ANDERSON­ — In Anderson Community Schools, 382 students are enrolled as English as a New Language students. That’s just over 4 percent of all students.

Previously called English as a Second Language or English for Language Learners, the new title is a nod to the fact that many students speak a dialect of Spanish or another language, so English might not be their second language, but rather their third.

Of the ENL students in the local school system, more than 90 percent speak Spanish or a dialect of Spanish. But there are also students from Vietnam, China, Russia, Haiti and India, according to ACS school psychologist Maria Hernandez-Finch.

Data on students who are new to English can be sketchy, in part because the students are sometimes the children of migrants.

Hernandez-Finch said that last school year, “Our two main ENL elementaries did keep data and we had 28 migrant families who had children enrolled at least some of the time at Robinson and Anderson Elementaries.”

The U.S. Department of Education maintains a statistic known as the status dropout rate. It reflects the percentage of people who have dropped out or are not pursuing a high school diploma or equivalent between the ages of 16 and 24.

In 2007, the status dropout rate for Hispanics was 21.4 percent, compared with 8.4 percent for African-Americans and 5.3 percent for whites.

While that figure for Hispanics was far higher than for other ethnicities, it was also a significant reduction from its peak at 35.8 percent in 1988.



— The Herald BulletinPreviously called English as a Second Language or English for Language Learners, the new title is a nod to the fact that many students speak a dialect of Spanish or another language, so English might not be their second language, but rather their third.

Of the ENL students in the local school system, more than 90 percent speak Spanish or a dialect of Spanish. But there are also students from Vietnam, China, Russia, Haiti and India, according to ACS school psychologist Maria Hernandez-Finch.

Data on students who are new to English can be sketchy, in part because the students are sometimes the children of migrants.

Hernandez-Finch said that last school year, “Our two main ENL elementaries did keep data and we had 28 migrant families who had children enrolled at least some of the time at Robinson and Anderson Elementaries.”

The U.S. Department of Education maintains a statistic known as the status dropout rate. It reflects the percentage of people who have dropped out or are not pursuing a high school diploma or equivalent between the ages of 16 and 24.

In 2007, the status dropout rate for Hispanics was 21.4 percent, compared with 8.4 percent for African-Americans and 5.3 percent for whites.

While that figure for Hispanics was far higher than for other ethnicities, it was also a significant reduction from its peak at 35.8 percent in 1988.



— The Herald Bulletin