New teacher finds her greatest challenge is dealing with her charges' wide range of abilities

Series installments This series ran in five parts over nine months. One | Two | Three | Four | Five Featured video Part 2: They face special education with confidence, but three new teachers know there's a wide range of students with different needs. Watch video » Previous video: Part 1: Classroom discipline » Stephanie Leija Age: 28 Hometown: Westminster Education and experience: Graduated from Colorado State University in 1997 with a bachelor's degree in public relations. Worked in publishing for a year before joining Americorps as a bilingual tutor. Worked as a classroom bilingual tutor at Wheat Ridge Middle School for two years before joining an alternative teaching program. Why teaching? "I really wanted to do something I felt was going to make a difference." Video » Online extras Video essay, part 1: Three new teachers discuss their classrooms, how their education prepared them and the effect of a school's location on student discipline. Click here » Video essay, part 2: They face special education with confidence, but three new teachers know there's a wide range of students with different needs. Click here » Video essay, part 3: How prepared are new instructors to meet teacher requirements and students' academic goals? Three new teachers tackle standards. Click here » Video essay, part 4: Perhaps the most challenging aspect of teaching isn't dealing with students; it's with their parents. Click here » Video essays, part 5: The three new teachers reflect on the past year and talk about their futures in education. Dani Broe » Stephanie Leija » Erin O'Grady » Why teaching? Three newcomers to the profession explain why they want to be in the classroom. Erin O'Grady » Stephanie Leija » Dani Broe » Photo essay: A look inside the classrooms. Click here » Reader forum: Does Colorado prepare its teachers well? Sound off on the state of education. Click here » Teacher standards: A look at what new teachers must know to earn licensure. Click here » Colorado Senate Bill 154: In 1999, Gov. Bill Owens signed into law a bill concerning performance-based teaching programs. Click here » 360° photography: Virtual reality photos show how classroom set-ups affect discipline. Click here » More stories Part 5: In their own words Main story: A learning experience Dani Broe: Student teaching was most valuable Stephanie Leija: A few words bring immeasurable joy Erin O'Grady: Personal, academic triumphs in first year Part 4: Parents and the community Main story: Working with parents Dani Broe: Parterning with parents Stephanie Leija: Immigrant students a unique challenge Erin O'Grady: Cultural gaps test teachers Part 3: Standards Main story: High-stakes standards Dani Broe: Work sample a large hurdle Stephanie Leija: New teacher's road not easy Erin O'Grady: No simple answers to teaching reading PLACE test: Testing teachers Statistics: How prepared are Colorado's teachers? Part 2: Special education Stephanie Leija: Special needs struggle Dani Broe: Hands-on training in special needs Erin O'Grady: 23 students, 23 'classes' Higher education: Special education requirements Statistics: A look at special education Part 1: Discipline Main story: Ready, set, teach! Erin O'Grady: Inner-city teacher struggles for control Stephanie Leija: Teacher puts respect first Dani Broe: Student teacher: managing kids learned on the job Higher education: Classroom management requirements Statistics: Colorado teachers grade readiness About this series This is the second part in a series examining teacher preparation in Colorado through the eyes of two young teachers and one college senior preparing for a teaching career. This report examines the formidable challenge young teachers face from special education and first-time English learners. The first installment details how prepared teachers are to deal with classroom discipline and management. First installment » The third installment illustrates how well first-year teachers are equipped to meet teacher and student academic standards. Third installment » The fourth installment deals with teachers' abilities to interact with parents and the community. Fourth installment » The fifth installment looks at the past year in the teachers' own words. Fifth installment »

Some days, new teacher Stephanie Leija looks around her classroom at students who come from all over the world and wonders how she will ever manage to reach each one.

Adil, one of her Bosnian students, is fixated on WWF wrestling. And the boy from Somalia, the one who reads English aloud beautifully, is having a tough time with writing.

But Nancy, a shy girl from central Mexico, is slowly coming out of her shell, and her studious friend from northern Mexico is acing nearly all her classes.

