Christen Graham: What did their first grade classroom in this refugee tent look like? Compared like of course they’re wandering around the classroom because they were sitting in rooms of 70 kids just sitting and we are telling them, go to the carpet and then go to this table and go to the cafeteria and then go to recess.

Like they don’t know what the heck is going on. ’cause it’s a different world. When we know and make those connections, then we tend to be able to better serve academically too. 

Mandi Morris: Welcome to the ML Chat podcast. I’m Mandi, your host, and I’m back today with Andrew who co-hosted with me. We had such a wonderful guest today. Christen Graham is in Fayetteville, Arkansas and just doing a lot of great work, just ground up work and has so much passion and energy about the work that she’s doing. Andrew. 

Andrew Brandt: It was a fun conversation that touched on a little bit of everything, and part of that I think was ’cause Christen’s just done a lot of different things and had a lot of different experiences. But I think [00:01:00] the part that I loved is that it all came back to the importance of just loving the students, loving the people you work with, and just being passionate.

Letting that show through, and I love that underlying theme. 

Mandi Morris: Yeah, it really stood out to me as well that Christen is from Arkansas, her parents are from Arkansas, her grandparents, she has this history in the state and she’s lived all over the state, and it just made it feel like she’s so committed to the success of her colleagues, to the success of the students she’s serving in the state That just.

There’s something so special about that when an educator is really that invested in the place where they’re working. So let’s go listen to this awesome conversation with Christen. 

Today’s guest is Christen Graham, an educator and advocate dedicated to multilingual learners. Christen’s career has taken her from a small Arkansas classroom to teaching in Mexico, then back home to lead alternative ed and ESL programs. She launched Fayetteville High School’s newcomer program and has spent the past eight years [00:02:00] as director of ESL for Fayetteville Public Schools guiding the district through rapid growth and increasing diversity among English learners.

She’s also president of Arkansas tesol, a mom of two, and a doctoral candidate at the University of Arkansas. Kristin, welcome to the ML Chat podcast. We are really excited to have you here today. I’m 

Christen Graham: excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me. 

Mandi Morris: Just to get started, tell us a little bit about your school district.

What is it like working in a school district that has a growing number of English learners? We’re gonna dig in to some of the specifics that you’ve done around newcomer work, but just give us an overview. An overview so we can get a feel for your school district and the students you’re serving. 

Christen Graham: Yeah, I’m in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which is the home to the University of Arkansas.

Go Razorbacks. We’re good at basketball, but I’m not saying go Razorbacks in football right now. Um, because of that, we’ve always had a, a good number of English learners, [00:03:00] but typically connected to the university in addition. Bentonville, Arkansas is just up the road from us and that’s the home of Walmart.

And then Tyson headquarters are in Springville, Arkansas, which is a the city adjacent to us. So we’ve always had a lot of professionals coming in and out of northwest Arkansas. I grew up in a very small town in Arkansas, and very homogenous town, very rural. I didn’t know anybody who wasn’t white and wasn’t English speaking, and it wasn’t because I didn’t.

Want to, it’s just, that was my reality. When I graduated from college, I started teaching through Teach for America and my student teaching was in Houston there, and so I, I was very excited to work with a lot of Spanish speakers, a lot of students in Ward Five, in the fifth ward, and I just piqued my interest.

I’d always been interested in other languages. I was very, very linguistically minded, always and excited to interact with people from different cultures. Even having grown up in that small town when [00:04:00] then I moved to Mexico and that really changed my whole entire mindset and I, when I came to Fayetteville, I started an alternative school, but soon the ESL position at our high school opened and the ESL had always been like.

Literally in a basement. And like many people, I think experience with ESL, and because I lived in Mexico, everyone was like, oh, she can take these kids. And so I was excited to get to enter into that program, but saw a lot of disconnect between. Those professor students and the students who were moving here, and there were many moving here from other countries, particularly from Mexico and Central America.

That was 15 years ago. At that time, we were about 50% highly educated English learner populations with a lot of transfer skills. And then about 50% more recent arrivals in almost all Spanish speaking. 

Mandi Morris: Christen, let’s go back for a second. I wanna hear about how you got connected with [00:05:00] Teach For America. I’ve met some incredible educators in my career that started out with Teach for America, and many of them have.

Some type of similar connection that they went to a state outside of their home, outside of what they knew they got to experience a different culture, even within the United States, a different locale, and that it really spurred them into ESL education often. So talk a little bit about that specifically.

How did you get connected and how long did you work with them before you then moved to Mexico to teach?

Christen Graham: I frequently 

say, I 

know all the good and all the bad about Teach for America, but I know what people think about the TFA system both positively and negatively. But for me it really was like life altering and it did change my trajectory and a lot of times I point back to.

