Newcomer centers can help immigrant or refugee teens to adjust to U.S. schools and fill some of the academic gaps in their education before having to deal with a regular middle or high school classroom. But since the centers educate the newcomers in separate classrooms, they can also keep them from interacting with native speakers of English during the school day, which could also aid their language development. Those are some of the points Emily Alpert makes in a feature article about newcomer centers in the San Diego area, “It’s a Race Against Time for San Diego’s Newest Teens,” published over the weekend on Voice of San Diego, an online publication about education.
She does a very nice job of putting a human face on the challenge educators have in helping teens with education gaps to catch up with their peers.