Students are hard at work at writing their English words at a recent session of the Lakewood City Schools' ESL summer school.

When Jeannette Sgambellone found out there was money available for Lakewood Schools to hold an ESL summer school session for the first time, she and her fellow district English as a Second Language teachers rallied into action.

Because the district didn’t know for sure that federal Title 1 funds were available for the program until after school let out in June, the teachers had to go the extra mile to notify families of the opportunity. “We went door-to-door to our families,” said Sgambellone. Because many of the families have little or no English proficiency in the household, the only way to let them know about the session was to tell them face-to-face.

The door knocking has paid off. On Aug. 3, 42 ESL students, many of them recent refugees and all with “pre-functional” or bare minimum English skills, began a two-week session at Grant Elementary. The elementary-age students will spend three hours each morning refreshing their English speaking, reading, writing and listening skills in preparation for the coming school year.

“This really gives them a jump start for the school year,” said Kathe Stack, district coordinator for state and federal programs.

Besides skills needed to succeed in school, the program will also teach the students how to use their language skills in different social situations. The students also will learn about their greater community with field trips to places like the library, grocery store and downtown Cleveland.  Where possible, the students will ride public transportation on the field trips to learn how to navigate the RTA bus system.

“We’re really teaching them how to survive in American culture (and schools),” said Stack. “In some countries, they don’t ride buses and go on field trips.”

On a recent visit to one classroom, the youngest students were practicing writing “Lakewood is a city near Cleveland” in their journals in preparation for a visit to downtown Cleveland the next day.  The teachers felt it is important that the students, all of them new to Lakewood in the past year, know about the community and the region to which they moved.

All this is in hopes of setting these students up for success in their new schools. “It’s about developing vocabulary for them to speak appropriately as early as possible,” said Stack.