Then there's the fidgety boy with the sweet smile and the mild learning disability. He also appears to be progressing. At least, as far as Leija can tell.

Four months into her first year teaching English as a second language at Wheat Ridge Middle School, Leija is struggling to help students whose needs are all over the map.

"I'm spending a lot of time trying to figure out what works and what doesn't," said Leija, 27, an alternative teacher who is earning her teaching license while on the job.

Every fall, new teachers walk into their classrooms and confront a central truth in education: Students of the same age and grade have a dizzying range of abilities.

For most new teachers today, that includes some students diagnosed with special-education needs and some students who are learning English, which can be tough jobs even for veteran educators.

New teachers — in Colorado and across the country — have uneven levels of preparation in teaching such special needs students. At the same time, the number of such students, namely English language learners, are growing rapidly statewide.

Sue Gill, a veteran teacher who works with some of the more than 700 new teaching hires every year in the Jefferson County School District, said many new teachers are overwhelmed by the diverse needs of their students.

"One of the things we really have to work with them on (is) how do you meet the needs of the variety of students in your classroom?" Gill said. "It has a huge impact, and it is one of the things that is very hard for our new teachers."

An increasing number of the newcomers are, like Leija, teachers engaged in on-the-job training. Within a year, state education officials say one in five teachers trained in Colorado will come from such programs.

In addition, a growing number of teachers are hired every year on one-year "emergency" licenses. Unlike their peers in alternative-teaching programs, emergency teachers are not required to undergo training, receive mentoring or pass a state teacher test within a year.

Alternative and emergency teachers tend to work with some of Colorado's neediest students: those learning English and those receiving special education. There's a severe teacher shortage in both areas, said Gill and Carol Ruckel, head of teacher licensing in Denver Public Schools.

"The optimum situation for kids in a perfect world would be to have a fully licensed and properly endorsed teacher in every classroom," Ruckel said. "Particularly in these areas, there aren't enough of them."

It is a wintry Tuesday, the day before a big test, and students in Leija's second-period class are jumping up and down with excitement.

She has prepared a version of the game show Jeopardy! as a test warm-up. As she explains the rules in English to her eager students, some look puzzled.

So Leija, despite her resolve to stop speaking so much Spanish, the native language of each student in this class, gives in and switches over.

A student, Juan, pipes up: "Speak English, please."

With just three English as a Second Language classes completed, Leija still is figuring out some aspects of her classroom instruction.

She has spent much of the year agonizing over this issue: How much should she use her fluency in Spanish to help her students learn English?

"It's easier," she says, to revert to Spanish to explain a vocabulary word or a concept to her native Spanish speakers, the majority of her students.

Yet her Spanish-speaking students don't seem to be learning English as quickly as her students from other countries.

Abdulkadir, 13, from Somalia, talks easily to classroom visitors after only nine months in America. But a girl from Mexico, in the United States for more than a year, asks for a translator.

"It becomes a crutch for them," Leija said of her Spanish use. "They know I'm going to do it, and they wait for me to start speaking in Spanish."

When Leija has such questions, she typically does not take them to her weekly "how to be a teacher" class on Monday nights.

Her alternative program, a teacher-in-residence program or TIR, has touched only briefly on special-needs students, she said. She's heard "little, very little" about English as a second language, or ESL, students.

Similarly, Leija said her TIR classes have touched only "a tiny bit" on special-education students. Four of her students have been diagnosed with mild to moderate learning disabilities.

Instead, Leija said her TIR classes have focused largely on general-education preparation, such as lesson planning and classroom management. Her 31 TIR classmates teach a wide variety of subjects in the Jefferson County and Sheridan school districts.

Steve Cohen, project director of Leija's TIR program, said classes this semester begin to focus on tailoring instruction for special-needs students.

"You have to make some choices," Cohen said. "There is so much they need to know."

TIR does provide Leija a mentor teacher, and that's who she turns to for help with ESL. Connie Kowal, a multicultural resource teacher in Jefferson County, typically visits Leija's classroom once a week.

