Kindergarten teacher Valerie Valdivia, right, helps Yolanda Munoz-Garcia with following the shape of the letter “j” during an exercise assignment Friday in class. McKinley Elementary School in Kansas City, Kan., is about 80 percent Hispanic students, and many of them speak English as a second language.

About to officially start the school day, fifth-graders Angel Sanchez and Everardo Castro lean over a microphone to deliver the morning announcements to 183 of their schoolmates.

They give their names, the date and then lead the students in the Pledge of Allegiance. Then they repeat it — in Spanish.

Welcome to McKinley Elementary School, a neighborhood school in Kansas City, Kan., where more than 80 percent of the students are Hispanic, nearly 70 percent speak English as a second language and almost all come from economically disadvantaged families.

The challenges that come with those statistics don’t faze Principal Terri Schneweis.

“To me, we are just a school and we are teaching kids,” Schneweis said.

A changing demographic

Hispanics make up more than half of Kansas’ population growth in the past decade. The demographic shift is one of the more “ironic” trends in education, said Jim Hays, research specialist for the Kansas Association of School Boards.

Without the influx of Hispanic students, Kansas’ school enrollment would have declined by 5 percent. However, it’s a population that presents some of the greatest challenges and costs to school systems. The students are more likely to not speak English as a first language and to drop out of high school.

So while school districts are receiving more money from the state for every new Hispanic student that enrolls, they are also having to spend more to educate some of them.

“Our growth in enrollment happens to be occurring where more resources are needed,” Hays said. “It would be really nice if we were growing in nice white kids from middle-class backgrounds, but that is not the case.”

The lack of resources is a dilemma that Robert Vinton, the migrant and ESL education director for the Dodge City school district, knows well. There, 70 percent of the school district is Hispanic, and almost of half of the students are English-language learners.

“It does take more to educate these kids. More effort, more energy and more resources. When those resources are taken away, then you are having to compensate in one form or the other,” Vinton said. “That is just the reality.”

Growth in the region

By 2025, 20 percent of the state’s school population is expected to be Hispanic, Kansas Department of Education spokeswoman Karla Denny said. However, by then state officials expect that most Hispanic students will be second- or third-generation Americans.

“Because these are families that are actually settling out in Kansas that may not be an issue,” she said of the need for more services.

Lawrence schools aren’t part of that statewide demographic trend. While the number of ESL students in Lawrence is increasing, the Hispanic population hasn’t risen by more than a percentage point in the past five years. Last school year, 5 percent of the school’s enrollment was Hispanic.

More than 40 languages are spoken by students in the Lawrence public schools. And, the 34 percent of Hispanic students among the district’s 500 English-language learners are followed closely by those who speak Chinese, Arabic and Korean.

The same is not true for other schools in the region. For example, Topeka has six elementary schools with populations that are more than 35 percent Hispanic. And it recently established bilingual classrooms where both English and Spanish are spoken.

While the percentage of the overall Hispanic population in De Soto is similar to Lawrence, it has one elementary school with a Hispanic population that makes up 26 percent of the students. Olathe has two schools with Hispanic populations that are more than 50 percent of the enrollment.

The basics

A special bilingual rug sits in the front of Valerie Valdivia’s classroom at McKinley Elementary School in Kansas City, Kan., which has a large population of Spanish-speaking students.

At McKinley Elementary in Kansas City, all 185 students come from an eight-block radius. The 80-year-old, three-story brick building had historically educated middle-class white students, said Schneweis, who grew up in the neighborhood.

In the early 1990s, the school was shut down as the neighborhood’s population declined. More than a decade later, it reopened to ease overcrowding in other schools. And when it did, the school had shifted to a demographic boasting a Hispanic majority.

Enrollment has grown steadily since then. Families were attracted to the neighborhood’s affordable housing, sense of community and the school’s good reputation, Schneweis said.

Most of the English-language learners have ties to Mexico, said Ritz Rivera, a bilingual aide at the school. Word spreads to those looking to relocate to America that this is a good neighborhood.

Classes are a mix of students who have never spoken English and those who have heard it since birth. And a few of the students are from Southeast Asia, speaking neither English nor Spanish.

“That is the biggest struggle because we rely on the bilingual kids, the Spanish kids, to help translate and work with them,” said Tod Pennell, who oversees the school’s ESL program.

Still the school has met the state’s standard for adequate yearly progress. This year, the third-grade class achieved the standard of excellence.

“That is just phenomenal to me,” Schneweis said.

All of the teachers have been trained as English as a second language teachers, incorporating those strategies into the classroom. The custodian and secretary also speak Spanish, which helps when teachers need to communicate with parents.

On Friday, school workers were washing dirty coats and jackets in the basement and teachers were preparing to send home canned goods from a food pantry.

While the school’s relationship with the families is close, some things are left unknown.

Valerie Valdivia, who has taught at the school for six years, said questions aren’t asked about immigration status.

“I feel like all the kids need to learn and all the kids need to be in school and they need to be loved,” Valdivia said. “It just isn’t my place to say how did you get over here and where were you born. I am going to teach them like anyone else who is American.”