Since its founding 20 years ago, the International Community School has built a reputation as a community of students who hail from 30 countries and speak more than 25 languages. Recently, the DeKalb school was honored for its commitment to the community beyond its Decatur campus by Building Hope, a national nonprofit that awarded $10,000 to support those efforts.
The school’s outreach includes a family resource center that oversees programs such as managing test anxiety, financial literacy and digital safety. It also operates a food pantry open to anyone in the community and run as a food co-op.
“It’s membership driven, and those members work sorting the food and unloading the trucks,” said Fran Carroll, ICS executive director. “They’re not only getting the fruits, vegetables and proteins; they’re committed to making the operation run smoothly.”
Another outreach that merited the award is designed to help new immigrants improve their skills and education, and to become full-time teachers. The Pathway Program’s goal identifies refugees, women immigrants as participants – an aim that addresses on-going teacher shortage problems while also increasing the school’s cultural diversity. ICS leaders worked with community partners to identify women in the community who are interested in becoming teachers and launched the program last fall with a cohort of three.
“With them, we’ve been able to add an additional four languages, and that put us at 11 now spoken among the staff,” said Carroll. “It means we have more people on site who can interpret for our families, translate documents, notify families of events and give a voice to communities within our school whose native language isn’t English. And that adds to the student enrichment.”
ICS identified schools that will accept college degrees from the women’s home counties and is providing support with ESL classes and tutoring as they work toward teacher certification. Saadiyah Alani is one of the first participants who moved to Gwinnett County from Iraq, where her husband worked with the U.S. Army. She and her family arrived in the area three years ago, and her daughter attends ICS.
“I taught French in Lebanon for two years, but my English was not good,” she said. “I spent four months at home studying ESL and working in a bakery. When they said they’d help me study while working and getting a salary, and they’d pay for transportation and the education, it was a dream come true for me. I never imagined I’d get something like this.”
While working as a kindergarten assistant, Alani finished the first part of the teacher coursework in May and hopes to be certified by December. A second cohort will join her in the program this fall.
“The biggest value we’ve seen is not just in representation so our students see people in the classroom who look like them; students also now have more people in the building who speak their language and navigate a conversation be it in French or Farsi,” said Carroll. “Students are more successful when those barriers are removed, not just for them, but also for their families.”
Information about ICS is online at icsgeorgia.org.
SEND US YOUR STORIES. Each week we look at programs, projects and successful endeavors at area schools, from pre-K to grad school. To suggest a story, contact H.M. Cauley at hm_cauley@yahoo.com or 770-744-3042.
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