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Slide Thirteen: List of Recommendations/Best Practices for Compliance

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Slide Thirteen: List of Recommendations/Best Practices for Compliance

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An LPAC (Language Proficiency Assessment Committee) consist of one or more professional personnel (usually the homeroom teacher, principal, and counselor), a parent of a limited – English proficient student participating in the program designated by the district.

Parents are involved and part of the committee meeting.  If they can not attend in person they can zoom in or call in.

During the LPAC meeting they must discuss test preparation, designated supports, assessment decisions, and documenting/communicating throughout the meeting.

As a student in an ESL program they must take a yearly test to determine how much they have progressed in the current school year. They are tested on reading skills, language use, and sentence meaning. This is part of state law.

Texas teachers must be certified to teach ELL students. They will have to pass the test in order to add it to their certification.

Parents have rights as their child enters an ESL program. The school must relay these items to them during the LPAC meeting:

why their child has been identified for the program

the child's level of English proficiency

the recommendations for the child

the expectations of the program

the anticipated date the child will leave the program

As an ELL student, they must be provided instruction  content-based instruction including the cross-curricular second language acquisition essential knowledge and skills.

Citation: Texas Education Agency. (n.d.). English learner portal compliance and accountability. https://www.txel.org/ComplianceAndAccountability

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Slide Twelve: Personal Connection to the Legal and Ethical Standards 

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Slide Twelve: Personal Connection to the Legal and Ethical Standards 

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Personal: Connection: This topic is important to me because I teach at a school is predominately Latino. We do have a lot of students who are in our ESL program and service them daily. My parent's first language was Spanish and they learned English throughout their school years. I know that they struggled, just like our students today. I want to  be able to provide the instruction they need and deserve. English is hardest language to learn, and if teachers can be provided the resources to benefit students then the students will have a better chance at learning and speaking English proficiently.
Legal and Ethical Connection: In order to help with the struggles of students who are identified as ELLs the state must provide a program to do so. Within that program they must present instruction that will help the linguistic needs of the student, but also present it in way where they are learning content as well. The campus will need resources in order to help their students, they will need to certified ESL teachers and an intervention specialist to help with the reading and writing needs of an ELL student.
Resource: A book that would help teachers who service ELL is called,

The ELL Teacher's Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students (The Teacher's Toolbox Series) by Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieksi. This book provides  hundreds of innovative and research-based instructional strategies you can use to support all levels of English Language Learners (Ferlazzo & Sypnieski, 2018).

Citation: Ferlazzo, L., & Sypnieski, K. H. (2018). The ELL teacher’s toolbox: Hundreds of practical ideas to support your students (the teacher’s toolbox series) (1st ed.). John Wiley & Sons.

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State: Commissioner's  Rules Concerning State Plan for Educating English Language Learners
Link: https://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/public/readtac$ext.TacPage?sl=R&app=9&p_dir=&p_rloc=&p_tloc=&p_ploc=&pg=1&p_tac=&ti=19&pt=2&ch=89&rl=1210#:~:text=Texas%20Administrative%20Code&text=(a)%20Each%20school%20district%20required,his%20or%20her%20grade%20level.
Citation: 19 Tex. Admin. Code §89.1210 (2020)

*This section of the Texas Administrative Code discusses what an ESL/Bilingual education program should entail. The required curriculum that teachers should follow called, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and English language proficiency standards (ELPS). It also discusses how students will be able to exit the program and how often students should be pulled out to receive services. This holds the state accountable to ensure that ESL students receive the education they need in order to be more competent in English (19 Tex. Admin. Code §89.1210 (2020).

