Missouri ELL Program Newsletter: Local Resources and Guide

Missouri's ELL landscape spans urban communities with deep immigrant history and rural districts where ELL programs are newer and less established. St. Louis's large Bosnian community -- one of the largest in the United States -- has been in Missouri for nearly three decades. Kansas City has a growing and diverse immigrant population. And agricultural communities across the state serve Spanish-speaking families with varying degrees of established ELL infrastructure. Effective Missouri ELL newsletters are specific to their community context.

St. Louis's Bosnian Community

The International Institute of St. Louis helped resettle thousands of Bosnian refugees in the 1990s, and the community has grown into one of the largest Bosnian diasporas in the United States. Bevo Mill, Mehlville, and south St. Louis neighborhoods have significant Bosnian populations. Many current students are second-generation Bosnian-Americans who are fluent English speakers, but family reunification and newer arrivals continue to create Bosnian-language communication needs in some St. Louis area schools.

Bosnian-language newsletters should use standard Bosnian written in the Latin script. Bosnian is mutually intelligible with Serbian and Croatian but carries a distinct national identity that matters to community members. Treating it as a dialect of a shared language is not well received.

Kansas City's Diverse ELL Communities

Kansas City has received refugee resettlement from many countries including Nepal (Bhutanese refugees), Somalia, Congo, Burma, and Iraq. The Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugee community is one of the larger refugee communities in Kansas City, having arrived primarily between 2007 and 2015. These families are now well established in Kansas City, with community organizations and church networks that complement school communication. Spanish-speaking families from Mexico and Central America are the largest ELL group in Kansas City schools overall.

Missouri DESE Resources

Missouri DESE's English Learner Programs unit provides guidance and family resources on the DESE website. Missouri uses WIDA ACCESS for annual ELL proficiency testing. WIDA's multilingual family resources in Spanish, Bosnian, Nepali, Somali, and many other languages are worth linking to from Missouri ELL newsletters. Regional professional development centers in Missouri provide additional support to districts for ELL programs.

Community Organizations in St. Louis

The International Institute of St. Louis is the anchor resource for immigrant and refugee families in St. Louis, offering resettlement, employment, language, and social services in many languages. Jewish Family Services St. Louis serves refugee families. Oasis International serves international families in the St. Louis area. The St. Louis Public Library has multilingual collections and ESL programs. For Bosnian families specifically, the Bosnian community infrastructure in south St. Louis includes Islamic Centers and community organizations that are trusted communication channels.

Agricultural Community ELL Programs

Missouri has Spanish-speaking ELL communities tied to agriculture and food processing across the state, from the Bootheel region to communities along the Missouri River. These districts often have limited ELL infrastructure and rely on community health centers, Catholic churches, and extension programs for family support. ELL newsletters for rural Missouri schools should include genuinely local resources and acknowledge the community's specific employment and social context.

Connecting Families to Home Language Resources

Bosnian families in St. Louis have access to Bosnian-language media and community organizations. Spanish-speaking families across Missouri can access Spanish-language resources through churches, community health centers, and public libraries. For newer refugee communities, public libraries in Kansas City and St. Louis have multilingual collections and ESL programs that are free and accessible.

Using Daystage for Missouri ELL Newsletters

Daystage supports Missouri ELL coordinators in creating newsletters with Spanish, Bosnian, Nepali, Somali, and other language sections and delivering them to family groups by language. The International Institute of St. Louis and Jewish Family Services are partners that can help connect ELL newsletters to newly arrived families who may not yet be on school contact lists.