The Yemeni American News followed educator Jaleelah Hassan Ahmed of Hamtramck Public Schools for a day in her busy workday and learned a lot about her and the community she adores.
We at the Yemeni American News are confident that newcomers to America in this small town are in very good hands with dynamic leaders like Jaleelah receiving them with open arms and relevant programs.
Her success story starts with her own family. Mrs. Ahmed said “I have 5 children, I have a wonderful husband, who is also in the field of education which makes life so much easier because we both bounce ideas from one another and I am the ELD Director at Hamtramck Public Schools and I enjoy every minute of it. I’m from New York; I studied at the State University of Buffalo. I moved to Michigan and got my Masters at the University of Michigan and I am currently in the Doctoral program at the U of M.”
She recalls her first teaching job at Dearborn Public Schools saying “My first job was in Dearborn Public Schools. My class size was over 40 at times and I enjoyed everything about it. I remember driving home and saying, “I can’t believe I get paid to do this.” It was a wonderful learning opportunity. I always told my students, I learn from them just as much as they learn from me. I always brought a plant and I would use that plant to symbolize the growth that they would achieve and I told them, you are not going to be able to see the growth but at the end of the year they would see it flourishing.”
Jaleelah eventually landed at Hamtramck Public Schools as the English Learners director and immediately assessed the needs and took decisive actions.
On those needs, she said “The needs of Hamtramck appeal to me. #1 is the high immigrant population. I believe that we should not limit ourselves in an organization from a K-12 perspective but look at it from the home, to birth to the workforce. Being a change agent at a school is extremely empowering, extremely inspiring. Our youth are desperate for people who are dedicated and committed and set high expectations for them. If you are looking at giving back to a community and this is a passion that you have it will be a wonderful experience for you to be a part of the education field.”
Mrs. Ahmed explained “April 11th, we had a hands-on experience workshop where the vendor comes to the district and shares with teachers how to use the program we would like to implement. It was very successful during summer school last year the Newcomers Summer Academic Program. It’s a 6-week program for K-12. Our goal is to give our newcomer students that have been in America less than one year an advantage before they start the next academic year. It is a language and literacy program and the goal is to develop their language skills by promoting literacy development in targeting all domains reading, writing, listening, speaking and viewing. Last year we had about 170 students on a waiting list. We want the families to be aware that language should never be a hindrance to what they want to do. We want them to strive and focus on just being active and participating and I joke with them a lot about just sitting home and watching ‘Musalsals’ (TV soap operas) but there is truth in it, I want them to know you can’t waste your life watching other people live.”
When asked about the importance of engaging new immigrant parents, she told us“Remember, our newcomer students have newcomer parents so they too need to understand what are the expectations that we have in the American education system and I make that clear. I developed this program based on the needs of our students. The Family Literacy Program happens after school and the idea is to support parents that want to develop English language skills. We have a childcare component to help them with their children after school and then we have a time where it is parent and child time and the parent gets to use literacy skills with their child. Our ultimate goal is to have parents be engaged in their children’s learning.”
The new program that she started is the Newcomer Engagement Parent Program. It was developed based on the needs of our newcomer parents. Mrs. Ahmed questions “How do we expect the parents to understand our expectations if they’re not in our schools? Parents are not coming to the schools?” She mentioned that the goal of this program is to bring them to school and have them gain life skills. For example, the Firefighters come and give strategies on making sure their homes are safe. The Police Chief came and met with parents and talked about summer safety, why is it important that children wear a helmet? “Our parents are coming from another country with an entirely different system. Understanding the needs of our newcomer families is important I can’t help but branch off to work with different community leaders” she affirmed.
At the end of our visit, Mrs. Ahmed stressed the importance of lifelong learning saying “Education doesn’t stop at any age. People having a purpose and being a part of society and contributing is our ultimate goal. One of the parents said, ‘I feel healthy, I feel happy, I feel good when I am here. When I am at home I am depressed, I am not happy, something about being in school brings me happiness.’ Education makes a good person even better! Having a purpose and being a part of something so great and so noble definitely will make you a better person.”