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Title: San Angelo Independent School District Student Handbook 2021-2022
Link: https://www.saisd.org/departments/student-services/student-handbook
Citation: San Angelo Independent School District. (2021) Student Handbook, English Language Learners. Retrieved from https://www.saisd.org/departments/student-services/student-handbook

In the student handbook is discusses how ELL students are entitled to a Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC) where their discuss their test results on their English competency, if they qualify for the ESL program, and accommodations that will be provided in the classroom and STAAR (San Angelo Independent School District, 2021)

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Federal: Bilingual Education Act, Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968
Link: https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/return-bilingual-education#:~:text=Elementary%20and%20Secondary%20Education%20Act%20(1968%2D2000)%3A%20Title%20VII,engage%20in%20bilingual%20program%20development.
Citation: De Jong, E. (2016, February 25). Return to bilingual education. Colorín Colorado. https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/return-bilingual-education#:%7E:text=Elementary%20and%20Secondary%20Education%20Act%20(1968%2D2000)%3A%20Title%20VII,engage%20in%20bilingual%20program%20development.

*This act ensures that there will be funds to support ELL students. Make sure districts engage in bilingual program development. Lastly, ensure that students are properly prepared to teach ELLs (De Jong, 2016).

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Name of court case: Lau v. Nichols (1974)
Link: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/414/563/

*This court case started the transition of Education whose first language is not English.
*The court ruled that a student would be provided instruction to improve their English Language competency (Lau v. Nichols, 1974).

Citation: Lau v. Nichols 414 U.S. 563(1974)

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Statuary Law:

Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

Link: https://www.ed.gov/essa?src=rn
Citation:

Every Student Succeeds Act,  20 USC § 6301 (2015). https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1177/text

*This law replaces the No Child Left Behind Act which was signed in 2002. The purpose of ESSA is to provide children significant opportunity to receive a fair and equitable high-quality education that will close achievement gaps. To target ELL students specifically this law helped monitor student progress and entrance/exit through the program easier (Every Student Succeeds Act, 2015).

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Constitutional Law: 14th Amendment- July 9,1868
Citation: United States Constitution (U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1).
Link: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv

*The fourteenth amendment discusses how any person who is a natural born citizen cannot be denied equal rights protection. The amendment is considered the "education law" where children who are United States citizens cannot be denied schooling (U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1)

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This Padlet was designed to support (ELLs) students English Language Learners. I am writing this from the perspective of an instructional coach who has a high numbers of ELLs that attend my school. An ELL student is a national minority student has is limited English proficient. This student comes in only knowing their home language, and will have to learn English as a second language (US Department of Education, 2020).

Reference
US Department of Education (ED). (2020, January 16). Developing ELL programs: Glossary. US Department of Education. https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/ell/glossary.html

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Slide Five: Current News Articles (article two)

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Slide Five: Current News Articles (article two)

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Title: Feds to investigate three complaints against Wilder
Link: https://www.idahoednews.org/news/feds-to-investigate-three-complaints-against-wilder/
Citation: Edge, S. (2021, October 15). Feds to investigate three complaints against wilder. Idaho Education News. https://www.idahoednews.org/news/feds-to-investigate-three-complaints-against-wilder/

This related to my topic of ELLs because teachers must be certified in English as a Second Language in order to service ELLs students.

If students are in the ESL program then by law they must be getting services whether it is pull out or extra reading time in order to improve their English.

It is believed that ELL students have regressed since the pandemic and are now having to work hard to catch up. State use funding to help provide the resources teachers need in order to help students become proficient English speakers (Edge, 202).

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The U.S. Department of Education will investigate three allegations that the Wilder School District failed to provide adequate services to English Language Learners, in response to a complaint Wilder patrons filed with the department's Office for Civil Rights earlier this year. The department is dismissing five allegations that the district discriminated against English learners and students with disabilities, because of timing concerns or a lack of evidence. The feds decision was announced in a letter to attorneys on Tuesday.

Two Wilder parents, a student and a district patron initially complained to the OCR in January, alleging that the district discriminated against students learning English, and students with disabilities, and retaliated against parents who raised complaints.

Wilder is a small, majority-Latino school district on the Idaho-Oregon border. About a third of its 500 students are English learners, and about 15% have a disability.

The initial complaint alleges that Wilder had no formal system to identify English language learner (ELL) students, and when students were identified they did not receive adequate instruction. The complaint also says that since the 2017-18 school year, Wilder has not been compliant with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Patrons argued that after superintendent Jeff Dillon moved the district to a personalized learning system, which relies heavily on technology and self-directed learning, students with disabilities were unable to teach themselves on the district iPads and did not get the individual assistance they needed.

