WESTBROOK — As more immigrant students come directly to Westbrook from their home countries instead of first living in other U.S. cities, schools have realized a need for more support for English language learners.

Westbrook Middle School has taken on an AmeriCorps volunteer to work directly with ELL students and their families. The one-year position is funded by a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Courtney Burne, who participates in the Multilingual Leadership Corps program within AmeriCorps, will be mentoring the students and conducting outreach work for the middle school.

AmeriCorps engages its volunteers in intensive community service projects and its Multilingual Leadership Corps program places them in Maine schools, housing communities and educational nonprofits.

“I was looking for something more hands-on and I knew I liked working with the multicultural population,” said Burne, who is originally from Topsham.

A second year AmeriCorps volunteer, Burne previously worked with immigrant families as a case aide for Catholic Charities.

WMS Principal Laurie Wood said she is excited to have Burne on board for the 2017-2018 school year, which starts on Aug. 30.

“We have a need for support in the classroom, but a real benefit is that Courtney will be doing outreach as well,” Wood said.

The middle school has 174 ELL students, or 22 percent of the school population, enrolled this school year, Wood said. For the most part, ELL students are integrated into mainstream classrooms.

Burne will serve as an aide to ELL students and will work wherever she is needed. She will also spend time with students during break periods in order to foster  relationships with them.

“We’re looking to assess the models of how we support kids,” Wood said.

Burne will also be expected to be somewhat available to students outside of school. Wood said 70 percent of Burne’s work will be at school and 30 percent will be out in the community.

Working with parents to strengthen communication between the school and families is important, Wood said. Connecting with parents has been a challenge because of language and cultural barriers, she said.

“I want to support as many kids as I can and increase outreach to parents,” Burne said.

Helping students transition academically as well as socially and culturally will be a major component of Burne’s job. This need has increased over the past couple of years, Wood said, because more immigrant families are moving directly to Westbrook. She said in the past families would first live in Portland for a few years and then move to Westbrook.

“We are getting students who are coming in with lower language levels,” Wood said. “Their needs are a little more intense and then on top of that they have may have had traumatic life experiences.”

Burne said it’s important to her to help these students and families because of the difficult situations they’re often in.

“It’s so important to help people however you can because they’re coming over with nothing,” she said.

Despite the hardships these students have gone through, Burne said she’s come to learn that immigrant students are very similar to American-born students.

“When working with them you kind of realize that all teenagers are the same,” she said.

At the end of the school year, Wood and Burne will assess the growth of the ELL students and analyze the effect Burne’s position has on the students.

Burne says she’s ready and eager for the job.

“I’m looking forward to doing more direct service and helping as much as I can with something that’s so important to me,” Burne said. “It’s such a good opportunity to help out in my home state.”

Kate Gardner can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 125 or kgardner@theforecaster.net. Follow her on Twitter: @katevgardner.

Westbrook Middle School Principal Laurie Wood, left, says the school will benefit greatly from the work of AmeriCorps volunteer Courtney Burne, who will spend the school year working with immigrant students and their families.