VANCOUVER, Washington—
The visitor hadn't been in the building more than five minutes when she declared delightedly, "This is an international school!"

To this first-time visitor—a well-traveled photographer who's fluent in Spanish—the school's colorful mix of languages and cultures could only be a good thing. That's the way Principal Marianne Thompson sees it, too. Sure, serving kids from all over the planet in one place is tough. But, she says, think of the plusses: sharing cultures, learning languages, building bridges of understanding. Just the other day, she says, the school admitted the trilingual children of a Japanese father and a French mother.

"In a global economy," Thompson says, "where the whole world is just a keystroke away from anyplace, being bilingual or trilingual is a big advantage."

Remarkably, this six-year-old school with nearly 40 percent English-language learners, boasts rising test scores and dwindling discipline problems. By turning the conventional wisdom about risk factors on its head, Thompson and her staff at Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary have earned the Distinguished Title I School award from the U.S. Department of Education. Better yet, they've won the trust of a veritable UN of parents, whose passports originate in places as far-flung as Russia, Central and South America, Ukraine, Bosnia, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Romania, China, Laos, and the Philippines.

Coming from countries where schools often are off-limits to parents, and principals are stern authority figures, these newcomers are astounded by Roosevelt's open arms. Translators guide parents through the school registration process in their native tongue—and invite them to visit their child's classroom any time. Teachers ask them to parent-teacher conferences—and call back to remind them. Thompson wears a T-shirt and shorts to the back-to-school hotdog feed—and lets kids toss a cream pie in her face.

"In Russia, you cannot throw pie at the direktor!" she observes with a wry smile.

Signs and banners reading "Welcome" in four languages hang everywhere—outward symbols of a schoolwide attitude that embraces kids and families from throughout the world community. Because of this welcome mat, parents turn out for school events in numbers that would make even some affluent suburban schools envious. Fully 93 percent of immigrant parents show up for parent-teacher conferences, accompanied by staff translators. PTA participation has quadrupled—from 30 to 120—in the four years since Roosevelt became a Title I Schoolwide program. Thompson, who took the principal's post that same year, says parents come for a simple reason: "We call them."

School-community liaison Evelyne Tumanoff, a native of France who speaks Russian as well as French and English, helps smooth the way for newcomers—not just at school but also in this neighborhood where modest apartments and tract homes have sprouted among small farms and open fields. One family lost their medical coupons, so Tumanoff "made a few phone calls." A mother needed a program for her four-year-old, so Tumanoff put her in touch with Head Start. She leads family field trips to museums and parks in nearby Portland. She smoothes over cultural misunderstandings ("From a little incident, you can have a mountain," she notes). And sometimes, she just holds the hands of anxious parents.

The personal touch is what the immigrant families like most about Roosevelt. A recent survey of non-native parents brought in 80 responses in every language—all positive. "The main thing they liked was the attention and respect from the teachers for their children, and the patience they have," says Tumanoff.

That personal attention and patience is possible because of the school's huge pool of paraprofessionals. An army of 25 staff assistants speaking at least four foreign languages backs up and supports the school's 36 certified teachers. Paid for by two large federal grants—$250,000 yearly for Title VII (English-language learners) and $200,000 yearly for Title I Schoolwide—the paraprofessionals work both inside and outside the classroom. In the classroom, they give native-language assistance to keep kids on target in content areas. Outside the classroom, they work with small groups, often previewing upcoming lessons and reading stories in English, going over spelling, pronunciation, meaning, and concepts.

"The staff assistants," says Thompson, "function sort of like a staff within a staff."

She identifies two keys to getting maximum benefit from paraprofessionals: One, they get lots of training in instructional strategies, and two, they work closely and cooperatively with the classroom teacher. "If a teacher and a Title I paraprofessional and a Title VII paraprofessional are planning together and coordinating materials and working in close proximity to the classroom," she says, "there's not a more powerful way to personalize instruction and lower that adult-to-child ratio."

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