Eryn Caffey does not work at your typical public school. The students that go to Lincoln Academy in Enid, Oklahoma go for extra support – whether that be access to an extensive English language development program or remedial classes at the alternative high school. As one of the English as a Second Language teachers, Caffey teaches 6th through 12th-grade students who come from all over the world with a variety of experiences, challenges, and home lives.
During her second year as an ESL teacher in 2022, the school created a “Newcomer Academy” for students who entered the United States and have three years or less experience in the public-school system. This program was designed to provide more than double the supplemental instruction that was originally provided for English Language Learners (ELL) to help them acclimate to their new environment. After working with the kids, Caffey and her co-teacher identified that the students were facing more than cultural challenges and language barriers.
“We realized through the first year of doing this that the kids did not have a lot,” Caffey explained. “They literally came with the clothes on their back half the time.”
Of the 35 students in the program, 30 of them were experiencing poverty. Many of the students’ families had escaped hostile environments in Mexico that left them with little when coming to the United States.
“The homeless factor for them was that they don’t live in their own house,” Caffey explained. “They often lived with another family member or even in a situation with multiple families in one home. We also started seeing a lot of single-parent homes.”
This was devastating news to the team who wanted to help provide for these struggling students, especially with the holidays approaching quickly. With a stroke of luck, the school was contacted by Youth and Family Services who asked if they had a list of students for whom they could help provide Christmas gifts. Caffey knew that she had a large number of students in need but took the chance.
“I looked at the person who was coordinating this for us and I said, ‘We have 35. Can we do 35?’” Caffey recalled. “She said, ‘Let me get back to you’, and when they said ‘yes’ we were so thankful.”
Caffey and her coworkers had the students create wish lists as a writing activity to avoid revealing the surprise. They passed the requests off to the Youth and Family Services without knowing what the outcome would be.
“We actually had so many gifts that we had to take them down to the teachers’ lounge,” Caffey explained. “We had so many volunteers to help set it all up. We had different spots for every kid.”
Once everything was set up, the kids were led to the lounge with volunteers, staff members, and administrators eagerly awaiting their reactions.
“The kids had no idea,” Caffey shared. “I have video of them walking in with their faces lighting up because they see presents everywhere and had no idea what was going on.”
There was an immense amount of joy and chaos as the kids each opened four to five presents at once. However, in the midst of it all, one gift stood out to everyone.
“There was one student in particular who brought everyone in the room to tears,” Caffey remembered. “He put on his list that he wanted a guitar. He loved playing it, but he didn’t have one of his own and those are not easy gifts to come by.”
This student had a single mom who worked nights and did everything she could to care for him and his siblings.
“One of the local music artists donated one of his guitars for this student,” Caffey explained. “He enclosed a letter about how he was also a kid with a single mom, and he was thankful because someone gave him a guitar and it spawned his music career.”
Upon opening this gift, everyone in the room was emotional.
“Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears,” Caffey recalled. “Even the kid felt how special it was… It really meant something to him.”
The gifts went beyond Caffey’s students. Although the ELL students reside upstairs at Lincoln Academy, downstairs is the district’s alternative high school.
“[Those students] have similar stories,” Caffey explained. “They come from homelessness, drug addicted families…circumstances of life that at 15, 16, 17 years old you should not be dealing with.”
Caffey and her coworkers realized that not all students celebrate Christmas, but wanted to make sure they were included.
“We had a student who was a Jehovah’s Witness who did not celebrate Christmas,” Caffey explained. “We contacted her mom and let her know that we were working with a group who wanted to provide her with things to do and that we understood that it wouldn’t be given as a Christmas present or wrapped like the rest of the kids. Her mom agreed and she was able to participate with the rest of the group.”
This experience was not just impactful on the students and their lives but changed the dynamic of their relationships with their teachers. Although Caffey and her team made sure the kids understood that this was a community effort and not just done by them, it ultimately brought them closer together.
“I think it allowed them to trust us a little bit more,” Caffey reflected. “Relationships are always important in the classroom no matter what you teach. I think they built the idea of, ‘This is a safe person. They really do care about me. They listened.’”
Although the students eventually graduate from the program and return to their regular school sites, they continue to hold on to something special.
“I can walk into any of the buildings and find those kids and know that have a better bond with those kids than any other kids that I’ve taught,” Caffey added.
With the success of the previous year, Caffey received the news that they will be able to work with Family Youth and Services again this year to provide a new group of kids with presents. This experience showed Caffey and her coworkers that the greatest gift you can give is simply letting someone know that they are seen, heard, and loved.
This story was a part of the 2024 Winter edition of OEA’s Education Focus magazine.
