I Wish My Teacher Knew

by Kyle Schwartz

  Each move our students make has a story attached to it. Our work is to listen to those stories. The more we know about the causes of mobility in our particular students, the better able we are to meet their needs and advocate for solutions that will provide support for our communities.

  Military-Connected Students

  Students are almost never in control of when and where they move. But for more than 2 million American students, their living situation is dictated by a powerful force: the US military. Students who are the official dependents of a military service member are known as military-connected students. The rates for mobility in military-connected students are triple that of their civilian peers. If a parent or caregiver is on active duty, typically there is a move every two to three years.

  The Department of Defense operates 172 schools for military-connected students both within the United States and abroad. But 80 percent of military-connected students are educated in public schools by teachers who are often unaware of exactly who these students are. A great first step for teachers and school administrators is to identify these students with a simple conversation, or even as part of an initial questionnaire, so they can better meet these students’ specific needs.

  Sandra Temple (whose name has been changed in accordance with Department of Defense regulations) is a military-family life counselor serving students attending several schools on and near an American military base. Her role is to support students and families “struggling under the effects of extended and repeated deployments.” She says, “Teachers should be prepared to help military-connected children and their families advocate for their educational needs. The truth is, 67 percent of children of active duty military families are under the age of twelve. These are typically children with younger parents who no longer live in their home communities and are disconnected from extended family. Under these circumstances, advocating for the needs of their children can be difficult, especially when entering a new school.”

  Temple also sees the impact of military mobility play itself out in students’ behavior:

  Moving at the military’s direction can be a major stressor for students. I often see students using coping strategies to lessen the pain of continuously leaving a community. Students begin to isolate themselves and detach from their friends and teachers, so it is easier to leave. A child might sabotage their friendships by engaging in bullying behavior or be reluctant to participate in group activities. Teachers can support students by acknowledging that what they are going through is tough. At one of the bases where I worked, several children found out which of their teachers had actually been raised as military kids themselves. They then asked those teachers for their advice on moving. The document those teachers created became a resource for the children. It helps them so much to know that they are not alone in facing their challenges. However, when you realize that only about one percent of the total US population is on active duty, you can understand why military children can feel so alone.

  The School Superintendents Association recommends that schools make necessary exceptions for military-connected students when it comes to absences, registering for required classes, and transferring into the same grade level, regardless of age limits or district policy. Transferring credits and meeting changing graduation requirements are additional challenges facing these students. It is particularly important to address the needs of military-connected students who qualify for special education services. For teachers, obtaining a copy of the most recent Individualized Education Plan is essential to ensuring that each military-connected student’s needs are met as soon as they enter school. Teachers can help advocate for their students by pointing to the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children, which has been signed by every state, and helps address issues of “enrollment, placement, attendance, eligibility and graduation.”

  Teachers can also assist a student who is leaving by compiling resources to be given to the family and then passed on to the child’s next teacher. Included should be relevant information about the student’s academic progress and the content and curriculum that has been covered.

  As Temple advises, “Military-connected students come from a unique and strong community. While they do need special consideration when entering or leaving your classrooms, there is also a wealth of experience and skills they bring that can be leveraged into meaningful learning when it is valued by a teacher.”

  Learning and the Mobile Student

  Whether a student is connected to the military or not, the students in our classrooms who change schools often need additional attention. These moves have a sizable impact on their learning. While student mobility has been widely studied, its complicated nature makes it hard for researchers to make causal links between student mobility and academic outcomes. Each time a student transfers to a different school, the circumstances are unique. Often, there are typically multiple intertwined social, economic, and family issues. For example, if a child moved due to a divorce, it is difficult to determine to what degree his academics were affected by the change in his family dynamic and what role the move itself played.

  In Dr. Russell W. Rumberger’s analysis of several studies regarding student mobility, researchers found that mobility does have an impact on academic achievement, the strength of a student’s friendship network, the likelihood of experiencing depression, and even the likelihood of being arrested. He explains there is evidence that “even one nonpromotional school move reduced both elementary school achievement in reading and math and increased high school dropout rates, with the most pronounced effects for students who made three or more moves.” A 1996 study that analyzed students in Chicago Public Schools published by David Kerbow found that students who were highly mobile could be as much as four months behind their schoolmates by fourth grade. By sixth grade, these highly mobile students could be as much as a full year behind academically.

  However, it is possible to limit the impact of changing schools. A different assessment of research published in 2008 shows that having social support from family and peers makes a big difference. More specific studies that examined the impact of the transition to middle school or high school indicate that support from peers and teachers positively influences the academic and social adjustment of adolescent students to a new environment.