My hometown is home to the KKK. That’s what people know about my hometown. And then I, and I hate that. I never want to say that, oh, this is what’s true for my [00:06:00] background, but it is. That is what’s true. My parents had grown up in eastern Arkansas and the Delta, it’s very, and that’s Teach For America, does have programming in the Delta, and that’s actually where some of their strongest programming is.

I left my hometown and went to. At Baptist University in Arkansas. I’ve studied English and political science, and as I was ending my college career, I was prepping for law school, but one of my political science professors was like, Christen, you haven’t written a single paper that wasn’t on ed policy.

Every single time you have an opportunity to study something, you look at international ed policy that was driven by. Being from a rural school and at the time the governor in our state was really trying to consolidate school districts, and my school district was very successful. Students were coming out very successfully from this very small rural school, and I was part of a coalition of rural.

Students who were fighting against that consolidation. [00:07:00] So that had piqued my interest in ED policies. I’d been involved in like national conventions for rural education, and I had never heard of Teach for America. But as I’m getting ready to go to law school, it’s like I think that you might. Consider this.

So I did. I applied in, like I said, I was initially in Houston, but I ended up pioneering at a school district in the Delta where my cousin was on the school board, which is really interesting too. They didn’t know that Teach for America did not know that when they placed me there and I got to live with my grandparents and work with.

Students in this small school district, which I got to see even the culture my parents grew up in, in a different light. I had been back all the time to see my grandparents in the summertime, but I didn’t live a real life there. I didn’t get to connect with people. I spent whole summers, but I wasn’t going to schools.

So then being in that system really. It was life altering. Actually, my first year of teaching a student burned our [00:08:00] building to the ground in the middle of the school day and, and so I frequently tell new teachers, you’re gonna be okay. I was teaching seventh and eighth grade English. I walked in, where are my books?

We don’t have any books, but this is pre every kid having a Chromebook, like I’m making copies. But I always felt supported by the people I was working with and Teach for America. And the thing that like, I think shaped me the most in TFA, I did not get to make excuses. Like it just was never an option to say it’s because of this location or it’s because of these things.

It was what am I gonna do and how can I step into this and how can the people around me step into this? It makes me wanna cry because I just felt like that the building burning the ground could have been horrible and it, and it is horrible. Nobody wants that to have happened. But actually the school district that I’m in today, which is hours away, two different parts of the state, I’m in northwest Arkansas and that is like.

Southeast Arkansas. We are very wealthy in northwest [00:09:00] Arkansas. Our tax base is strong. That is not true in the Delta. And when the building burned the school, the fifth and sixth grade school that my daughter is at right now, gathered books and sent them. And I got to use those books to teach those students and we made great progress.

And then that year. Previously, none of the students of the grade levels I was teaching had passed the state exam. None. Zero. 50% did score proficient that year. I don’t think that 22-year-old me was making all the difference in the world. But I do think that community made a difference and that people gathered around us and that I believed in the idea that those rural students deserved a chance the same way.

I as a rural student, deserved a chance the same way kids right here in Fayetteville today do. And I used to say I am not very brave, but I have learned as an adult, like I’m really brave. I did a lot of things as a young adult that some of it is because you’re a young [00:10:00] adult and you do stupid things when you’re 25.

But all my stupid things that they shaped who I am today and shaped how I see the world and I think for the better. Like I, I don’t have to own being from a hometown that is. White nationalist. I get to say I changed and it was due to proximity and it was due to being willing to go into the world. I had studied abroad in college.

I had worked with international students, but those things changed who I was and Teach For America did too. And my experience there. My time in Houston really had made me want to work with Spanish speakers and I was like, I’m gonna move to Mexico, and my mom was like. If you don’t even know if this school is real, you can’t just move to Mexico and gave me an arbitrary date for when I should resign.

But I moved to Guadalajara and the school was real and I learned, and I worked with students in a bilingual school. I thought I knew Spanish and I didn’t know Spanish. I got to be in a different space and like, I think it’s really important for all of us to [00:11:00] get to step into spaces where our identities are shaped by being the other and to, and by being around.

Others who are able to step in and fill our voids and I don’t know, teach for America was just for me, that is what TFA is, even though I know that there are other people who have different experiences with that too. 

Mandi Morris: It sounds like it gave you an opportunity to do some really deep self-reflecting and identity.

Searching, some soul searching. And I think it’s really powerful and a lot of people can identify with, I grew up in this place and this is the culture that I grew up in, but now I’m old enough to start questioning it. And that questioning can be scary and uncomfortable and it can put you in a vulnerable place ’cause it can put you at odds with your home, with your family, with your community.

