An inside look at struggling students
School studies young immigrants
Like many other public school principals, Barbara Boyle of the Graham & Parks School near Porter Square wondered how to better assist struggling students - particularly immigrant children who are constantly playing the catch-up game.
So, four years ago, when Nancy Rappaport - a child psychiatrist and director of school-based programs at the Cambridge Health Alliance - reached out to Boyle with an idea for a mental health study on discouraged students, Boyle was intrigued, if a bit skeptical.
"Nancy kept calling me and driving me crazy," Boyle said, "but we decided we'd work together. I've watched kids with tears streaming down their faces, feeling like they can't do it. I wanted to know what we could do for them socially, emotionally, and academically to make their transition to learning in English more successful."
With a grant from the National Institute of Minority Health, Rappaport, Boyle, and Margarita Alegria - director of the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research at the health alliance - set out to determine the most effective methods to help children who needed mental health services. At first, the focus was on special-education students. But with more than 30 percent of Graham & Parks students being immigrants who often failed the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test, the purpose of the study shifted to seventh- and eighth-graders who spoke English as a second language.
"This is a huge population that is falling through the cracks," said Alegria. "Our current system doesn't cater to their needs, and education is important for well-being throughout their entire lives. If they fail in school, it's like a life sentence."
In August, the results of the "community-based participatory research" study were published in the Journal of Community Psychology. The message of the article is not a solution, but a proposed method in how to work together as a community so that the maximum amount of resources and perspectives can be fused together.
Cambridge, said Rappaport, has always been "remarkably" receptive to self-reflection, making its schools ideal candidates for this type of project.
The researchers, principal, teachers, community members, and students had to keep an open mind throughout the process. The article delineates three "frameworks" that Rappaport considered crucial to the study's success: attachment theory, use of authentic self, and learned optimism.
"What excites me about this process of research is not coming in with an agenda but tapping the wisdom of a community and analyzing how to deliver services," she said. "It gives us many more years of experience combined, but it can also be slower and less cohesive."
Initially and throughout the study, frustrations arose. Rappaport admitted that redefined goals led to a restructured group of participants, meaning that a person's involvement in the study could become more or less pertinent over time.
Boyle, though, stuck with it and encouraged her seventh- and eighth-grade teachers to do the same.
"This was a learning curve for me," she said. "Working with the community at large and allowing them access to information taught us how to be together in a constructive way."
Alegria commended Boyle for being a "champion" in addressing the issues and credited the teachers for going "beyond the call of duty." Teachers met monthly to discuss individual student files and often tutored students after school. Existing resources were better utilized in more specific ways.
Rappaport said that immigrant students are often successful in acquiring language proficiency, but then hit major academic challenges when they make the transition into regular classrooms.
"Many of these kids have very low self-esteem and have to compete while not having the skills," she said. "It's very defeating, because they recognize a seemingly insurmountable gap."
It's difficult, said Rappaport, to stay engaged as an educator when the students are failing.
"It's a formidable challenge to get these kids ready for the MCAS when they've only been in the country for one year," she said.
But Alegria stresses the important of reaching out to immigrant students.
"This is a nationwide problem, and not paying attention to this population is a mistake," she said. Students have to make the transition quickly, often in the midst of other challenges like financial struggles and separation from family.
"The growth in population of this group in the census bureau is huge," Alegria continued. "And Cambridge is an amazing community on the forefront of social issues. We are taking responsibility for all children, not just some."
Because these students rarely venture beyond the school environment to seek help for distress, and because it's hard to reach out to their parents (many of whom work two or three jobs, according to Boyle), schools are the best place for children to receive care, said Alegria.
"There is hope, especially now that these teachers see their role as beyond just teaching," she said. "Just having the dialogue is thrilling, and it opened up doors." 