Posted on 12/02/2007 8:18:20 PM PST by Tennessee Nana
Hispanic ELL Growth in Hamilton County Schools Since 2000
Since 2001, the number of Hispanic students in the Hamilton County school system has more than tripled, mirroring a Hispanic migration trend throughout the region, experts say.
The district's second-largest minority group now makes up nearly 5 percent of the student population -- up from 541 students six years ago to almost 2,000 today.
"The demographics in this county have changed dramatically," Deputy Superintendent Rick Smith said at a recent public meeting.
But the growth has not been spread evenly throughout the county, said Marisol Jimenez, lead teacher of English as a Second Language at East Side Elementary. Forty-three percent of the students at Ms. Jimenez's school are Hispanic -- the most at any school in Hamilton County, she said.
"At East Side we have mostly Guatemalan families," she said. "This is the place they can afford to live."
April Gutierrez, a junior at East Ridge High School, said she also has noticed a significant increase in the Hispanic population.
"When I started fourth grade in 2001, there weren't that many Hispanics; the ESL program had roughly 30 students," she said. "But when I returned to help the teachers with tutoring, I noticed a big increase in the number of Hispanic students."
After working as an ESL teacher for almost 10 years at East Side Elementary, Ms. Jimenez said the program has grown to serve about 270 students.
According to Ms. Jimenez, there tends to be a greater concentration of Hispanic students in the county's elementary schools than in middle and high schools because of a relatively high dropout rate among Hispanics and a more diversity-friendly atmosphere in elementary schools.
"The most critical and important piece to a school's success is the culture of the building. When you have a welcoming school culture, then kids are going to do better because they're going to feel valued as a student," she said.
CHANGING CULTURES
Demetrius Wiley, assistant principal at East Side, said because of the Hispanic population growth, administrators last year had to set parameters on the number of students who could attend the school.
While other schools around the county may experience some level of culture shock as the Hispanic population grows, Ms. Jimenez said at East Side such growth is not unusual.
"I think this is what East Side is. This school is diverse," she said. "It doesn't get attention because it's what is natural here."
Mirtha Perez, mother of three school-age children, said two of her children initially attended East Lake Academy, but because they didn't speak English and their teachers didn't speak Spanish, the children failed their subjects.
"After they failed, someone told me I could transfer them to the ESL program at East Side Elementary, and they have done very well," she said in Spanish.
April at East Ridge High said she was zoned for Lookout Valley Middle School but asked to be transferred to East Ridge Middle School because of the greater Hispanic population there.
"At Lookout I felt weird. I felt everybody was looking at me because everyone was white and I was the only brownish (child)," she said.
Although Sandra Williams, who has taught kindergarten at East Side for 17 years, said she has noticed students of different races interact with each other more now than before, April said children in middle school used to be very segregated.
"When I got to middle school, Hispanics would sit with Hispanics and blacks would sit with blacks," she said. "Because we roughly knew English, (non-Hispanic) kids would make fun of us and call us wetbacks."
"But in high school it's different again," she said. "I sit with my ROTC team, and I'm the only Hispanic. l don't know if it's because we're now more Hispanics in the school or because some of the kids who would give us a hard time ended up dropping out from school."
MIGRATION TRENDS
Despite the growth, the number of Hispanics in Hamilton County remains significantly below that of nearby Whitfield County, Ga., where 33 percent of the district's 13,556 students are Hispanic. In Dalton City Schools, 65 percent of 6,229 students are Hispanic.
Richard Schoen, executive director of assessment and accountability for Whitfield County Schools, said the large industrial base in Whitfield County drives the Hispanic growth.
Mr. Schoen said his district still experiences racial tension at times but that this generation of students is more accepting than those before them.
"I don't think it affects our climate," he said. "Our goals are the same now as they were back in 1993 when less than 3 percent of our (student) population was Hispanic."