But to have the bravery and the courage to lean in to some of that reflection and that questioning is. So powerful and has almost certainly [00:12:00] impacted you as an educator, impacted the work that you’ve been able to do. I can only imagine the positive influence it has had on students and educators that you’ve been able to work with.

I love that you pointed out. You teachers are scrappy. Like we have to be scrappy. Like you walk into a classroom like we don’t have any textbooks, good luck. And that’s not an uncommon story. I think most teachers have experienced a version of that at some point and you’re, you’re scrappy, figure it out.

And we rely on one another. And that is one of the most beautiful parts of education are these amazing educators that we get to work with. And it sounds like that’s been a really powerful part of your career. So let’s go back to your current role where you are right now. If you were to tell us just like what are some highlights, like what are some things about your school district, the work you’re doing for English learners right now that you feel really excited about, or you just feel really proud of the teachers you’re working with, that this is a hard thing and we’re [00:13:00] making great gains in.

What’s the thing? 

Christen Graham: Yeah, I, I actually, when I moved back to Arkansas, I started back as an ESL teacher and that’s the program type or this program model that Arkansas used at the time. So I’m using ESL, I don’t care what you call it. I know that we all say different things, but as an ESL teacher. And worked with a lot of the teachers that I still work with today.

I was part of a district team and then I moved away into that neighboring district where Tyson is, is a curriculum specialist and met actually someone who is my best friend and who is, was also former Teach for America, and we worked as ESL curriculum specialist in that district and then moved into this role together as co-directors.

And I think that that really has been. Something that I am proud of, but also can say it has shaped a lot of my work. I have always wanted to be collaborative, like it’s that idea of we, [00:14:00] we do this in community and this work is done in community now. She became a state representative and I became just director and I don’t have CO in front of my name, but during that early planning stages, we really spent time on a mission statement that I.

To today, we still go back to in our department, and I know mission statements can be really like co compliancy and everybody’s supposed to have one, but it is something that helps me always reflect on where our firm’s been, where we’re going, and what we should be celebrating. And so we just went with.

We we’re big alliterations and we both English majors. So we, we talk about empowering, and I won’t read the whole thing, but we talk about empowering English learners to both learn English and to meaningfully and equally participate in school, equipping teachers and staff, and then engaging families and in community.

And when I’m reflecting on what’s happened in our district and what, what work we still need [00:15:00] to do. I always go back to those three things. What are we doing well to empower English learners? What are we doing well to equip teachers? What are we doing well to engage families in the community? And what aren’t we doing?

If this is what we s we’re about, what can we still do? So when I think about our program today. That eight years ago when we entered in, everything looked like it did when I started in Fayetteville. I mean it was like about 50 50 and a lot of students were coming with strong academic backgrounds. And then our city in 2017 became home to our refugee resettlement organization in 2021 with the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, we received a large number of Afghan refugees and.

In December, January, and that reshaped everything about our school system and what we needed to do to respond to those students. And so at that time, we had English language development classes in place for all students and at their proficiency level. [00:16:00] And we had really worked really hard to make sure that those things were in place and that ESL teachers had curriculum to use and it wasn’t go find your own textbook and make up your own lessons, but.

In that moment, we had to think about a new group of students that we were trying to empower to learn English. We did have some life students, but they were rare, and at this point we got a large number and continued to have more and more newcomers come. And so I’m really proud of how quickly we responded and were able to respond to the needs of diverse English learners.

I think it’s really easy to say we’ve got programs in place for English learners and that. Looks the same for all of ’em, and it’s a cookie cutter, and we’re doing all the same things, but we were able to say that what we have in place isn’t gonna work for this group, and it didn’t. And so we started a junior high newcomer center, which we had not had.

We had the high school newcomer center because I had. Started it years before even that had to be reshaped and we had to think through [00:17:00] what we were doing in summer programming. Then the next year we were able to add classes for our third and fourth graders and for our fifth and sixth graders, and so I’m really proud of.

That work we’ve done for more recent arrivals and really the quick turnaround for it today, about 40% of our English learner population has been in US schools less than three years. That’s a huge percentage, particularly in a place that is home to a university where everyone’s. Really comfortable with professionals and students from professional backgrounds, and I will always celebrate that work and I will celebrate a lot of the equipping we did for teachers.

Equipping teachers is hard because of time. We know that and because of all the other initiatives that are thrown on top of their, of. Of Eng. English learners are just one small group that they’re working with, but teachers showed a lot of interest in learning about culture and learning about our students’ academic backgrounds, and in figuring out how to be better for the students they were [00:18:00] seeing.

