Grade school revamps as more Latino students arrive

Since Roxana Segura's family moved to a mobile home park in Inver Grove Heights, she has watched the Latino population blossom at both Skyline Village and nearby Pine Bend Elementary.

The number of children from Skyline Village attending the school has doubled in the past few years, to about 70, including many students whose families speak Spanish at home.

"I don't think that the school was kind of prepared for all these changes," said Segura, who has two children enrolled at Pine Bend.

In response, the school is revamping its relationship with the mobile home park. This month Principal Ruth Ann Moore plans to roll out an after-school tutoring program.

Third- through fifth-grade students will get help with their homework in the community room at Skyline Village,. In addition, extra English lessons will be offered at Pine Bend for a half-dozen kindergarteners.

"Slowly but surely, it's transforming our school, and we're just trying to keep up with the demands and needs of this community," Moore said.

The programs come as welcome news to parents such as Segura, whose 6-year-old daughter, Gisselle, is struggling with the new language because of hearing problems. "I'm really glad she's going to get more English classes," said Segura, originally from Mexico.

The school has also recruited volunteers to spend one-on-one class time with students who are just learning the language.

Fueled by the migration of immigrant families to the suburbs, the demographic shift at Pine Bend reflects changes in the entire school district. The percentage of minority students in Inver Grove Heights has gone from 13 percent from five years ago to 22 percent in the 2006-2007 school year.

At Pine Bend, the number of Hispanic students -- the district's largest minority group -- has jumped from 21 in 2001 to 46 last school year. In the same period, free and reduced-price lunches increased to 115, up from 68. And the number of non-native English speakers is going up, with seven enrolling at the school in the last month alone, Moore said.

Many students in all three categories live in Skyline Village, a community of 400 mobile homes where American flags and swing sets crowd tiny yards. The park manager estimates that a quarter of the families are Hispanic.

The school is still adjusting to its new diversity. "So we're looking at what other schools have been doing and just trying to create our own little system," Moore said.

In an effort to spread minority enrollment, the district began giving Cedar Knolls parents the option of sending their children to other elementary schools in the fall of 2006, and this fall turned Cedar Park into a magnet school.

Moore said she hopes the new after-school program in Skyline Village, which the school is calling the Skyline Spartan Club, will build friendships among students. A previous program with about 15 students that Pine Bend started in the park three years ago -- then canceled for lack of funding -- did just that.

"Our goal was to get those kids to feel like a cohesive group and a club, and that's what happened," she said.