Educators face bilingual teacher shortage at Seaford Senior High School

SEAFORD, Del. – Students that are part of the minority groups Hispanic or Haitian at Seaford Senior High School are the center of attention for teachers and the administration.

“The Hispanic and Haitian population is just getting larger by the minute,” said Evelin Cameron, a teacher at Seaford Senior High School.

“I think that it’s not going to get any smaller, I think we’re growing,” said Cameron.

But, according to the school principal there are not enough bilingual teachers to help meet the needs of these students, or English Language Learners. And because of limited resources, it’s hard to keep up.

“When possible, our ELL teacher pushes into the classroom as well to try to give some support,” said Principal Jason Cameron.

“Obviously, there’s one of her and over a hundred ELL students so that kind of hurts that ratio,” said the principal.

That is why the school depends on its bilingual students to help close the gap by translating for teachers and English Language Learners.

“So, one of the things we do is we try to pair students up with other students who speak that language and English so they can help translate,” said Jason.

“Also, we try to group some of those students together in a class to kind of support each other,” said Jason.

“I ask them like what do they think and then Ms. Richardson tells me what to tell them just in case they don’t understand something,” said Nashmarie Valentin-Ceide, a bilingual student.

“It’s hard because sometimes I forget some words too, but I try my best and it feels nice to be able to help somebody,” said Valentin-Ceide.

School leaders hope they get more students like Nashmarie as the number of English Language Learners continue to grow while resources stay the same.

“There’s a student from Guatemala, a student from Mexico, a student from the Dominican Republic and all the different things that that brings it really shows what this country has become,” said the principal.