STAMFORD -- Students walked to school every day and sat two per desk in Ukraine, Alona Gentry, 11, told her classmates in Room 143 at Scofield Magnet Middle School. There were no lockers, students wore uniforms and cleaned the classroom themselves.
"Two people had to stay after school," she explained during her presentation on Friday afternoon. This didn't surprise many of her classmates.
When the teacher, Dorothy Kessler-Banner, asked the other 17 students seated facing Alona, how many had to clean their classrooms in their home countries, about half raised their hands. Since this is the New Arrivals class for middle school, its students come from around the world.
Alona then continued with her presentation, a Venn diagram which broke down the similarities and differences between school in the United States and Ukraine, her home country. After she finished, her classmates peppered her with questions about school in Ukraine: Where do you eat lunch? Is it free? Do you have a drinking fountain?
The New Arrivals program enrolls students who have been in the United States for less than a year and need help with English, Kessler-Banner said. On Friday, a handful of students presented their diagrams, drawn on poster board and decorated with flags. Students can spend up to a year in the class, which pulls students from the district's four other middle schools; they can arrive and leave at any time during the school year. A similar program for younger children is at Davenport Ridge Elementary School.
