Winooski High School is located in the diverse community of Winooski, just outside of Burlington, Vermont. Not only is this shool diverse through the rich, beautiful landscapes that surround the school, WHS also has a plethora of students enrolled from countries all over the world. This allows for an extremely intriguing community in which different cultures and customs can be explored and further learned each day. The mission of WHS is straight to the point and states, “All students will graduate from the Winooski School District (WSD) college and career ready at a cost supported by a majority of the Winooski community. WSD students will lead healthy, productive and successful lives and engage with their local and global community”. Reiterated on the superintendent's home page, WHS aims to foster students from a variety of cultural backgrounds to succeed in college and career opportunities after high school.
This promise of success, however, becomes a little more challenging when taking into account english language learners (ELLs) from all over the world that attend WHS. It is much more challenging to instruct a class in which some students do not speak the language. There are a variety of methods that are used to aid ELLs understanding of English in the classroom setting, but ultimately these students will gradually become farther behind than the English speaking students. What I like about WHS’s ELL program is it takes into account the different levels of ELL students, mirroring the WIDA levels for understanding English. They have teacher aids for beginner, intermediate, and advanced English proficiency level. These aids not only help direct and guide the students at WHS, but they also serve as translators to convert an English word into their native language (a teaching method that has become widespread due to its high level of effectiveness when learning English as a second language). I also think the school’s slogan goes well with WHS’s goal for success for ALL students, and a great way to symbolize what WHS stands for:
Winooski has H.E.A.R.T….
H onest
E ngaged
A ppropriate
R esponsible
T imely
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