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After school on a Friday afternoon in May, Piper Worthington opens the trunk of her Subaru in the parking lot of Jackson’s year-old climbing gym. With her are two high schoolers who grab a bag of climbing shoes and a box of harnesses.
Inside, surrounded by walls up to 37 feet tall, Arnoldo helps Jesús find shoes. Tighter is better, he said.
Arnoldo is from El Salvador. He’s super sporty. He skateboards, he skis, he’s in the high school’s climbing club and approaches the wall confidently with a green belay tag visible from his harness. The 18-year-old is a freshman and jokes that makes him the de-facto leader for people like Jesús, a 16-year-old from Venezuela. KHOL is not including last names to comply with the school district’s request for student privacy.
This is Jesús’ second time in the climbing gym. And it might be the first time his feet leave a mat.
Piper Worthington works closely with immigrant students, from organizing schedules to working with teachers to increase class participation. (Sophia Boyd-Fliegel / KHOL)
Worthington is in charge of the field trip and brought in volunteers from Jackson nonprofit, Camino Conmigo, to help belay. With a rope in her hand, Carla Reyes shows Jesús the basics: how to tie a figure eight knot and shake out your arms when you start to feel the pump.
Climbing is just one of the extracurriculars Worthington organizes for “newcomers.” Those are students in their first year in the U.S. school system. Some were born inside the U.S., but all have spent the majority of their childhood in another country.
Climbing, especially if kids later join the high school’s club, can translate well.
“It’s like one of the only student groups at the high school that has no tryouts, they meet every week on the same day at the same time, which is just super accessible and predictable.”
K-12 schools across the country are seeing an increase of students in their first to third year in the country and those learning English, according to the Migration Policy Institute, using data from the U.S. Department of Education.
Charlotte Reynolds, spokesperson for Teton County School District No. 1, said there’s a similar trend locally.
In the 2014-2015 school year, the district had nine newcomer students across about 2,600 students, according to statistics provided by the district. Nine years later, in the 2023-2024 year, there were 80 newcomers. This past year, there were 43, and the student population was just under 3,000.
As newcomers have steadily increased, so have the number of countries they are from.
While on an after-school trip for newcomers at the Rec Center climbing wall, 16-year-old Jesús reviews knots with volunteers from Camina Conmigo. (Sophia Boyd-Fliegel / KHOL)
“I think we’ve done a lot in terms of supporting native Spanish-speaking students and families,” Reynolds said. “But we do have others.”
In the last two years, newcomers have come from 15 different countries, mostly from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries in South and Central America. Non-Spanish-speaking countries of origin from the last two years include Romania and Ukraine and Vietnam.
That support includes forming a 12-week English intensive for Spanish speakers at Munger Elementary School, which already has a dual-immersion education in English and Spanish.
As many district students face mounting challenges like the additions of new technology and lingering isolation from the COVID-19 pandemic, Worthington formed a family advisory council. It’s a group of parents from six different schools, who, together with principals, recommend changes based on a review of family surveys.
She helps coordinate short text messages to parents that give updates on strategies to support kids at home, like showing them what appropriate reading levels look like. It’s a relatively new role for the district: one person to oversee the way parents interact with schools and the way teachers interact with parents. Worthington’s job is grant-funded by the State Department of Education and extended through June 2026.
She’s always looking to make a warm handoff to other, more specialized community services. These types of connections, though, come with additional stress. Teachers are often a first stop for bigger family needs like when parents need a job or housing.
“I think those are the hardest parts about moving anywhere new and something that I don’t have any control over,” she said.
Keeping kids on track, she said, starts with a rigorous intake process for families, asking what language is spoken at home and about children’s needs. Worthington then hands off a student profile to their teachers with instructions for how to encourage class participation. She helps build their schedules so that they’re in English class with students at the same level, but they’re also in classes with less language requirements, such as P.E.
“We’re very strategic about, especially at the middle school and high school, about how we build those student’s schedules,” Worthington said.
Welcoming newcomers is just part of Worthington’s job as the school district’s family engagement coordinator, a position she took in fall 2022.
You can hear the seven years as a social worker at Jackson Hole High School in the way Worthington talks about these families.
“I think one of the most important things that we can do to learn from our families,” she said, “is just to listen, learn about their students’ academic history, their social history.”
Of course, she’s also taking students outside school walls.
In August, Worthington will start her fourth year as the school district’s family engagement coordinator. The grant-funded position is administered through the Wyoming Department of Education.
Back in the climbing gym, Jesús nears the top of his first wall. He’s borrowed a chalk bag to help him grip the increasingly tricky routes.
Today, he’s one of only two kids on the trip, but Worthington has brought groups of up to around 30 students ice skating, up the tram at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and swimming at the Rec Center.
The Friday trips serve two purposes.
“They can be responsive to whatever they need at the time. But the main reason that we get together is for that relationship building and increasing their sense of belonging,” she said.
Looking up from the mat, belayer Reyes cheers when Jesús reaches the top of the wall and, in Spanish, instructs him to lean back, trust the rope and take a break.
Nearby, Worthington flashes a smile. Her fourth year starts in August.
