for me
'cause I wasn't quite sure
what all the teachers were
requesting for with these grants,
and after now seeing
how they help refugees
and these students learn
our language and to adapt
into this country where they're safe,
it warmed my heart, and everyone needs
to know that this is going on.
And that's all I can say is everyone
needs to know this is going on.
It's fantastic.
I think it closes the gap.
I think it closes the gap
between opportunities that
we do and don't have with
funds that we receive,
whether it be from the state or federally.
So, acquiring a grant
of this nature allows us
to not only open the door for innovation,
but gives us the opportunity
to meet the needs
of each of our students at their level.
- [Regina] What I like here
about Highland is 'cause
the teachers actually care
and they will check on you
and your grades and what you need to do
and make sure you get it done.
And most of the students
here don't speak English,
and so in class, it's
very difficult for them
'cause when the teacher's speaking,
they don't know what they
teacher's talking about.
The math here is very different
from the math over there.
The way they teach here is very different.
The subjects, just everything's different.
And so, not knowing
what they're saying is,
it's difficult to even know what to do
because you don't even know
what the teacher's saying,
and too, there's nothing you can do.
Just sit there in the class
and then you're just bored
and you don't like school because
you're not getting anything out of it.
- [Riaz.] In Highland High
School, it's my last year
and the good thing is that I learned
some English, and
I started reading.
This is my first year reading.
- [Angela] I've learned a lot.
Besides on a daily basis
of being told things in
Arabic, Swahili, Farsi, Pashto,
which I do not retain very well,
(laughs) I've learned that the kids
are funny and they're so giving,
and they enjoy life and they enjoy school,
and they wanna be like
anybody else that is here.
And their parents are
concerned about their students.
They want them to do well in school.
- [Rachel] My students
have taught me resiliency.
They come from some of the most extreme
conditions that I can ever imagine.
I have one student who arrived in the US
after living in numerous refugee camps
in numerous countries, and
she hadn't been in school
for 10 years, and then
she came to Highland,
and she didn't speak any English,
and she is doing really well academically,
and she's also picking
up English really well,
and so being faced with
those kinds of challenges
and being able to come out
the way that my students do
has just been really eye-opening
and inspiring for me.
- [Angela] I would wish
them the same thing
that I wish my own
personal children: success.
I want them to go to college,
and explore the world,
and have great experiences,
and just enjoy life.
- My hope is that the
teachers here, the staff here,
the community here in
Albuquerque, at Highland
has really done what we
could to prepare our students
so that they can give back
to the community some day.
- My hopes for my students
is that we prepare them
with the English and
academic skills to be able to
pursue whatever dreams they have,
whether that's going to
college or a technical school,
just being able, I know
that all of them really
want to provide for their family,
and so, just the means
to be able to do that.
- [Regina] I want to go to
UNM, and be a social worker.
That appeals to me because
I like helping people,
especially like children, people who are
in need, people who need help.
I love to see them doing better
with their lives and not struggling.
- [Riaz.] I'm not sure what
am I gonna be studying,
but two things that I have
in mind is engineering
and political science, and
engineering because I like math,
and math is something
that I can get used to it.
And political science, I just like
talking about politics and stuff.
- [Abdul] When I graduate,
if I know more English,
good English, I'm gonna UNM
and study to be a doctor.
- If we have the resources
to strengthen the skills
and develop the skills of
any and all of our students,
then the return on investment
is now you have a citizen
within our community that will
provide, give the greatest
opportunities for success
in their chosen career,
whether that's going to
college and being that doctor
or lawyer, or whether it's being the best
construction worker within the community.
So I think the return on
investment is the opportunity
for our community to flourish
with the strengthening
of skills that we hope to develop
here at Highland High School.
- [Riaz.] My advice will
be to just go to school
and not have free time as I did,
and stay in school with
after-school activities,
and there are a lot of
stuff to do like sports
and tutoring and social clubs and stuff.
- [Abdul] I would tell them
they have to be strong.
They have to, like, listen to everyone
taught them how to learn something,
and if they do all that
things, they can learn English
and they can learn the language, or, like,
different country or this country.
Yeah.
And they gonna be good after that thing.
- [Riaz.] All you need
is to get used to people
and not hate, just, you know, love.
(gentle piano music)