The department will investigate only three of eight allegations, and dismiss the disability-related allegations, it said in a Tuesday letter to Idaho Legal Aid Services, which is representing district patrons. The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) said several of the alleged issues were too old. It generally only investigates issues that happened within 180 days of the time the complaint was filed.

"OCR's decision to open an investigation of these allegations does not reflect an opinion by OCR regarding the merits of the allegations," the federal notice says. "It is OCR's responsibility to address the allegations in a fair and impartial manner."

The feds will investigate these three allegations to determine if Wilder violated Title VI of the civil rights act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, national origin and disability:

That Wilder failed to adopt and implement an appropriate English language assistance program model that is considered sound by experts in the field.

That Wilder failed to adequately staff its ELL program.

That Wilder failed to consider student's English proficiency in determining the ELL services to be provided.

A 2020 audit by the State's Department of Education flagged similar issues with Wilder's English Language Learner program. At the time, state reviewers found no evidence of a core language instruction program, or ELL courses offered to Wilder Middle or High school students, state ELL coordinator Maria Puga said. The district closed its latest audit in March of this year by submitting documents that addressed the state's concerns.

In an email to EdNews on Thursday, Wilder superintendent Jeff Dillon said the claims in the OCR complaint were addressed in the state's audit process.

"As we have stated before, we provide a personal learning plan for all students, which includes ELL students," Dillon said.

The U.S. Department of Education will not investigate the following allegations:

That Wilder failed to adequately identify and assess ELL students for placement into the ELL program. The complaint alleged that Wilder was placing students in ELL programs based only on their Latinx surnames and responses to a home language survey. OCR interviewed parents and an unnamed source about this, and did not find sufficient evidence that the district was inappropriately placing students in the ELL program.

That Wilder retaliated against parents of ELL students who raised concerns about the ELL program. Though parents allege this was an issue beginning in 2017-18, OCR does not investigate complaints that far back. Legal Aid apparently told the federal government that one other parent alleged retaliation in the 2020-21 school year, but that the parent did not want to participate in the OCR investigation.

That Wilder discriminated against students with disabilities. The complaint alleges this was a problem starting in the 2017-18 school year, but Legal Aid attorneys told OCR they couldn't say whether this was happening more recently.

That Wilder failed to evaluate ELL students with disabilities in a timely manner. Also an issue of timing. OCR says that Idaho Legal Aid didn't identify students who had this issue during the 2020-21 school year. The department did talk to one family about a disability-related concern, but the parent said she did not want to file an individual complaint against the district.

That Wilder failed to consider students' language needs in evaluations for disability-related services. Idaho Legal Aid alleged that Wilder did not have a policy to ensure that a student's language was considered when they were evaluated for disability-related services, according to the OCR letter. OCR did find Wilder's policy on this, and dismissed this complaint when Legal Aid did not identify students who had this issue after August of 2020, the letter says.

Legal Aid attorneys say they're pleased that the federal government decided to pursue part of their complaint.

"While we are disappointed that the OCR decided not to investigate all aspects of the complaint, we are pleased that OCR will be investigating the ELL issues, which is the main focus," attorney Erik Johnson said over email.

Legal Aid can appeal OCR's decision not to look at evidence prior to the 2020-21 school year, Johnson said, and he and other attorneys will be discussing that option. They have 60 days to file an appeal.

Johnson did not have a timeline for OCR's investigation, but it could take a while. The Tuesday update on the case came almost 10 months after patrons' initial complaint.
This is a developing story and Idaho Education News will update as more relevant information becomes available.

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Feds to investigate three complaints against Wilder

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The U.S. Department of Education will investigate three allegations that the Wilder School District failed to provide adequate services to English Language Learners, in response to a complaint Wilder patrons filed with the department's Office for Civil Rights earlier this year.