And so we started a program called Next Level Leaders and teachers gave time after school to come in and think about what services look like for more recent arrivals and for students who do have these gaps in learning. Period, not just in learning English. And so I think that Next Level Leaders program has been really fun to celebrate too, and to say there was like 58 teachers who were coming after school on their own, not getting paid anything.

And so that many people were excited to come and to then go start leadership groups in their schools for English learners. Something else I would celebrate. 

Mandi Morris: Christen, I wanna go back for a moment and learn a little bit more about your educator leadership program that you have, because I think that there’s something really powerful, and I’m wondering in particular, are those teachers that are just grade level content teachers?

Are those ESL teachers in particular? I love that you used the word [00:19:00] leadership and that teachers were going back into their schools and leading their own work within their schools. There’s something so powerful about that. Admin can’t be everywhere all at once from district level, nor should you be, right?

Like the whole point of your role is to try to empower others and educate others so they can do that meaningful work within their building. So unpack for us a little bit, what did that look like? Who was there, and then how long did you have that available for your teachers? 

Christen Graham: Our district had some kind of leadership program for aspiring administrators, and I was always.

And they met after school, and I felt like that was a model that we could tap into possibly for other areas because a lot of teachers will con, and I’m sure other coordinators and directors get these kinds of questions too. A lot of teachers will call me and say, or. Email me and say, I wanna be an ESL teacher.

What can I do? Or, and we were interviewing for jobs, for [00:20:00] E, for ESL specific roles, e, l, d, specific roles in our schools and not having necessarily. Content area teachers who were ready to step into those roles, they would say very general things. We would ask what kinds of things. What I also ask interview questions around our mission statement.

So I would say, what does it mean to learn English and how do you teach students in a meaningful way? And we would get very typical, oh, use TPR and give a visual. And all of those things are. Fine, but it’s also what you’ve learned in a theory class and what you can Google and get. And so I wanted people to be able to have conversations and go deeper.

At the same time, we were working with Arkansas, was working with Solution Tree and we were had talked a lot with, or I’d been to enough sessions with Louise Cruz to talk about, I think he calls it the ESL task or the. English Learner Task Force, but that leadership group, so I was mu trying to think through how do we [00:21:00] connect with teachers who want to be leaders in ESL get help, build their capacity at a time when that.

Then when we have availability to see them so they don’t have to miss students and move toward a distributive model, because it is really important that you have a distributive model. To your point, we have 17 schools. I can’t be in all of them all day answering those questions. So we tapped into that same aspiring leaders idea.

And then I actually was like, why don’t we just have a different series and call these next level leaders? So we got to be the first group. I just flyered it and sent an email and encouraged schools to send whichever content area teachers they wanted to and allowed teachers to, to tap in and do that or, and choose to be part of that group.

Some of our schools that were hit. With a much larger population, showed up with 10 and 12 teachers and teacher groups. There’s a school, it’s our, it’s the [00:22:00] school that’s just right beside my office. They, their entire third grade team came. Those kinds of that energy, like really. I, I guess the students moving in created a lot of energy and it was really exciting to, to get to, to just see who did wanna show up.

And schools with higher populations of ills had larger groups, and our elementary schools had larger groups of teachers show up than our high schools did, which was also interesting. But still, it helped guide and shape what we did during that time. So during that time. We, I’m sure many districts experience this with professional learning, so frequently programs and services like Special ed and ESL get a 30 minute compliance.

Time during faculty meetings to make sure you know everything you need to know about LS and the, and then get complaints about how nobody gets extra training in. And so I tried to think through what is it we would want people to know? And we had four sessions each year and now we’re in a book study [00:23:00] session.

So this year we’ve moved into book reading in LS and we’re working through a book study together, but, and it’s still self-selected. Yes. 

Mandi Morris: I love what I’m hearing from you is that you had this need, an unexpected need of student population surge and you pivoted really quickly to try to offer support to schools.

And sometimes what you hear is we’ve got this influx of. Students and then teachers are just like, I don’t have the bandwidth, I don’t have the tools, I don’t have the capacity. I can’t, all I feel is overwhelm. All I can see is all the things I can’t do or I’m not equipped to do. And what I’m hearing from you feels so positive.

You created this space. You invited anyone who wanted to come and like having a whole third grade team show up. That is huge. That is a huge shout out to those third grade teachers and to all the other teachers who came on their own time. But you said, okay, we can’t pay you. We can’t get subs, we can’t, but this is what [00:24:00] we can offer after school.

And teachers jumped at that opportunity to be there, to learn, to show up, to respond to this shifting student population, and just a huge. So much kudos to you and your teachers for showing up in that way. I am sure. It just had an amazing impact on how teachers felt empowered to do the right work for the students who were in their classroom.

