Student and Family Support

    • New Parent Welcome Night - This night Is the introduction to the EL Program’s support for new parents, helping them to understand the academic and social elements of our school.  This meeting takes place at school in the evening a few weeks after classes have started.
    • International Family College Night - This meeting is designed to allow parents to find out more information about the differences between the American system and the system they may know from their home countries. The meeting is co-hosted by the EL Coordinator, a representative from the New Trier Post-High School Counseling Office, and admissions officer from Northwestern University. This information may be useful to parents from English-speaking countries, as well as parents who speak other languages. The meeting is conducted in English, so the family should feel free to bring someone who can interpret if they do not speak English well. Students are welcome to accompany their parents.
    • Social-Emotuonal Support - In addition to the academic courses and activities,  we also have a commitment to supporting our students and their social and emotional growth. Toward this end, we work with the Social Work office to design a variety of group sessions to allow all of our English Learners to meet together or in small groups. We discuss issues like acculturation, getting connected in school, participating in activities, making new friends, and other topics that meet student needs.
    • Academic Support - Based on placement in an EL course and/or results from the most recent ACCESS test or WIDA Screener test, English Learners are eligible for specific accommodations. These include 50% extended time on all timed assessments to allow students to manage the language proficiency challenges of assessments in English.  Also, the use of appropriate assistive technology for translation on  timed assessments, typically Google Translate, and the use of appropriate assistive technology for live translation during classroom and advisery activities, including Google Translate. Students will also have access to class notes to allow student to focus on comprehension over in-class note taking. Finally, EL students are eligible for extra time and support for grammar and spelling in English writing, when these are graded components of an assignment. This support can come from the classroom teacher (or SILC), the EL English Resource teacher, an EL Instructional Assistant, or from the AAC. Use these links to find information about EL accommodations for the SAT test and ACT Test.
    • EL Scholarship - We conduct a variety of fundraisers to raise money for the EL Scholarship fund. This scholarship gives us a way to support our graduating seniors with financial need and to recognize their growth and success at New Trier. Click here to donate.