Both principals and classroom teachers reported that schools use multiple ways to welcome HLSs and support their learning, such as collaborating with families, providing
resources in different languages for students and families, offering Spanish class for students, as well as providing professional training opportunities for teachers to learn about other cultures. The principal from Elementary School A mentioned that the school is trying to collaborate with families to learn about each other’s culture and meet their needs as best as they can. For
example, there is a family program at Elementary School A for which families come to the school in the morning or evening to learn about different culture. As the principal said,
“It’s a learning experience for both sides. It’s about teaching the families about American schools and our school in general, and then us learning about the different families and different cultures. It’s about how we can bring those things into the building, and how we can have culture nights and those different things to provide that opportunity to all of our students to be exposed to the different cultures and languages that we have in the
building. We also do assessment to find out from the family what they want and what is their need, and we can try to meet their needs as best as we can.”
The principal from Elementary School C mentioned that their ELL bilingual teacher is a great resource for the families as she communicates with the families weekly and makes sure they are feeling connected to the school, as he said, “She's (ELL teacher) also a really good bridge to the families when she communicates weekly with those families and makes sure that they're feeling connected and there's no misconceptions.” Teachers from Elementary Schools B and C also mentioned that the schools provide after school tutors and Spanish classes for HLSs. All three schools also provided translators that speak different languages and dialects during
parent-teacher conferences. Teachers reported schools provide newsletters or important messages for sending home in Spanish and sometimes in other languages. Students’ reports that go home to parents are usually available in both English and Spanish. In addition, teachers from
Elementary School A mentioned that the school provides professional development after school to invite people from different cultures to share information about their culture. One of the teachers also said she reported to her students about what they have done, “We had a meeting where different people came from different cultures, and we brought it to the kids, and told them what we had done, and they thought it was kind of cool.”
Other than providing different resources for HLSs, schools also provide opportunities for HLSs to help other people through translation and welcoming new students. Fifteen (55%) teachers reported in the Interview Questionnaire that they would use HLSs as the “native informants” on language in classroom, which means to have them teach or share their heritage language with other students in the classroom. Eleven teachers reported they would use HLSs as “native informants” on culture in the classroom, which implies that HLSs will share their culture and support other students to learn about a different culture. According to Elementary School A’s welcome plan, the principal mentioned in the Short Answer Questions that HLSs can help new students who speak the same language to get acclimated to the new environment by
showing them around the building, connecting them with HLSs who speak the same language in classes, at lunch, or at other common places. Teachers mentioned that they would have HLSs translate for other HLSs when they have trouble understanding English. The students were also willing to help newcomers with their learning at school, which can also give them a sense of pride. As teachers said,
“More often than not they're a huge resource for me, and they're becoming the teacher. If they're talking in their language, or helping another student, they're either translating for me or helping me.”
“We have a new student coming in to the building, and if they do not speak the English language, we try to connect the students in their class, or at lunch, or at any common places where they can be connected with someone that does speak their language. So the students are very good at that, and being willing to help someone to speak their language, it's almost a sense of pride that you see.”
The above theme showed that all three schools were using different ways to welcome HLSs, meet their language and cultural needs, and even use HLSs as a resource to help other students and teachers as “native informants” on language or culture. These all indicated that schools valued HLSs’ heritage language and culture, were eager to make HLSs successful, and loved to have different languages and cultures in the building.