We see a lot of newcomer students at Lewisville High School-Killough Campus from various countries, and their desire to be in school and learn English continually amazes me. This month, one newcomer really stood out.
Erik was raised in a very small village in Honduras. In his village, school ends after sixth grade. Four years after finishing sixth grade in Honduras, Erik is now in Texas for a better, safer life away from guns and violence. He is an unaccompanied minor living with his older brother.
Erik decided he wanted to go to school instead of just taking the first job he could get, so he found a friend who spoke English and got a ride to LHS Killough to enroll. Erik struggles to read or write in Spanish, and knows no English, but I have never seen someone so willing to learn.
I met Erik on a Friday when he was filling out his enrollment paperwork. I gave him a backpack, a tour of the school, told him what bus to ride to school on Monday morning, and explained the process of how we would need to take him to the counselor Monday morning to have his class schedule made.
Early that Monday morning as the first bell rang I heard a knock on my door and saw Erick standing there. He had successfully ridden the bus to school and found his way to my office, the only room in Killough he knew. Erik even had a temporary ID badge on. He had followed a fellow student to our data secretary’s desk, and wrote his name down to get a temporary ID because he noticed everyone else was wearing one. He had no idea what was going on, so he just went with the flow by following that student and then he found his way to the CIS office to figure out what on earth he was supposed to do his first day of school in America.
I am very impressed by Erik’s initiative to start his education. He is working hard to learn English quickly, and we check-in using “Como estas” throughout the days in the halls.
