The volunteers, they speak Spanish and they help you. They can even completely help you to understand what’s going on, you can even explain it, you understand it, they make you understand.” - THS English Learner

Each semester, Humanities Amped places around 20 multilingual, trained volunteers in Tara High School classrooms to support the unique needs of English Language Learners. Tara High School has one of the highest rates of English Learners in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, and these Adelante volunteers provide critical academic and social support services that help all students feel welcome, cared for, and confident in their ability to obtain an education.

This semester, 23 volunteers are working in 13 teacher’s classrooms across 25 class sections. By the end of August, these Humanities Amped volunteers had already dedicated over 90 hours to the Adelante project!

To begin the semester, the volunteers, who are almost all LSU Honors College students recruited in collaboration with LSU’s Project 225, gathered at Tara High School on a weekend to engage in training around culturally sustaining and trauma-informed approaches to teaching and learning. Led by Coordinators Eduardo Howell and Benjamin Cowsar, along with Amped Co-Director Dr. Emma Gist and consultant Dr. Alex Torres, the volunteers engaged with the notion of “accompaniment,” one of the grounding philosophies of the Adelante Initiative. Drawn from Staughton Lynd, this term describes the process of joining alongside someone and walking through their circumstances with them, offering support while recognizing the other’s expertise in their own experiences. The volunteers shared stories from their own lives and practiced healing-centered approaches to hold students to high expectations while offering high support.

These dedicated volunteers enter this work at a challenging cultural moment: in a national environment that grows increasingly hostile towards immigrants, communities that confirm acceptance and belonging become ever more vital. The English Learners at Tara High School represent a wide-range of English language ability. While many teachers work diligently to translate for and support their English Learners directly, for many students the language barrier prevents full engagement in class, thus cutting off their access to the education they need and deserve.

The Adelante initiative provides student-centered, in-class support that ensures access to class content and learning. The goals of the project include academic achievement, but reach well beyond that: in listening circles hosted by the Amped Student Government Association, English Learners at Tara High shared a strong desire to learn English, as well as worries about practicing for fear of being made fun of. When there are no safe spaces for practice and learning, students cannot grow. Since beginning the project at Tara High School in 2022, Adelante has focused on developing trusting relationships and a sense of belonging, as well as increasing feelings of purpose and hope. Adelante volunteers offer academic support, but they also offer consistency, compassion, and advocacy for students at Tara High who are often most marginalized.

In the words of one Tara High School teacher, “This program is so necessary and appreciated. Our students love them and they help everyone with learning in the classroom. THANK YOU!!!” The results of this program are also evident in the graduation data: when Humanities Amped began this program at Tara High in 2022 with just five volunteers, the graduation rate for English Learners was 13%. That number has since increased dramatically to as high as 62%, one of the highest English Learner graduation rates in the state. We are so proud to partner in this work with Tara High School, which has in the last few years focused targeted interventions on the needs of English Learners.

This growth is worth celebrating, and there is still much work to do. We truly cannot do it without your support: the word Adelante is Spanish for “forward,” and we are asking you to move forward with us. In the face of great injustice and so much to be done, we can often find ourselves at a loss for how to help. This is one small way to contribute to solutions that have an enormous impact: you can donate here to this urgent and necessary project.

Learn more about the work of Humanities Amped at www.humanitiesamped.org!