A New World of Education in F.C.

The City of Falls Church loves its schools. Well known for having one of the most challenging school systems in the U.S., Falls Church is facing new challenges as the New American population in the City grows.

With 67% of its adult population holding at least a bachelor’s degree, Falls Church is one of the best educated jurisdictions in the country. Since the City separated from Fairfax County in 1948, education has been a top priority.

This focus on education translates into significant funding for the school system. In the 2005 Falls Church City budget, school funding accounted for nearly 41% of all expenditures, by far the largest City expense.

The support has led to success for the schools. In 2004, George Mason High School was rated first in the Washington Metropolitan Area by the Washington Post in its so-called Challenge Index and sixth in the country by Newsweek as one of the Country’s most challenging by the same criteria.

(The Challenge Index is measured by tabulating the amount of advanced placement and International Baccalaureate tests taken, then dividing that total by the school’s graduates.)

Over the past 20 years, though, the New American population has grown in Falls Church and with it, new questions about the system’s readiness to deal with a different dynamic in the student body.

The New American population rose from 9.5% in 1980 to 16.1% in 2000. The overall minority population has increased from 9.9% to 20.4% over the same period.

New American, or immigrant populations, bring challenges to any school system. Many come to the U.S. with little education and a lack of familiarity with formal educational systems.

Compared to the American-born population, a high percentage of immigrants to the U.S. have a significantly lower education. In a recent 2003 census report, only 67.2% of New American populations had a high school diploma, compared with 87.5% of the population born in the U.S. New Americans also tend to have higher drop-out and teen-pregnancy rates.

In neighboring Fairfax County, J.E.B. Stuart High School has seen the effects of an explosion in student diversity.

Like the Falls Church School system, J.E.B. Stuart started seeing growth in its minority population in the 1980s, but that growth has since been much more dramatic.

Over the past 20 years the school’s population has metamorphosed from a mostly white student body to a population without any majority. Of the 1450 students, 31% are white, 31% Hispanic, 24% Asian, and 13% Black.

This diversity has led to a large population participating in “English as a Second Language” (ESL) programs. Of the 1,450 students around 27% are taking ESL classes.

J.E.B. Stuart Principal Mel Riddile said that when the changes started there were significant growing pains. Attendance and test scores suffered and discipline became an issue.

“I think that any system that experiences change will go through a storming, a forming, and then a norming,” said Riddile.

After 20 years of dealing with the effects of a diverse student body, Riddile said that they have reached a point where diversity has become an asset rather than a liability.

Last year 40% of the students took International Baccalaureate courses, an internationally regulated educational program, the annual graduation rate was 97%, and SAT scores have risen by 105 points to 1055. After graduating, Stuart students continued to find success with college admittance at 93%.

Riddile pointed out, though, that ethnicity isn’t the primary cause of lower performance.

He said that the biggest predictor of performance is socio-economic rather than ethnic, and that the best indicator of economic need is the “free and reduced lunch” population, which subsidizes lunches for students who face financial hardship.

At J.E.B. Stuart the “free and reduced lunch” population makes up 54% of the students, compared to around 10% at George Mason.

Riddile said that a tight correlation can be drawn between the numbers of these students and the performance of the school.

He said that success in the face of these challenges has not been easy to accomplish, and has taken a lot of “thinking outside the box.” Much of the success, Riddile said, has come from changing the time table for the students.

By appealing to the Commonwealth of Virginia, J.E.B. Stuart was able to change the time line of its school year to enable its students to take two summer sessions rather than one, and begin classes earlier, giving students a greater time to prepare for end of year testing.

“Given time, we think that all students can learn,” said Riddile.

While the City of Falls Church has yet to reach the levels of at-risk students that would warrant these kinds of changes, the schools face their own challenges.

Since its first self-study in the mid-80s, which looked at the population of students with limited English proficiency, Falls Church schools have seen their second language population grow from 53 in 1986 to 177 in 2004.

In a small system like Falls Church, ESL students make up 9.5% of the total enrollment of 1,846 students.

The ESL population makes up a higher percentage of students in the lower grades. At Mt. Daniel Elementary, second language students make up 13.8% of the population, compared to 8.8% at the George Mason High School.

Grace Rissetto, department chair of the Falls Church ESL program told the News-Press that she believes the difference is due to work done by the school system with students at an early age to fully integrate them by the time they reach high school.

But Robert Snee, Principal of George Mason High School, said that a recent survey of his graduates found that almost two-thirds of graduates had at some point attended school in another system.

“The assumption that that Falls Church students move from elementary through to high school leaves out a large percentage of the population,” Snee concluded.

Still, the early education of Falls Church students is important for the success of the system’s programs.

A recent program, Even Start, started in 2002 at Mt. Daniel Elementary, works to improve the rate of language growth for both students and parents early on in students’ lives.

Even Start is an extension of a previous program called Toy Box, which worked with kids to become socially and mentally prepared for the rigors of American schools.

