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Sorry...more thoughts from me.
Just read Lisa's post. I think you're doing some great things to prepare for your daughter's arrival. This was a new adventure for our school district. They have embraced our daughter and worked to assess her needs and meet them as best they can. Things could be better, but in our small, midwestern town, we're thankful for the school's efforts and support. We did need to keep very close contact with her teachers and sometimes push a little harder and let our voice be heard, but they have worked hard at learning how to serve an English Language Learner. If I can mention an online program, they discovered Renassiance Learning's English in a Flash program, which worked early on for her. She did know how to read English when she came, but her understanding wasn't there. They didn't know how to grade her this first yr's first quarter. We were very disappointed they gave her letter grades...D's and F's in some subjects. Fortunately, she didn't really understand. That was one of their mistakes. This quarter her teachers wrote narratives about her progress, which is much more helpful for all of us to see her progress and to discuss with her what she needs to work harder on. Not sure HOW they will comply with "No Child Left Behind" and the standards and testing, etc. That's their problem, not ours.
Our district doesn't have an ESL teacher, but it's great your daughter will have that advantage. There was already a high school Spanish student doing a independent study in our daughter's classroom when she arrived, so that helped her...although our daughter is very independent and wanted to "ignore" her Spanish from day one. Though we tried to encourage her to keep it, she would tell us she didn't remember Spanish. She is just now starting to embrace it again, and we are so glad for that. A friend had told me that our daughter would need to "lose" her Spanish in order to concentrate on learning English. I don't know if "lose" is as accurate as "ignore". She does remember it still after one year of trying to deny it for nearly one year. We're thankful she still has it...especially when we bring home our next (and last???) child from the same orphanage. If I keep my eyes closed when we visit the orphanage at pickup, we might hold to that decision!
It must be really difficult for these kids to come and experience all these changes. I am amazed at and so thankful for our daughter's courage and resiliency! Your children will also make you so proud! May they come home as soon as is possible.
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