  In other words, we teachers can make a huge difference in the lives of students who are mobile. We can support our students with strategies that help them to feel welcomed and cared about.

  Teacher Tools

  1. Start with the Relationship

  The first few days of any school year are all about getting to know our students as people and setting firm expectations for what the coming year will bring. When a new student enters our classrooms in the middle of the year, they have missed out on all that community-building work, and teachers need to make up for lost time by ensuring our first words to a new student count.

  The second a new student enters a new classroom, our primary focus should be on building a relationship. Being the new kid at school is a high-stress situation, no matter how old a student is. By simply saying something like “I’m glad you are here,” right away you and the new student have a great start. Letting a student know you are happy they are in your class can allow for a sigh of relief and make nervous shoulders drop four inches. Find several opportunities during the day to reinforce the idea that the new student is appreciated and welcomed. Be relentless.

  After introducing yourself and welcoming a new student to class, the next thing you should say is “Sit here.” Directing a student to their seat may seem obvious or even innocuous, but it is necessary. Classrooms often have a secret code of who sits where that can be difficult for new students to navigate. Saying “Find a seat anywhere” will likely make a student feel nervous, out of place, even terrified to make a mistake.

  Finally, the last step to solidifying a new student’s place in your classroom community is asking the student to contribut
e. I have found much success in my classroom by asking new students to help in some small way. Make sure, however, that you ask for help rather than command a new student to do a task. “Can I ask you for a favor? Would you mind pushing in the chairs for me? I really need some help” will have a much different impact than “Push in those chairs.” The task could be as simple as turning off the lights, putting away markers, or erasing the board. It’s hard for even the most angst-ridden teenagers to refuse help to someone they just met when they are asked politely. Every student I have ever taught has found so much joy in being helpful.

  After the new student completes the task, make sure to show your gratitude. Focus your praise on how the student has made a contribution to the community. You might say, “Thank goodness you’re here, we need someone kind like you in our class to help hold the door for us.” Or, “It’s so great that you’re tall. We needed someone to reach that cabinet.” It might seem simple, but by asking a new student to do something helpful you will transform a child from someone waiting to see if they are accepted by a new group into a contributing member of a classroom community. Students, especially those who have moved a lot, want to feel they are needed and genuinely welcomed into a classroom community, not just assigned to a class.

  I saw this happen firsthand on Benji’s first day of school. He was simply dropped off at the front of the building. No one walked him into the office or told him where to go. A helpful student asked him if he was lost and showed him to our classroom. Entering a new school in the middle of the year must have been difficult for him; rules and relationships had already been established. I am sure it made walking into a new school even more challenging that there was no one there to shepherd him in. If it had been me, I would have felt intimidated and certainly not welcomed.

  So I followed my simple steps. I made it very clear to Benji that he was welcome and that our class was excited to have a new student. I got him set up in a seat right away and gave him a manageable task: to decorate his own name tag. Once this was underway, I praised him. “Those are great colors, how did you choose them?” I asked. Benji told me they were the colors of his favorite football team. Then I asked him if he would use his artistic abilities to make a sign for our classroom door with our room number. He gladly obliged and started decorating a big “Room 207” sign. Other students chimed in with compliments on his art skills as I sent him out to the hall with a few new friends to hang up the sign. Within fifteen minutes, Benji transformed from a lost little boy to a contributing member of the community, who had already begun to form relationships with his classmates.

  When another new student, Sigrid, entered our classroom, I again focused on building the relationship. When she arrived at our door, she was hiding behind her mother, who had clearly prepared for this day. She had slicked her daughter’s shiny auburn hair into two perfect pigtails and dressed her in a bright outfit.

  Sigrid looked beyond me to the seeming chaos of students setting up chairs and turning in homework. I saw her trying to hold back tears, which ultimately started trickling down her face. She began sobbing. What do you do when a child you just met is crying uncontrollably?

  I got down on Sigrid’s level and looked her right in the eye and said, “I know this is hard.” I quickly told her I had had been the new kid in elementary school four times, and each time I worried about making friends. I let her know our class was a wonderful class, we had nice kids, and we had awesome books to read. I told her our class was lucky to have her and that we needed her there. Then I showed her to the water fountain and told her we had a seat waiting for her when she was ready.

  Later in the year, the students wrote a paragraph explaining a time when they felt sad. Part of Sigrid’s paragraph read, “I was sad on my first day of school, but then Ms. Schwartz told me she was the new kid once and it made me feel better so I stopped crying.”

