SEL PLC February 18, 2015 Orange County Department of Education Services for English Learners Team

Agenda • Welcome/Minutes • Los Amigos of Orange County 6th Annual Education Conversations

Conference • Dr. Alex Gonzalez, Program Coordinator – Orange County Migrant Education Program – Region IX

• New Federal Guidelines for English Learners (ELs) • Practitioner’s Toolkit/LCAP Connection • Updates to Pathways to Biliteracy Criteria • Multilingual Consortium Update • 2015 Celebrating English Learner Success Event - Nominations • Upcoming Events and Activities • Next Meeting (March 10th)

• Digging on depth to Practitioner’s Toolkit/LCAP Connection

Los Amigos of Orange County 6th Annual Education Conversations Conference

Chinese Proverbs

Directions:

• Find a partner and select at your table a fortune cookie

• With a partner read your proverb and discuss how the proverb designees with education

New Federal Guidelines • On January 7th, the U.S. Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Education

(DOE) released a joint guidance, reminding state educational agencies, school districts, and public schools of their legal obligation to: • Ensure that ELs have access to a high quality education • Provide parents and guardians of ELs meaningful access to district and

school-related information • The guidance also discusses how districts that receive Title III

funding can implement their funds “in a manner consistent with these civil rights obligations” (p. 2)

Common Civil Rights Issues • Furthermore, the joint guidance has identified ten compliance

issues that frequently arise in the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) • There are numerous civil rights complaints that the departments

are currently dealing with • The departments acknowledge that the rise in complaints is due to

the increase of ELs in the nation’s public schools • 9% of all public school students are ELs • 3 out of every 4 school districts enroll ELs • The number of ELs are “steadily increasing” (p. 1)

Departmental-Eyes: Jigsaw Activity

• Work with an elbow partner, each of you will focus on a department; DOJ or DOE

• You will be assigned to one of the ten Federal Guidance Issues • Fill in the matrix box that corresponds to your department (use the focus

questions from the next slide) • Share with your partner • Prepare to share with the group what you and your partner discussed • As others share, fill out the rest of the matrix

Departmental-Eyes: Jigsaw Activity (cont’d)

Focus Questions • DOE: What role does the Department of Education play in regards

to your assigned issue? How does the DOE view educational equity for ELs? How does it encourage sound instructional models, programs, practices, systems, and procedures?

• DOJ: Given your assigned issue, what does noncompliance “look like” for the Department of Justice? What kind of compliance problems do you think have already surfaced? Why is your assigned issue challenging for school districts?

Joint Guidance

The guidance explains the schools’ obligations to: • Identify and assess EL students in need of language assistance in a

timely, valid and reliable manner • Provide EL students with a language assistance program that is

educationally sound and proven successful • Sufficiently staff and support the language assistance programs for EL

students • Ensure EL students have equal opportunities to meaningfully

participate in all curricular and extracurricular activities, including the core curriculum, graduation requirements, specialized and advanced courses and programs, sports, and clubs

Joint Guidance (cont’d)

The guidance explains the schools’ obligations to: • Avoid unnecessary segregation of EL students • Ensure that EL students with disabilities under the Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) or Section 504 are evaluated in a timely and appropriate manner for special education and disability-related services and that their language needs are considered in evaluations and delivery of services

• Meet the needs of EL students who opt out of language assistance programs

Joint Guidance (cont’d)

The guidance explains the schools’ obligations to: • Monitor and evaluate EL students in language assistance programs

to ensure their progress with respect to acquiring English proficiency and grade level core content, exit EL students from language assistance programs when they are proficient in English, and monitor exited students to ensure they were not prematurely exited and that any academic deficits incurred in the language assistance program have been remedied

Joint Guidance (cont’d)

The guidance explains the schools’ obligations to: • Evaluate the effectiveness of a school district’s language assistance

program(s) to ensure that EL students in each program acquire English proficiency and that each program was reasonably calculated to allow EL students to attain parity of participation in the standard instructional program within a reasonable period of time

• Ensure meaningful communication with LEP parents

Legal Obligations

According to the departments; states, school districts, and schools have an obligation “under federal law” to ensure that ELs have equity and access.

• Lau v. Nichols (1974) • The Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 (EEOA) • The Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Castañeda v. Pickard (1978)

Resources & Tools

The departments provide the following :

• Fact sheets for schools and parents in English and other languages • A toolkit to help school districts identify English learners

http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oela/eltoolkitchap1.pdf

Focus:

• Provide instruction for elementary and middle school English learners —students with limited proficiency in English and those students “re-designated “ as fluent in English

• Grades: K – 8

• Learning in English

• Language and literacy skills that English learners need to be successful in school: listening, reading, writing, and speaking in English for academic purposes

Recommendations Strong Evidence

Moderate Evidence

Minimal Evidence

Teach a set of academic words intensively across several days using a variety of instructional activities

Integrate oral and written English language instruction into content-area teaching

Provide regular, structured opportunities to develop written language skills

Provide small-group instructional intervention to students struggling in areas of literacy and English language development

Walk - Through

Recommendation: Group Work

• Create a graphic organizer • Describe the recommendation and connect the

following initiatives as they pertain to your school district/school site:

• Literacy across the content • Current initiatives • Academic goals • LCAP focus areas • Language proficiency

Updates to Pathways to Biliteracy Criteria

In your packet you will find: • Copies of the Orange County Pathway to Biliteracy Criteria

At your table: • Review each grade criteria • With the absence of the CST at this time, discuss what

alternative assessment might be used and added to the grade level criteria

Be ready to share out

Multilingual Consortium Update

Feb. 19, 2015 Dual Language Network Feb. 24, 2015 Intro to the New ELD Standards March 10, 2015 SEL PLC March 12, 2015 Multilingual Consortium March 18, 2015 Connections Meeting

Professional Development:

Celebrating English Learner Success

May 14, 2015 Costa Mesa Hilton Hotel

Nominate Someone Today

SEL Newsletter

Evaluations

Thank you!

Next Meeting is March 10th