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Slide Four: Current News Articles (article one)

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Slide Four: Current News Articles (article one)

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Title of Article:

Most BPS Students Learning English aren’t getting Appropriate Services

Link: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/14/metro/most-bps-students-learning-english-arent-getting-appropriate-services/
Citation: Toness, B. (2021, November 17). Most BPS students learning English aren’t getting appropriate services. BostonGlobe.Com. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/14/metro/most-bps-students-learning-english-arent-getting-appropriate-services/

A compliant was filed that students were not properly tested to identify their English proficiency level. District must properly and correctly test students to determine what they know instead of just placing the student in the program.

The article also mentioned that a school started integrating a more personalized learning system where most of the learning is done with technology. They believed that would suffice with ELL students. This could cause issues because a teacher has to be certified in order to service ESL students (Toness, 2021).

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The lack of appropriate services adds to the challenges many of the affected 6,200 students have experienced during the pandemic, marked by difficulties accessing learning online from home when school buildings were shut down. And it comes amid huge upheavals in the leadership of the district's English learner programs, which have been led by at least five different people since Superintendent Brenda Cassellius began her tenure a little more than two years ago.

The district's growing problems with its English learners program is frustrating many parents, students, and advocates. The Boston school system has been operating under settlement agreements with the US departments of Justice and Education since 2010, after the agencies found the district was violating students' civil rights because their testing methods missed thousands of students who lacked English fluency and the district failed to provide specialized instruction to students who were already classified as English learners.

"It's all very concerning," said Roger Rice, executive director of Multicultural Education Training and Advocacy, Inc., a national nonprofit that monitors equitable treatment of English learners in Boston and elsewhere. "What I don't get is why the number of kids being served appropriately would fall."

District leaders blame the pandemic for preventing educators from testing students last year to place them in the right classes and for the staffing shortages that have deprived students of services, as well as turnover at the department overseeing English learner education, according to a district report to the Department of Justice.

BPSdid not respond to questions about the documents or provide any more explanation for the significant drop in students served.

Eleven-year-old Dashary Martinez moved to Boston from the Dominican Republic in July of 2020. During testing of her English skills when she registered for school that month, she could answer her name and favorite color, but just shook her head at the other three questions in the online screening exam.

She started her American education online. The best part of virtual fourth grade at the Blackstone Elementary School were small-group break-out sessions where Dashary worked on pronunciation. "I learned a little," she saidin Spanish. "But I'd like to learn more.''

State and federal law requires that immigrants like Dashary be tested each year to measure their English proficiency. The test is typically given in the spring to measure what students learned that year. But last school year, even though Dashary returned to school in person in April, she and her mother say she was never tested.

"My fear is that she didn't advance last year, since they were all remote," said Danilza Martinez, sitting at a South End playground while Dashary and a schoolmate played with dolls. "I can't speak with the teacher, because she only speaks English. So I don't know how she's learning this year, what methodology they're using, nothing."

Dashary is among the nearly 6,000 students who haven't been tested this year to determine what services and instruction they need. (The number might be even higher, because the BPS report only included 10,587 students out of about 15,000 English learners in the district.)

Without up-to-date test scores showing Dashary's English proficiency, it's not clear how schools assigned her and other students to classes this year and may explain why so many of Boston's students aren't receiving the appropriate specialized instruction from a qualified teacher. The share of students receiving all four components- enough time, the right type, a qualified teacher, and learning with the right students - dropped to 41 percent from 65 percent last year.

Failure to take the test last year is a nationwide problem, with around 30 percent fewer students completing one of the major standardized tests measuring English language ability and the test used in Boston. The test is typically administered in the spring, and required to be given in person, even in districts studying remotely.

But the students around the country who did manage to take the test showed a decline in English skills, particularly in speaking, compared to 2019 and 2020. In Boston, students making progress overall dropped to 19 percent from 44 percent the year before.

To make up for the students who didn't take the test last year, Boston's district leaders say they are alternativelyusing a simple screening exam to determine students' proficiency levels, which advocates complain won't measure a student's ability with any nuance.

