Ileana Najarro is a reporter for Education Week covering race and opportunity in schools across the country. She previously wrote for the Tampa Bay Times and the Houston Chronicle.
Dalia Gerardo's 2nd grade classroom at West Elementary in Russellville, Ala., is pictured here in December 2022. The classroom features both English and Spanish labels and wall decorations.
Marlena Young-Jones, an ESL teacher at West Elementary in Russellville, Ala., works with a class of students late last year. The district's investment in professional development and supports for English learners sends a strong signal about their importance, she says.
Dalia Gerardo, a bilingual teacher, works with her 2nd grade students at West Elementary, in Russellville, Ala., on Dec. 9, 2022. Gerardo's classroom features bilingual signs that support her English learners—and encourage monolingual English speakers to engage with Spanish.
To meet the needs of a growing English learner population, Russellville City Schools has hired 10 new bilingual aides, including Elizabeth Alonzo, pictured here before a class at West Elementary on Dec. 9, 2022.
History teachers from across the country discuss innovative ways to teach racial history at a conference hosted earlier this month by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University.
Maria Ramadane, the instructor of the career switcher course, talks to her students during class at James Monroe High School on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022 in Fredericksburg, Va.
People speak out against anti-Asian hate following mass shootings in Atlanta that left eight people dead, including six Asian Americans, in March 2021.
Marchers wave flags as they walk at the St. Pete Pier in March during a rally to protest against a bill forbidding instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in K-3 classrooms. That bill has since become law.
Marchers wave U.S. and rainbow flags as they walk at the St. Pete Pier in St. Petersburg, Fla., in March. They were protesting a controversial bill passed by the Florida legislature restricting discussion of LGBTQ issues in the elementary grades.