I'm Brian Oplinger, superintendent for the Hazleton Area School District.

I believe the most significant milestones in the district's history is the increased influx of students.

The growth has been enormous.

In 2017, we had 11,500 students.

At this point, it's 2023.

We're up to about 13,200.

And that increase is significant.

There are other districts that are seeing a huge decline in their populations while we're seeing an increase in our student population.

And.

Susan Burrows, English teacher and English department chairperson When I started here in 2003, our Hispanic population was very small and now in the Hazleton area High School itself, it's the majority of the students.

When the new population came here, our Hispanic students, many of them did speak English and were bilingual.

The kids who did not speak English, that's who we work with so they can become bilingual.

My name is Assis Rivera.

I'm a senior out Hazleton Area High School.

I came here seven years ago, so it was really hard for me because then I worked in a room that was full of people not from my culture.

So it was really hard to communicate.

So I was like, What do I do now?

How do I communicate to a teacher?

I need to use the bathroom.

How can I say it?

And there was nobody there to help you.

Like there's kids there, but they don't speak the same language as you.

So, like, you just feel left out.

That was one of the biggest red flags when I first came to the district.

Was that communication barrier that we were seeing.

The school district adapted to the changing population by adding bilingual liaisons in all of our schools.

We've hired bilingual pairs.

We're looking to add additional staff members that are bilingual as well, just to accommodate those students that are coming to us so they feel more at home and more relaxed.

The total goal is not for everybody to just speak English, but for everyone to be bilingual.

And what we've done is this We had an E, l D program, but now in grades nine through 12, instead of the students who have not tested out of D to come in to regular English classes, they're going to have e l d half a year and a regular English class.

The other half of the year.

So we can move more kids forward to that bilingual goal.

And ESL is actually a good program because I learned a lot from it and I got out of there and then I jumped to regular English.

It's not the same, but it prepares you.

So I think they do have a lot of support for the student, but I feel like there needs to have more Hispanic teachers teaching because I'm going to be honest with you.

I have low white teachers and they really nice and everything, but there's more people that come here.

What are they like, 16 years old, 17 year old?

It's hard for them to learn the language.

So that's when they need to hire a little more, you know, Hispanic teacher, because this building is like 75% Hispanic culture.

The difficulty is we have a number of of people that are in the area that have been teachers or are teaching in the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico or where have you you may want to discuss is the reciprocity that Pennsylvania doesn't approve.

There has to be some policy changes in order for us to accept a Dominican certification for teacher.

That would be wonderful.

If if something like that were to occur, we'd be able to support those families coming in, would be able to support those teachers coming on staff.

There would be more faces that our students would be familiar with.

Our Hispanic students.

They've made our school better, plain and simple.

They've made our school better.

They've made our community better.

And without them, I don't know what would even be here anymore.

Their culture is rich, their culture is beautiful, and we want them to retain that and share it with us.