But Boston's problems go beyond testing. Even if educators test all students and determine what they need, the districtis grappling with significant staffing challenges that could prevent them from providing specialized instruction with a qualified teacher to students learning English.

The district is still trying to hire 30 English as a Second Language Teachers, according to a letter sent to the English Language Learners Task Force, a groupcreated by the School Committee in 2009 to provide guidanceon policies regarding students learning English.

"We recognize that our schools across the district are faced with a labor shortage.... We will continue to widen our recruitment strategy," read the letter.

It's not clear why the district appeared to post the jobs in September and October, after the school year started. Staffing shortages have dogged schools nationwide as many educators wanted a break from teaching or to take advantage of new opportunities created by a flood of federal relief money to schools.

The staffing shortage also may explain why the district can't account for about 2,000 English learners since there is no data for them in the district's centralized student information system.

"We have some of the lowest level of data entry compliance in the past 6 years," reads the district letter to the task force. The district is working with schools to address the "root" of the problem, according to the letter.

Instability in the central office department that provides instruction and support to English learners may have complicated the district's ability to hire, oversee compliance with the Department of Justice, and overhaul education for English learners following a 2017 law that essentially reversed a voter initiative mandating English-only instruction.

While the district has recently created a Haitian Creole and Vietnamese language immersion program, and plans to start others, BPS has made little progress meeting parent demand for more dual-language programs, where students learn part time in another language. District leaders have said they aim to increase native language instructionfor more English learners, not just the ones in dual-language programs, but hasn't settled on a plan to do that.

The rapid turnover among administrators leading the department may be partly to blame.The newest assistant superintendent of the Office of English Learners, Aketa Narang Kapur, took over just last month.

"The Office of English Learners has experienced significant leadership changes over the years and staffing shortages as of late that has diminished the capacity for support to schools," read the central office letter to the English Language Learners Task Force.

Advocates also have raised concerns about a BPS policy decision described in Boston's Oct. 15 report to the Department of Justice to move English learners who score a three for two consecutive years on English proficiency exams into general education. (On a scale of one to five, one is the least proficient and five is the most.)

According to the agreement with the Department of Justice, level-three students are entitled to receive an hour a day of specialized reading and writing instruction, but Boston's report doesn't indicate how these students will receive any special services.

In response, Suzanne Lee and Ernani DeAraujo, co-chairs of the English Language Learners Task Force, wrote to Cassellius, calling for change. "We are concerned that what is described may constitute "dumping" students into General Education....General Education is not the appropriate setting for [level three] students."

Bianca Vázquez Toness can be reached at bianca.toness@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @biancavtoness.

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Most BPS students learning English aren't getting appropriate services - The Boston Globe

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The lack of appropriate services adds to the challenges many of the affected 6,200 students have experienced during the pandemic, marked by difficulties accessing learning online from home when school buildings were shut down.

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Professional Association Name: TESOL International Association
Link: https://www.tesol.org/
Citation: TESOL. (n.d.). TESOL international association. https://www.tesol.org/
Summary:  It was organized out of professional concern with the lack of organization that brings educators of all levels that teach English Language Leaners. Not only does it help educators with resources, but it also provides ELLs with resources such as Federal Laws (TESOL, n.d.).

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The person I interviewed was Christy Diego from San Angelo Independent School District. Her title in the district is Director of Bilingual & English Language Learners. She discussed that there is an issue with the services that being provided to ELL students. After the pandemic students regressed and there are even more ELL students than before. This makes it hard for teachers, because now they are having to provide more intense instruction to make up ground that was lost when schools shut down. It was discussed that campus should provide resources for teachers to help students, teachers should be reading/researching outside of what is provided to them to help, and parents should be aware of their child's progress throughout the program. These issues and best practices relate to our teachers in the district because we do have a lot of ELL students. They deserve an education that will meets their linguistic needs and learn content that will help benefit them in the future. In order to be successful with this goals, teachers must be provided the resources in order to make it happen.
Link to Mrs. Diego: https://www.saisd.org/departments/federalstate-programs/bilingual