Christen Graham: Now I am. Very grateful to the teaching staff in our district. When I started, about 7% of our student body were our district’s, about 10,000 students, and has run that number for years and years. About 7% were English learners. Today it’s about 11%, which I know percentage wise doesn’t sound big. But thinking about how many are recent arrivals like it, it could be easy to say.

It’s less than 10%. We’ll let somebody else take care of it, but they didn’t. And that was the classroom teachers really wanted to take care of this. I had one of those third grade teachers, in fact call me at six [00:25:00] in the morning, say, I need to know how to say good morning and posh too. And I was like, I’m gonna Google that and you can too.

But he was that so excited to welcome that student in a really meaningful way. And we hadn’t done a lot of a lot of training around that. I will say. Arkansas has, and I shout out to a lot of our ARC TSOL board members, particularly Judy Hobson and Mary Collins. They, we have an ESL ins, or now it’s called ES L Institute, where teachers can go to get their certification.

And so a lot of teachers have participated in that over the years too. But it’s a foundational classes. That third grade group had all been through that institute, so they were really. Already excited to know about students from different cultures and had some foundations to build on, but then we’re ready to go deeper and that was exciting too.

This is 

Andrew Brandt: awesome and it’s cool to see the impact you are having on your students. [00:26:00] I’m gonna share something that I thought was interesting, that your impact is going beyond your school district. And I’m not sure how aware you are of this, but at Flashlight we have a lot of, we work with a lot of districts around the country, a variety in, in quite a few in in Arkansas.

And as we, as it came up that you were gonna be a guest. Uh, in conversation. We had several school district directors say, Christen has had a huge impact on me and my program. And when I heard that, I immediately thought, okay, Christen must be doing some like side consulting or things like that to really impact your programs.

And so I dug a little deeper and it’s not the case. And I think that’s just a huge compliment to you. And I’m gonna ask you a really hard question and you can plead the fifth if you want. What is it that you see that has been something that you’ve been able to not impact your students, but the students and the teachers and the directors around the state?

Christen Graham: I think that when I talked about my own personal journey, I think back to me and that rural school district, and I had a ninth grade teacher who gave up her planning period every single day to teach [00:27:00] me by myself because she thought I needed something different, and she’s who got me connected into all that.

Into the rural schools movement, and I think that rural background and being, I’ve literally lived in every part of the state and I think that living in a small town, I know this is so cheesy, I felt like I’m like talking in a Hallmark movie, but I understand. My cultural background is really varied too, and I’ve lived in really small areas where I didn’t have a ton of access.

I did not have books. And I’ve lived in places where we’ve had plenty and I’ve worked in the school district with the most English learners. And I think that in all of those spaces, it really was like we do this together. And I, I think that my small town taught me at Levia Greena, my ninth grade English teacher.

Taught me that and I want that for Arkansas. I, golly, I’m not gonna be a crier. It’s, it is cheesy, but it really matters to me that kids have [00:28:00] access. I got access because of people to, to educate. I’m a first generation college student. I got access because people cared enough to see me and to give to me.

And I want that. I want that for all students, but I care about that deeply for English learners and for the people who are serving them around our state. And I know that Sherry and Huntsville has a large English learner population, but a very small district. And so when Sherry calls me, I am, I want to brainstorm with her, and I want to be somebody who encourages her, and I want to remember that.

Community matters and our back and our students’ backgrounds matter, but so do our backgrounds and our context and all of that. Like we, we can overcome this, but it does, we can overcome circumstances, but it does require doing it together. And so I hope that is what is true of me as a person and because other people have helped me overcome, I 

Andrew Brandt: don’t apologize at all.

And I was looking [00:29:00] forward to this podcast ’cause I’m like, okay, who is this director that’s had this great impact? And one thing, as we’ve been talking and I’ve just been listening to a lot of how you talk about the work you’re doing is it’s not that you have all the answers. You are very passionate about the work you’re doing, and that really comes through.

You’re just trying to figure out how do we serve these kids? And I think that’s just like the quote people remember how you made them feel. And your passion, I think, comes through for your teachers. I think it gets down to your students. For other directors in the state. It’s interesting ’cause in, in that little form that you filled out as a get to know you, you mentioned that you have imposter syndrome.

It’s interesting because you’ve got a great background, you’ve got a lot of diversity of like experience. You’ve got, you’re working on your doctorate, like how many credentials do you need before you no longer feel that imposter syndrome. I think the fact is like all of us feel that to a certain level.

If you care, you’re gonna feel that at different times. Because, ’cause we wanna be bigger and stronger and more capable than we [00:30:00] feel like we need to be to really serve our students the way they deserve to be served. And I think it’s important for us to remember that that’s the reality of caring is that we will feel that imposter syndrome.