  Children need comfort and reassurance. They also need touchstones in a strange environment, but most of all they need a teacher willing to build a relationship with them from the very beginning.

  2. Welcome Kits

  A few months into my first year of teaching, our school secretary stopped me on the way into school. She told me a new student, Mirrana, would join our class that day. She also told me this new student used a wheelchair. This was the first time I had ever been assigned a new student. I frantically ran up to my room to arrange the tables in my classroom so Mirrana could access our room. I had to track down our custodian to see if he could raise a table so her wheelchair could fit underneath it. All of a sudden, the bell rang. Nothing was ready and I was flustered.

  Looking back, I think of how Mirrana must have felt as she entered my classroom. I was concerned about the logistics of adding a new student, but she was concerned about feeling welcome. As the year went on, I was able to build a meaningful relationship with her, but I’m sure the transition could have gone more smoothly.

  Ever since then, I have made it a point to have the essentials ready for a new student in a welcome package. New students experience so much trepidation about their first day. They are anxious about being singled out and worried about making a connection with their peers and teachers. The last thing they need is an overwhelmed, unprepared teacher.

  Generally, I expect about five new students to enter my classroom at some point in the year. So I create Welcome Kits. It does not take much extra time or effort because I do this as I am setting up my classroom at the beginning of the year. As I prepare for the first day of school, I set aside extra materials for potential new students.

  I fill five cardboard magazine boxes; each contains a homework folder, writing notebook, and name plate for the desk. I also include copies of welcome letters from back-to-school nights and important handouts. For older students, a teacher might include a class syllabus, a binder, and contact information. As a school, we are also able to give each student who enters in the middle of the year a pencil bag with basic school supplies such as pencils, markers, and glue sticks donated from Yoobi, a philanthropy-focused school supply company. It is a very practical and tangible way to make new students feel welcome and cared about.

  Molly Couture, the office manager at the Denver School of Science and Technology, takes the Welcome Kit a bit further.

  Our school has a strong onboarding process for new students at the beginning of the school year, but I realized that some students were falling through the cracks when they transferred to our school in the middle of the school year. One year, on the very last day of school, a student told me shyly that no one had ever assigned him a locker. I knew we needed to get systematic so that nothing gets skipped. Our office created a Welcome Passport for students registering in the middle of the year. Students now go through a comprehensive checklist that makes sure all their administrative needs are met. This also serves to teach new students about the culture of our school and introduce them to the teachers and staff members that can support them when needed. For me, it is important to ensure our school is prepared make new students feel welcomed right away.

  I also see an opportunity to get our current students and families involved in the creation of Welcome Kits. A student council could be put in charge of creating them the kits. As students, they might have a better idea of what items would be helpful to include. Perhaps giving a new student an extra school shirt or free tickets to school dances and sports events would encourage them to join in.

  This idea could even be expanded to include the whole family. Welcome Kits can be adapted to meet the needs of local communities. Imagine giving a new family a backpack full of books or a packet of coupons to local restaurants. One school might include winter hats and gloves. Another might include coins for a local Laundromat, or subway cards. Having the school community give thought to the needs of students who will inevitably enter their school in the middle of the year helps create a welcoming culture.

  Welcome Kits have helped me do just that. Since I have already put thought into how I am
going to welcome a new student, even when I am given no warning, these premade Welcome Kits make students feel they already have a place in our community. I feel prepared to welcome a student at any time.

  3. Making Hellos and Farewells Official

  When a student joins my class in the middle of the year, it is often due to a major change in their life. A few words of encouragement from their teacher can make a student feel valued. Sending home a simple handwritten note with a new student can be powerful. A letter might look like this:

  Hello Johana,

  I just wanted to tell you how excited I am that you are in our class. Thanks for telling me about your pet cat. Did you know our class is going to a baseball game next month? Do you like baseball?

  See you tomorrow,

  Ms. Schwartz

  P.S. Write me back!

  You can take the idea of a welcoming letter to the next level by having your whole class sign it. A tangible note that tells a new student their teacher and class are happy to meet them and share a community together can be a powerful way to build a relationship.

  These official notes can be especially meaningful to students of diverse cultures. When I was studying in China as a member of a Fulbright-Hays group, I noticed several times how meaningful official documents were to Chinese students. Letters and awards were proudly displayed in homes and schools. One Chinese professor stopped his lecture to pull out an official thank-you note he had received and passed it around. This experience made me realize how to some people “officialness” is a prized gesture. So, if sending home an official letter helps a family feel welcome and valued, I’m all for it.