Suncrest is blessed to have so many multilingual students–about 50% of our population. Being multilingual is such a gift – these students know two languages, and that will take them so far in life. At Suncrest, we have two multilingual teachers who work solely with our ML students on a daily basis – Melissa Fresch and Nancy Normann. We are also blessed to have two Title 3 paras that play a HUGE role in helping our multilingual students – Silvia Valdes and Nancy Alanis.
Since Suncrest is 50% ML, one of the most important things we can do is empower all of our teachers to know the best strategies to help our multilingual students be successful. We have several teachers who have completed their multilingual certification and play a huge role in advocating for our ML students – Cari Hazlett, Nicole Pompei, Rachael Palmer, and Kelli Klyzcek.
We are blessed with some of the sweetest multilingual students at Suncrest. These students work so hard each and every day. Learning looks
different for a multilingual learner – they hear the information in English, need to process it in their first language, then transfer it back to their second language, and then, of course, make meaning out of it. Teaching our multilingual students is so rewarding, but also such a learning experience for all of us. It helps us grow in our profession as we try to help our students be the best that they can be – and our Eagles always SOAR.
Our goal at Suncrest is always English – that’s what we focus on in the classroom. However, we always tell our parents that the overall goal is bilingualism, which is why we always encourage our parents to continue to speak, read, and write in Spanish at home. Having a firm foundation in your first language makes learning a second language so much easier. To provide more help to our families, we host at least three multilingual parent nights a year. This is a way to build that home-school relationship and also a safe environment for our parents to ask questions and learn more about what their child does for 7 hours every day.
Next year Suncrest has the privilege of implementing a Dual Language Immersion Program in kindergarten. This is so exciting, and we are using this year as a planning year so that we are completely ready to start in the 2025-2026 school year. Next year’s kindergarten students in Miss Pompei’s and Miss Alanis’s classrooms will spend half of their day with instruction in Spanish and half of their day with instruction in English. The opportunities that this program will provide for our students are beyond exciting and we cannot wait for next year.
Suncrest is truly blessed with our multilingual population. There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t realize how lucky we are. Not only are we teachers and students who learn and grow together every day, but we are also one big happy family that loves one another. I’ve been a teacher at Suncrest for 27 years now and have been a part of this community for my entire life – we have evolved so much as a school and as a community, and it makes me so proud to work where I do. Like I said before, we are truly blessed to do what we do every day. Go Eagles.