But the important thing is just to care. And you, I can just feel it in how you do your work and how you talk about the work. Um, and I think it’s important with our students too, to remember that it’s not that we show up with a perfect lesson plan, it’s that we show up and care. Let them feel that the same way your ninth grade teacher has inspired you to go on and do amazing things.

’cause she cared. Yeah. 

Christen Graham: Well, and I think that was like when we did the next Level leaders, we started with knowing your students and that feels so basic, but it really was like, yeah, but do you know them? Do you, I don’t, you’re gonna tell me they like soccer. Great. That’s not what we mean. Like what are their strengths?

I’ve done a lot of work with our special education team and really tried to. You, you know, there’s just a lot of funding for ESL and there really isn’t that much law. There’s a lot of guidance, but not a lot of law. And [00:31:00] so trying to help make those connections for people and help, you know, also to simplify for teachers, but I’ve done a lot of work with our special education team and, and.

Love that they have, like their social history. There’s always a social history on students and for, and it’s done sitting with the family and finding out about the family. And so that is the work we did for knowing our students. Like, yeah, you can look at their scores, that they’re gonna be ones, it doesn’t matter that they scored ones.

What do you know about the. Have they studied English? And what did that look like? And what did their first grade classroom in this refugee tent look like? Compared like of course they’re wandering around the classroom because they were sitting in rooms of 70 kids just sitting and we are telling them, go to the carpet and then go to this table and go to the cafeteria and then go to recess.

Like they don’t know what the heck is going on. ’cause it’s a different world when we know. And make those connections, then we tend to be able [00:32:00] to better serve academically too. And so I, I think that’s been really important to me. And it isn’t just about, yes, data matters and yes, I do think that scores can be really helpful, but it’s not the only part of what does that one really mean for this particular kid.

And so really people are at the center and I do feel like that is. I feel like I’m speaking with integrity. When I say people really are what I’m passionate about. If you ask me what I love about my job, it has, I, I love linguistics. I can nerd out on all kinds of grammar. I love cultures, but I really love people and I am that, and I want that to be what drives my work and, and I hope that’s what dri I do think that’s what drives excellent teachers’ work.

Like when they. Don’t just say I care about, but really know they’re people that, that makes a difference. 

Andrew Brandt: No, I believe it. I think that we’re hearing that response from the people around you. I’m curious, what advice do you have for [00:33:00] a newer teacher who’s saying, who’s listening and saying, I wanna be a Christen.

I want to have that kinda impact on students and on others and on programs. Like what advice do you have? 

Christen Graham: I, I think proximity really matters. I think we can study a lot. I think that’s part of my imposter. I’m gonna say I think a thousand times too. Maybe you can change that. I think proximity really matters, but we can study and study.

I was working on my master’s in ESOL when I started teaching. It started the newcomer center. And of course those classes impacted me, but what really impacted me was Guillermo sitting in front of me. As an 18-year-old not being able to read, I gotta figure this out and I owe this to him. And so be being in the work and being willing to say, I’m going to look a little deeper for this one kid, for me, has changed much of what I, much of my.

Trajectory and I think being willing to acknowledge what, what isn’t going well, like that mission [00:34:00] statement and checking myself against that mission statement and saying, actually we’re not equipping teachers very well for this right now. Also changes my trajectory. Not beating myself up for, but saying this is something we can do better if I say I am about.

Teaching students to read and do are scores indicating that kids are learning to read? If they’re not, what am I gonna do differently? Those reflective practices matter. In light of who you say you are, I think that really matters too. Decide why you’re into education. My first year of teaching too, I have watched somebody open, and I say this to new teachers a lot, open a classroom.

We were supposed to model it after it was very militant. You might imagine I’m not very militant, like that’s not really my personality, but the school burning to the ground actually really helped because then I got to just be myself and realize, oh, this is who I say I am. I would rather do things that in alignment with who Christen Graham is at the time Christen Hall is, and I think that.

It is true in our classroom practices [00:35:00] too. Who do I say I am? Who do I say I wanna be about? Am I being that person? And am I willing to reflect on what lit? It’s not usually big changes, it’s usually little changes and getting closer to the student. We’re talking about knowing more about them and making the those adjustments.

Mandi Morris: Christen, you made a connection earlier between what SPED departments will do as far as like building out portfolios for students and the student’s story and how it involves the family and communication. You had mentioned earlier that family engagement is part of your mission statement, and I’m curious how.

What does that look work look like for you? Because the only way to get to know Afghan refugee families are coming is to have those family interviews and you need an interpreter for those conversations. It can be. Difficult to do because of funding, one, because of access to people with interpretation skills.