Kathy Halayko, principal of Mt. Daniel Elementary, said that many foreign born students don’t come in with the language skills or familiarity to keep up with other young students. “They were not only learning a new language, but learning the ways of the school,” said Halayko.

Even Start attempts to manage these issues by introducing New American children and parents to school earlier in their development. It works on four principles that help prepare the students for their education:

• The first focuses on preparing children for success in kindergarten programs through early literacy experiences and oral language development.

•The second integrates adult literacy and ESL services for parents, meant to empower parents to be involved in their child’s literacy experiences.

•The third partners the parent and child and teaches parents how to become educators for their own children.

•The final teaches parenting skills, including discipline, language development, and other issues that families identify as needs.

Halayko said that by adding parents to the process there is a better chance that kids will succeed in the school system. “We feel it’s important to connect parent to their children’s learning,” she said.

But the fact that parents are required to be involved also makes it difficult to attract many of the parents who need the services the most.

New Americans are generally less wealthy and those with lower language skills are even more likely to have financial difficulties. As a result many parents have to work and can’t attend the Even Start program.

In the City economic and ethnicity are closely linked. The poverty rate in Falls Church in 2000 was only 4.2%, the second lowest rate in Northern Virginia behind Loudoun County. But of that population, nearly 50% were a member of a minority group and 28% were Hispanic, despite the fact that minorities only make up 20.4% of the total population, and Hispanics only 8.8%.

While the ESL program in Falls Church teaches a diverse group of students, the majority of the students are Hispanic.

The program called CHICOS, which distributes donated computers to ESL families, is one way that the school system helps students overcome financial challenges to meet educational requirements.

Also, the Early Identification Program works with at-risk students of all ethnicities to prepare them for college. The students take part in summer preparatory classes and receive tutoring, then when they graduate they are guaranteed admittance to George Mason University.

Despite these programs the challenges are still growing.

Now that the Standards of Learning requirements under the “No Child Left Behind” Act mandate that ESL students have to meet the same standards as native English speaking students, more pressure is being put on these students to keep up.

Rissetto said that these requirements have created difficulties for students who are still learning the language.

“I don’t think they reach their full potential until they speak English at a high enough level,” said Rissetto.

While the larger school systems in Arlington and Alexandria have been able to support a complete ESL curriculum, Falls Church doesn’t have the resources to provide ESL classes in all subjects.

Rissetto teaches an ESL class on history and students are integrated into standard classes for subjects like science and math.

The lack of resources dedicated to the ESL program also means that ESL teachers are required to wear multiple hats. Along with being a teacher, Rissetto also works as the department chair and the program cert, as she administers tests, attends conferences, and helps develop curriculum.

Despite the challenges that the new requirements have created, Rissetto said that she sees a lot of good in “No Child Left Behind.”

“It’s good for ESL because it puts the kids at the table with the rest of the student body,” said Rissetto. “It creates leverage for the program for getting resources.”

While placing ESL students in standard classes presents challenges, it also creates a more diverse environment for all Falls Church students, an education in itself.

Riddile said that at J.E.B. Stuart, diversity is an added value to the students’ education.

“People that have learned in a diverse environment don’t feel a dissonance when everybody doesn’t look the same,” said Riddile.

The Washington Metro area has become the seventh largest gateway community for New Americans in the U.S., made up of a wide range of countries throughout the world. As the region continues to internationalize, Riddile said that people have to be able to deal with diversity to get by.

Riddile pointed to the time after the terrorist attacks in 2001, when there was a lot of anger directed at people of Middle Eastern descent.

“But after 9/11 our Middle Eastern Students still felt safe,” said Riddile.

GMHS Principal Snee, said that while Falls Church schools don’t have the same kind of diversity as J.E.B. Stuart, they make it a point to teach tolerance through diversity in the classroom.

“We teach here that a student can be as different as he or she wants to be as long as they follow the rules of the school,” he said.

Rather than a canon of rules, Snee said that the focus of the rules at George Mason comes down to one word, “Respect.”

In order to heighten students’ awareness and acceptance of diversity, the school started the International Club. Originally meant for the ESL students, the club now invites students school-wide to participate. Last year the club consisted of 30 to 40 students.

“In the International Club, the ESL students suddenly become the stars,” said Rissetto. “Rather than their nationality being something to overcome, it is something to be proud of and shared with others,” she said.

But while the school system is gearing up to assist and celebrate a diverse student population, there is a possibility that the New American wave might never sweep through the city.

Rissetto said that while she doesn’t expect the ESL population to get smaller, she questions whether there will be an increase in the percentage of New Americans who need second language assistance.

“I think a lot of people that would bring diversity to the schools are getting priced out of living in the City,” said Rissetto.

In the next article of the series the News-Press will look at the availability of affordable housing and the effect that it will have on the demographics of Falls Church.