New Billings school helping English-learning students remove barriers

When Leissmar Bracho talks about her first year as a refugee in the United States, she sounds happy. She made friends, graduated from high school and earned a scholarship to Montana State University Billings. After fleeing Venezuela and living for years in limbo in Peru, she finally has a clear path. 

Bracho, 19, said her senior year at the Billings Multilingual Academy helped her bridge the gap between her education back home and her future in the U.S. 

“You can do anything you want, or you can study anything you want,” was the message Bracho took from her year at the new school. “The English wasn’t a barrier for you to … fulfill those dreams or goals that you had in mind,” she said. 

Billings Public Schools opened the charter school in the fall of 2024 for English learners. 

News of the opening sparked an outcry from some who accused the district of “harboring illegals,” among other anti-immigrant rhetoric, according to Billings Public Schools Superintendent Erwin Garcia. 

He stressed that federal law prohibits the district from collecting information about students’ legal status or denying them access to public education.

The school uses a mix of computer coursework and teachers trained to teach in English to nonnative speakers. Students spend part of the day at their “home school” within the district and part at the multilingual academy, located at the Lincoln Center. 

Last year, it served 20 middle school and 20 high school students whose first languages ranged from Mandarin to Swahili to Tagalog. Elementary school students who are learning English remain in their regular classes, since younger children absorb language more easily. 

Not all English learners in the district who are eligible by age attend the new school. Those with the highest linguistic ability can remain in regular schools. The district has served nonnative English speakers for years, primarily through high school language coaches, Garcia said. 

But the population has grown exponentially due to increasing global migration and political crises in places like Bracho’s home country of Venezuela, where violent crime and food and medicine shortages have driven millions out of the country. 

In 2024, Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains opened a refugee resettlement office in Billings, joining Missoula as the only Montana cities approved by the U.S. State Department for refugee resettlement. 

To give students the educational support they need, federal law requires schools to identify and test English learners.

During the 2015-2016 school year, Billings Public Schools had 25 English-learning students, according to the district’s application for approval of the new school to the Montana Board of Public Education. 

By the fall of 2023, the district had 348. 

Citing this growing group of students in need, Billings Public Schools submitted plans for the academy to the state education board in 2023, after the Montana Legislature authorized public charter schools. 

The creation of the Billings Multilingual Academy was among several major changes made after the newly hired Garcia took the job in 2023. He also oversaw the controversial closure of an elementary school and the opening of two new charter schools in its place. 

Garcia said teachers at the multilingual academy aim to help students understand American culture and navigate the local school system so they can participate in community life. Garcia said he understands some of the students’ challenges. Growing up in Colombia, he came to the U.S. at age 23. 

“What happens when a child doesn’t speak the language, especially when their level of proficiency is so low, beginning and intermediate levels, is that they come to a period called the ‘silent period,’” Garcia said. “[…And] the student shies away from interacting with others because of shame, the feeling of being different, not being able to access content. Now it starts making a significant impact on the student’s self-esteem, self-efficacy. And it’s pretty damaging.”

Students who are old enough can get a job cleaning or stocking items at a grocery store and feel effective and capable even without fluent English, Garcia said. Work becomes a more attractive option than school, he said, and many drop out.

Garcia said he’s received pushback from community members concerned that public resources are being used to help people who are in the U.S. illegally. Garcia said he continues to defend the opening of the new school.

“But again, I am unapologetic,” he said. “Because these are our students.” 

After the school’s first year of operation, officials have made some tweaks they hope will improve the program, including having students spend more time in their “home schools,” or designated regular schools within the district. The district also hired a math teacher after struggling to find one last year. 

The school is funded in part by the per-pupil allotment the state provides to school districts. The district must come up with the rest from elsewhere in its budget, because the Billings Multilingual Academy doesn’t have enough students to meet the state threshold for additional funding. The new school shares some staff and resources with the two other charter schools opened last year— one for credit recovery and the other for college coursework.

Garcia lauded the work of the teachers at the Billings Multilingual Academy in managing classrooms with a broad range of English proficiency and cultural norms. 

He said the district will assess the school’s success using measures such as graduation rates and improvement in English language test scores. 

The school saw a 50% graduation rate in its first year, although Garcia cautioned that the statistic can be misleading. Out of four seniors, two graduated and the other two phased into the district’s adult education classes to work toward high school equivalency diplomas. 

Results from the first year of English testing are not yet available because the test is given in the winter. 

Nancy Van Maren, a board member for the multilingual academy, commended the teachers and staff for taking on the logistics of running a school for English learners. 

“I think it’s an incredibly complicated endeavor, because of language, because of where they’re at learning-wise, education-wise, different school systems, the transferability of records, and all the social things involved in teaching kids for whom English is not their native language, and who can talk to each other and you won’t necessarily understand it as the teacher,” Van Maren said. “It poses a number of challenges.” 

Van Maren said the organization and staffing needed to transport kids between their home schools and the multilingual academy was another example of the unique challenges the school faces. 

Van Maren is the executive director of Nations to Neighbors Montana, which offers after-school and summer programs for refugees and other children, among other services. Through that work, she met Bracho, one of the two students to graduate from Billings Multilingual Academy in the spring.

Bracho started classes at Montana State University Billings earlier this month. She plans to study business and marketing after taking a vocational assessment at the multilingual academy that helped identify her career interests. 

Bracho and her family arrived in Billings in the summer of 2024 after spending four years in Peru negotiating layers of vetting and background checks by the U.S. State Department. 

Life in Venezuela, their home country, had become increasingly difficult due to inflation and crime, but the family said it wasn’t until someone tried to kidnap Bracho and extort her parents that the family fled.

News that they were granted refugee status in the U.S. brought a wave of relief. 

Since then, the family has settled into life in Billings. Her parents, both civil engineers, work at Sam’s Club and take English classes through Billings Public Schools. Bracho’s younger sister attends Billings Multilingual Academy and West High. 

Bracho’s uncle has lived in Miami for two years but doesn’t speak much English and hasn’t received the type of help that Bracho’s family has, they said. 

Bracho’s father, Albrick, is grateful for all of the support, stressing the need to understand American history and culture to be part of the community. 

“We are here for the rest of the life, yes?” he said.