It, for a lot of reasons, timing to be able to [00:36:00] pull a teacher to have those interviews or admin to have those interviews. How have you tackled that in your school district when you had an influx of students? That sounds like it happened pretty quickly. What does that look like for you to build out this student story?

Christen Graham: Yeah, I think that was, it was frustrating in the beginning because, because. We have Canopy as our re canopy. Northwest Arkansas is our refugee resettlement organization, and they also were brand new and also quick inundation. Like a lot of change for them. They had folks on staff who were ready to help and come alongside families and help with enrollment.

But again, interpretation was really a big need. We. Like Minnie signed up for. I just quickly was like, we’ve got to find a language line. And we did. We used, we. Contract with the language line, a company, and I won’t talk about who it is, but that we’ve had great success with that. I had to get past.

Personally, I love co. Clearly, I [00:37:00] love conversation and so we had, we already had bilingual Spanish speaking liaisons and I think those conversations were always really warm and personal when we’re face to face. But I just had to like. Train myself to, to be warm and personal with the phone too. Great.

We’re calling, we’re pulling out the phone. That’s the resource we have. I can still smile through and do the same for office staff and our Spanish speaking liaisons. Use Probio to work, use our language line to work with families too. And so that was one way, but then quickly. Our area, it is four cities that are very closely connected to each other.

So a lot of this, and there were lots of Spanish speakers in this area. There are also a lot of Marshallese speakers, so we had resources for both of those language groups and, and even community resources. It was Pashtu and Dari, and we have a large population of Swahili speakers who have come in with our refugee resettlement organization too.

And we did not have folks to do that [00:38:00] work when funding became available. Arkansas gave all of their grant funding for refugees through Canopy and Canopy tried to give it to our school district. And I think maybe this is part of what people appreciate about or might the kinds of things people might say about me in Arkansas.

Of course I don’t like talking about myself, but. That I could have taken the money and hired liaisons for our district. I didn’t think that was a model that was gonna be helpful for all. And so I asked for that money to be used in our, we have cooperatives, educational cooperatives, and in our cooperative to hire an Afghan liaison, and now we have a Swahili speaking liaison.

And so having those folks, do we, I also work with migrant ed and our migrant ed program was going through our co-op and they were doing like. Tutoring in different districts, outsourcing that way. And so it made sense to me to say, let’s have a regional hub. And our regional Afghan [00:39:00] liaison is wonderful.

She was a law, a lawyer in Afghanistan, and she knows families and goes and does face-to-face. Conversations and home visits. I go with her if needed, but also like families trust her and so we just needed to build up systems. I think there, but then for our Spanish speakers, we, we’ve done many of the same things that other school districts have done.

We’re currently right this moment having a, our monthly parent. Chat Charla and they’re having a ada and I got to step in and do that work. And so we just try to find opportunities to go to families. I think it’s really important to do that. And when students enroll, we have a parent interview. We do that work right then, and we, our district has central registration and so everybody comes together.

We sit in a room together, ask those stories, and then connect to these different communities. I think it. When I moved to [00:40:00] Mexico, I loved that I could be as American as I needed to be in that moment for culture shock, but I could also go be as Mexican as I wanted to be and go out into the community. And I think that when you’re moving into a new.

Space. It’s important to be able to be with the people who know and understand you, and we try to make those connections for families through those liaisons so that they aren’t alone. And they do have a community who knows and understands them, and they’re invited into being part of our community too.

And knowing. We’re here and we are going to be beside you through some probably hard times. 

Mandi Morris: It’s really amazing hearing how you’ve taken those resources and shared them, essentially like found creative ways to share them across cities and also. Yes, you had this need for Spanish, but then also naming all of these different language pockets, some of them expanding where it’s, okay, we have a model for Spanish that’s working.

How do we take that model and [00:41:00] expand it out in a meaningful way to other language pockets across our school district to make sure those families feel connected and supported? I just think there’s something really powerful in that and. It’s clear that your mission statement in your school district, you started us off right by saying it’s, that’s where you started.

And I love that you said that you’re maybe not like a very like strict or rigid person in you’re teaching, but what I’m actually hearing from you is like you had a lot of cons. Consistency and going back to your mission statement and making sure that the work that you did stay grounded in your mission statement.

And that’s so powerful for your teachers. For if we don’t have a vision, if we don’t have an aligned place, we’re going together, then we’re going in a lot of different directions. And it sounds like because you had that strong vision, the strong mission statement from the very beginning, it grounded you.

You’ve been consistent with the work, and so as your populations have shifted, you’ve had big influxes. It’s no wonder why your teachers were [00:42:00] able to rally behind these students and their families. So what is next for your school district? You guys have some really incredible things going on. What is something that you are currently working on that you feel excited about or maybe even some vision and goals when you’re even thinking forward to the 26, 27 school year?

