Five of the top 16 counties in the United States with the fastest-growing Latino populations from 2000 to 2007 are in Georgia (Pew Hispanic Research Center, 2015). The Georgia metropolitan area where the study occurred has more Latinos than Austin, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, or Tucson (Pew Hispanic Research Center, 2015). Particularly following the New Latino Diaspora (Hamann, Wortham, & Murillo, 2002; Murillo, 2002; and Villenas, 2002) schools in the Southeastern United States have more and more Spanish-speaking students (Pew Hispanic Research Center, 2015). However, most classroom teachers have not received specialized training or professional development relating to these students (Ballantyne, Sanderman, & Levy, 2008; Barrera & Jiménez, 2000; Carrasquillo & Rodríguez, 2002; Dove & Honigsfeld, 2010; Echevarria, Short, & Powers, 2006; Kim, 2010; Walker, Shafer, & Iiams, 2004). During my dissertation study I interacted with three classroom teachers during 12 weekly gatherings and three individual interviews. We developed a newcomer kit for classroom teachers and identified needs of teachers of newcomer emergent bilingual students. After thematic analysis of the data, findings included five themes: newcomers, resources, perceptions, connections with classroom experiences, and professional development. Discussion includes teacher development, teacher dispositions, perceptions of teaching and of self-efficacy, and pre-service teacher education
