A local immigrant student – with permanent residency – hopes the Monroe County Community School Corporation will improve how it assesses the academic ability of immigrant students for placement into appropriate classes.
Joseph Shing, a senior at the Academy of Science and Entrepreneurship, raised the issue at a recent MCCSC board meeting.
“Many students like myself are being misplaced into classes that don't reflect their true academic ability because the school administration decided that they are not academically capable,” he said at the board meeting. “I believe that assuming someone's academic capability and level based on where they’re from, their accent, their background or country of origin, is a form of discrimination.”
Originally from Myanmar, Shing and his family moved to the U.S. in 2023 with the help of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and he enrolled as a sophomore at Bloomington High School South. He couldn’t choose any of his classes and was assigned to take English New Learners and Algebra I despite his prior education in both subjects.
“I believe that assuming someone's academic capability and level based on where they’re from, their accent, their background or country of origin, is a form of discrimination.”Joseph Shing
“They assumed that I wasn't that good at English, hence why they put me into English New Learners, and (lower level) math, too,” he said. “They didn't ask me if the classes were right for me, or even what the classes looked like, they just automatically placed me into the lower-level classes.”
Shing said friends in other states have experienced the same thing.
Before moving to Bloomington, Shing attended a UN-sponsored school in Malaysia. He has been speaking English since he was 6 years old and took five years of English in school. When he arrived in the U.S., Shing said, said he’d rate his English proficiency at 8.5/10. He had also already taken high school level math before enrolling at South.
“We were learning stuff about really basic elementary English, stuff like how to form a sentence, and I was like, I am definitely not supposed to be here, because, you know, this is not my English level,” he said. “I had requested to be put into English 10, which is what a typical 10th grader in MCCSC would be taking, but they made it really difficult.”
MCCSC policies
He thinks MCCSC Policies 5410 and 5463, which state that the school must place students in the appropriate grade level in accordance with their academic abilities, have not been implemented.
Although Shing did not have a transcript from his prior school to prove what classes he had taken, Policy 5463 states that “if no prior assessment data is available, identify which tests (standardized or Corporation-made) as well as other means of assessment (research project, term paper, and the like) will be used to assess the student's achievement of the critical essential learnings. Arrange for the student to be assessed using the identified instruments.”
Shing said school officials denied him an opportunity to take an English-placement test for months and did not allow him to move into a more advanced English class. After a few months, he said he was given a WIDA English test, which assesses listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. He scored high and tested out of the ENL class and into English 10.
Shing had a similar experience in his math class: he was familiar with all the concepts and earned high grades. He asked for a math placement test and MCCSC didn’t give him one. He says the time he spent taking these classes could’ve been spent more productively taking classes he was interested in and fulfilled graduation requirements.
Shing asked the MCCSC board to create a policy for newly enrolled immigrants that ensure placement in appropriate classes. He also asked for an opportunity for students to provide feedback on administrative experiences.
Systemic barriers for immigrant and refugee students
A few weeks ago, Shing met with MCCSC leaders who focus on immigrant and refugee student experiences.
Shing said they admitted he should have taken a placement test when he first enrolled in MCCSC. He also said the administrators seemed “iffy” on the specific policy requiring it.
Shing said most of the meeting was him relaying concerns. At the end, when they summarized his experience, he said they didn’t seem to fully understand it.
“At the end, someone, like, finalized, and was like, Joseph did this, this and this. Then I was like, no, that is not what happened,” he said. “So, at the end, I think it got really confusing, but I was like, no, this is what happened.”
While he thinks MCCSC is taking his concerns seriously, he hopes to see real action.
“I would have to meet with them again and again to see whether they're going to take immediate action, whether they put this on top of their priority,” he said. “I've provided a very clear story on my experience, and also a solution for it. And, yeah, they also told me that to kind of create a new policy, it's going to take time, because it goes back and forth changing languages to really fit it to be the best.”
MCCSC denied an interview request but said in a statement that it is open to continuing discussions with Shing about how to improve.
“Our processes and procedures — including how we support our students — are in continual review because we're always working to make them better and create the best possible experience for every student,” the statement said. “We're grateful to Joseph for sharing his perspectives and for giving us the chance to discuss current systems of support and explore ways we could expand or improve them.”
Shing started his own initiative, Advocates for Student Equity, to address the systemic barriers that immigrants and refugee students face when they come to the U.S.
Besides demanding change at the board meeting, Shing has also created guides that explain what standardized tests are, how the college admissions process works and what social life is like in America. He is working on having the guides placed in school counselors’ offices so students can easily access them.