Christen Graham: Yeah, I think as with everyone. We did grow very rapidly with new, with our recent arrival populations, and now we’re seeing, no, no new student. We do have a handful of new to us, new to English students, but then that’s a shift too, to think through. Like we’re not in the mode of quickly catching kids up. We now are in the middle of long.

Longer term work. And I think too that there’s a lot of, there’s always a lot of excitement about that quick growth with recent, with newcomers and I, I don’t want us to become stagnant as when we’re not seeing that same turnover over and over. And so Arkansas, as [00:43:00] with many states, has a, has new laws around third grade promotion.

That’s what we’re saying instead of. Third grade retention. We’re spending a lot of time thinking about RTI and RTI processes and I, I keep pointing to the, there there’s a stack of books that we’re working through, so we’re really looking at. English learners and reading and building literacy and, and what that means and looks like beyond those initial stages.

And so everybody wants to go to decoding and talk about decoding, and I’m not sure that’s enough. I’m not just, I’m not sure. That is not enough of this story, but it is part of the story. And so just thinking through what. Structures look like for yes, K two, but also our three five students and our, it’s really those LTELs at this point.

Our LTEL population is only about 48% of our high school students, which is percentage wise nationally, but I really worry about that 48%. What’s missing for them? What are we [00:44:00] doing to provide additional support for them? How are we equipping teachers outside of those sheltered instruction, outside of the shelter instructional model so that they are.

Yes, supporting language and recognizing what literacy needs look like for those long-term Ls, and I think everybody’s probably doing a lot of that work and it’s really intentional and really hard and really long-term kind of work. 

Andrew Brandt: That’s phenomenal. I love listening to you talk about the work you’re doing.

I’ve got a question around me. I think it’s obvious that you gain a lot of your energy from your passion for serving your students and from the people you get to work with. I think that really drives and energizes you. What are you doing to fill your bucket? Is when it comes to your strategies, your approaches, where do you go?

Are you gonna books, you gonna conferences? Tell me about that. 

Christen Graham: Actually, I’ve never been on a podcast, but I do a lot of listening to podcasts. I do as a doctoral student. I think there’s always a lot of, and I’m not [00:45:00] sure it fills my bucket, but there is a lot of, it does spur new thinking. I do a lot of reading and research articles.

We have a group of ESOL coordinators, that’s the term used in Arkansas, in northwest Arkansas who meet monthly. And I think that we get a lot of good ideas from each other, and I’m always grateful to get to be in that. Space. I am the mom of a fourth grader and a sixth grader, and we’re very much. Just in the middle of life and going from space to space.

But even in that, like I get to connect with families through my children’s activities and get to, to see those students outside of school and their parents as friends. And I think that does a lot to energize me too. And then, I don’t know, I’ve, I am lucky to get to work with a lot of really talented and I.

This is not, I’m not just saying this, like I really do get to work with a lot of talented people who are looking for and focused on continuous [00:46:00] improvement and I think that really fills me up. 

Andrew Brandt: Yeah, no, that makes a big difference. Any, you mentioned books, that’s an easy place to go. Any like that has recently really inspired you.

Christen Graham: I am finding myself turning to, I don’t know that it’s an inspirational book, and I’m sorry Dr. Hossfeld, please do not see me this way. But Dr. Ho or Andrea Hossfeld was our, one of our keynotes for Southeast tesol and she has written growing language and literacy and it’s, I found it really. Palatable for teachers, really easy for me to pull out and talk to teachers about, and I, so I find myself turning to it a lot.

That’s not what she spoke about. It’s southeast tsol, but that particular book has been really just. 

Andrew Brandt: Practical. 

Christen Graham: But yeah, it’s very practical, a pragmatic approach. And then we are working through literacy foundations for English learners and just trying to connect with, there’s a lot of rules and laws around dyslexia and dyslexia markers and reading interventions in Arkansas.

And so just [00:47:00] thinking through what, what does, how is literacy the same and how is it different? I think vital to our work right now when it comes to English learners. 

Mandi Morris: It’s wonderful to talk with you, Christen, and the work that you’re doing is so purposeful, so intentional, and I just really felt from you today the amount that you value your colleagues, and it sounds like that you guys really.

Fill each other up and it’s the best work environment when you can go to work and feel energized by the people around you feel spurred with creativity and that’s just, that can be so powerful about the space of education. It makes me happy For your teachers in your school district, it sounds like that’s an energy that you’re really promoting and fostering for the work environment.

Thank you so much for being on the ML Chat podcast today. This has been such a great conversation. 

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