By Amina Hassan
A huge part of East is its diversity with many students coming from different parts of the world with English as a second language. To help these students a big change has been added. In previous years during exams, such as Regents, ENL (English and a New Language) students had accommodations like extra time, translators, and separate locations. Last June East High introduced a new accommodation which allows students who have 2 Regents exams in one day to take the other exam the next day and continue on from where they left off. ENL teacher Ms. Casarett says, “In the past students can spend 12-15 hours sitting for exams which is exhausting for students and teachers proctoring the exam. Many Muslim students would be fasting during the exams and that’s not okay for a student too be sitting that long while not having any water or food.” The new accommodation is very beneficial but students are just getting used to it. Junior Puja Magar says, “The new accommodation helped me a lot because before it was overwhelming to take 2 exams in one day. With the extra time I would often spend about 6 hours taking each exam and that's a total of 12 hours of sitting and taking an exam my brain was hurting and I was not thinking straight and could not focus. But last June the accommodation helped a lot because I was able to think better and refresh my mind and was not overwhelmed with the fact that I had to take 2 exams in one day.” East High School has a variety of students coming from places like Somalia, Puerto Rico, Kenya, Nepal and many more. East High has specialized teachers who help these students with the language barrier. Teachers follow the curriculum which structures a lesson to help English language learners to navigate the language while still learning the language.
1 Comment
Lynn Girven
10/28/2019 05:32:05 pm
I have had former students ask me for more information on the diversity in our student population. Let's try and promote our diversity more to the general student body!
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