WEST FARGO - It isn't unusual for new students in Heidi Stuberg's West Fargo class to pocket their snack-time pretzels and graham crackers.

"They're so ingrained that when you see food, you need to save it," explained Kerri Whipple, the School District's English Language Learner coordinator.

This year's 30-plus refugee students, who are part of the first class at West Fargo's Newcomer Center, have been in the United States only for a few weeks - months at most. From Liberian to Bhutanese, they speak six languages.

Stuberg, the center's sole ELL teacher, said she has to teach the students not to fight when they line up.

"(In their countries) if they were first in line, it meant they got to eat," Stuberg said. "It doesn't matter who's first (here)."

The Newcomer Center serves new Americans in first through fifth grades. They are bused in from three elementary schools every day to spend 2½ hours learning the lessons usually taught to U.S.-born students by kindergarten teachers or by watching "Sesame Street."

It's up to Stuberg to combine teaching classroom culture - raising hands and lining up - with the basics such as naming colors or the days of the week.

"We're really focusing on classroom behavior," she said.

Stuberg's students have limited or no English proficiency, limited or no formal schooling and have lived in the United States for less than a year. They're referred by Whipple, who is a strong advocate for the center's concept.

"Nothing was really tied together (before)," Whipple said. "(Now) it's all connected. It makes newcomers in the program the priority."

In the past, refugee students reported to classes in each school. They interacted with other students who likely lived in the United States longer. Schools in Fargo and Moorhead, Minn., use that model.

Whipple said that way of doing things missed the cultural component that can be offered by a separate center. With a place in West Fargo just for them, newcomers learn the basics together.

Once they "graduate" from the program, after developing literacy and classroom skills, students resume attending ELL classes in their individual schools.

For middle school and high school students, the Newcomer Center model is integrated within their buildings and focuses more on academic tutoring than school basics.

Two years ago, Whipple and Vonnie Sanders, Fargo's ELL coordinator, discussed the possibility of a joint Newcomer Center to serve both districts.

"(The idea is) kind of on hold," Sanders said. "We just don't have the numbers to warrant it right now."

West Fargo did have the numbers, and forged ahead with plans to open its doors this fall to a population of new refugee students steadily on the rise.

"It's not something we can plan really well," Whipple said. "We're setting a record every year, every day."