It was Kowal who encouraged Leija to begin taking ESL classes through the University of Colorado at Denver, though she was not required to do so until next year. A Jefferson County grant is picking up much of the tuition.

The ESL classes make Leija's schedule hectic. For most of this school year, she has taught full time, taken classes three nights a week and also crammed for her teacher-licensing test.

Leija said it's worth it.

"Every time I go to my ESL classes, I come back with something new I've learned," she said.

Leija is less confident about working with her special-education students.

In the fall, she received paperwork identifying those children, describing their disabilities and suggesting modifications to instruction, such as "shorten written assignments."

Leija does so. She believes many ESL strategies — lots of visual cues, a simpler vocabulary — also benefit her students with mild disabilities. She hopes it's enough.

"I'm not always sure," she said. "Can they do more? You don't want to frustrate them."

But Leija also can't be certain if a student's lack of progress stems from a language problem or a learning disability.

She worries about a girl who came to her classroom behind grade level in her native language. The girl has not been diagnosed as a special-education student, but she is easily distracted and she has yet to absorb much English.

"The difficulty is knowing, is it a language problem or a learning disability?" Leija asked.

On a November morning, Leija steps in front of a classroom of Wheat Ridge Middle School teachers and begins lecturing in Spanish. They look puzzled.

She passes out papers and continues speaking in Spanish. Clearly, it is a lesson of some kind. Most of the teachers do not understand a word she is saying.

And that's her point.

"This is how your ESL kids feel," Leija said she told them, recounting the staff training. "I want every single person to understand this does affect you. Every single one of you has an ESL kid in your class."

Then she, with Kowal's help, showed them some strategies they can use.

Leija's duties as the school's only English as a second language teacher extend beyond her classroom. She is, she likes to say, her students' "voice."

She sees her students 55 minutes per day in ESL. Many also return to her room for literacy class, where Leija strives to adapt the schoolwide reading program to fit ESL needs.

Otherwise, ESL students sit in core academic classes taught in English. An ESL tutor, Rosie Morales, accompanies those with the lowest English ability.

It is Leija's job to monitor the academic progress of the school's 81 ESL students and to make certain their other teachers are modifying lessons and homework so they can learn.

"Most teachers forget they have some ESL kids," said Sejbija, 14, a girl from Bosnia. But, she adds, "If you ask them for help, they all help you."

Leija said she has no problem advising veteran teachers about ESL. Only a few teachers at Wheat Ridge, which has had a rapid influx of immigrant students, have formal training in working with English-language learners.

Before she became the ESL teacher, Leija was her school's ESL tutor for two years. She heard teachers grumble about students who barely knew English. One teacher even sent ESL students to the office rather than teach them.

Now that she's a teacher, Leija said she is more confident about explaining that teaching English-language learners is required by law.

"If I can't be an advocate in this position, then I shouldn't be in this position," she said.

Her confidence in the classroom is also growing.

Sure, she still has questions. She isn't sure why Alba, a smart girl from Mexico with top grades, won't speak more English in class. She wants to boost her skills in teaching writing to help Abdulkadir, the boy from Somalia.

But most of her students seem to be eager learners. When she asks, they volunteer in class, hands shooting into the air.

Even Adil, the Bosnian student whose first English words were about WWF pro wrestler "The Rock," raises his hand, "Can I? Can I go first?"

That may be because of Leija's tough admonitions not to make fun of one another's accents. And it may be because she encourages them to retain their native language, despite jeers from some other students, even as they learn English.

"It's going to be easier for them to learn English if they're literate in their first language," Leija said. "If you teach them language is important, not just English, they'll see how powerful it is to learn two languages."

One recent morning, she led a class of Spanish speakers to the school library to check out newly purchased books from Mexico. The students made their picks and then settled into bean-bag chairs.

Leija sat down beside a student, Gilberto, as he opened a scary story.

"There are days when I think, hmm, that didn't go very well," Leija said. "I do have a lot to learn. But there are things I know for sure, and I know for sure these kids are assets to our school."

Contact Nancy Mitchell at mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com. or (303) 892-5245.