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Hispanic population in Hamilton County is about 7,500, with 4,000 of them living in Chattanooga. In Whitfield County, there are more than three times as many Hispanics, 12,000 of them in Dalton alone.
Jon Shefner, associate professor of sociology and director of global studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, said one of the important changes in general in the United States is "new destinations" in immigration.
Dr. Shefner said the traditional gateways of immigration, particularly of Latino immigration, in places such as Texas, Arizona, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, have spread to other locations, especially in the Southeast.
"There are many states in the Southeast which are very distinctively the areas where new immigration is occurring," he said.
The increase can be explained in part by the available low-wage, high-risk employment in the area; cheaper cost of living; labor brokers in agriculture; and a network that makes it easier for new immigrants, Dr. Shefner said.
"Students come when their families come, so if the trends (of immigration) continue as some reports say, we have every reason to believe that more students will come," he said.
E-mail Kelli Gauthier at kgauthier@timesfreepress.com
E-mail Perla Trevizo at ptrevizo@timesfreepress.com
Shades of CA or AZ or TX, but it's TN
PING
Is this near where you live, Nana?
Yeppers...
They have a Tyson’s Chicken plant in Hamilton County?
That’s sure what drew ‘em to Beford County.
Beford County?
Which state? AR?
Any where you find tyson chicken are tyson anything you will find illegals. However, jerkoff at homeland security hasn't figured that out yet.
Yeap TN is being completely invaded by these undesirables...
Business, Media, and State-Govt is open (Fuzzy) Arms for them as well. Really Pathetic.
That was 5 years ago...
What was the decision on the case or is it still going on?
I know I was just sneaking in the location of the plant.
I don’t think you are allowed to post articles from racist sites here.
Why doesn't Mexico take care of its own people? Why don't the ultra-wealthy Mexican elites help to pay for the health care and education etc of their own poor? Why do they instead encourage their poor to leave Mexico and invade the United States? Nature provides a parallel that is instructive.
Some species of birds thrive not by carefully rearing their own young, but by pawning that task off on adults of other species. The European Cuckoo, whose distinctive call is immortalized in the sound of the "cuckoo clock," is the bird in which this habit has been most thoroughly studied. Female European Cuckoos lay their eggs only in the nests of other species of birds. A cuckoo egg usually closely mimics the eggs of the host (one of whose eggs is often removed by the cuckoo).
The host may recognize the intruding egg and abandon the nest, or it may incubate and hatch the cuckoo egg. Shortly after hatching, the young European Cuckoo, using a scoop-like depression on its back, instinctively shoves over the edge of the nest any solid object that it contacts. With the disappearance of their eggs and rightful young, the foster parents are free to devote all of their care to the young cuckoo. Frequently this is an awesome task, since the cuckoo chick often grows much larger than the host adults long before it can care for itself. One of the tragicomic scenes in nature is a pair of small foster parents working like Sisyphus to keep up with the voracious appetite of an outsized young cuckoo.
Worried that your source of dirt cheap illegal alien labor might be drying up if we start to enforce the laws?
Racist master, 1860: "But Rhett, without our African slaves, whoever shall pick our cotton cheaply?"
Racist master, 2007: "But Muffy, without our Mexican illegals, whover shall pick our lettuce cheaply?"
Racist masters choosing some cheap labor, 1860:
Racist masters choosing some cheap labor, 2007:
This is what it looked like as we lost California. At least you won’t hear as much cheering from the Open Borders Republicans as we had to endure. That crowd has proven to be cowards who now hide their enthusiasm for mass immigration, but there is no doubt that if you put them into office they will behave exactly like Bush.
Bottom line: deport these illegals and their children who shouldn't be here. Being born here doesn't automatically qualify them as citizens. If Americans of a minority were willing to let a kid from the majority bleed to death what do you think the Aztlaners would abide?
So all blacks are responsible for the actions of a few?
I know that it will be hard for you to go on without an endless stream of illegal alien peons to under-pay, but if you try, you will make it.
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