Secondary ELLs – kcmellblog

Raytown School District Enhances ELL Parent Engagement

NCLR Padres Comprometidos Summer Training of Trainers

An ongoing conversation that is once again at the forefront of educator discussions comes in light of ESSA. According to EdWeek, ESSA continues to encourage schools to strengthen the ability of ELL families to engage meaningfully with schools about their child’s education. This fall Wendy Mejia, ELL Coordinator for Raytown School District, and Guadalupe Magaña, UMKC-RPDC MELL are piloting a family engagement program designed for parents and guardians who are also English language learners.

Preparations for the pilot began at the end of June 2016, when I accompanied Wendy Mejia to Fort Worth, Texas, for an invitational four-day training of trainers hosted by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) to obtain certification in NCLR’s Padres Comprometidos (PC) model. PC is a tested and proven effective parent engagement program for parents and guardians who are also English learners. Guadalupe Magaña completed PC training shortly after her arrival at the UMKC-RPDC in July and brings a wealth of experience that will strengthen MELL’s capacity to offer PC to additional districts.

Wendy Mejia, ELL Coordinator, Raytown School District (right) and Diane Mora, UMKC-RPDC MELL Instructional Specialist at NCLR — Wendy Mejia, ELL Coordinator, Raytown School District (right) and Diane Mora, UMKC-RPDC MELL at NCLR training

“I am excited to offer Padres Comprometidos to our Spanish-speaking secondary parents here in Raytown because it’s a great curriculum designed to give parents the knowledge and tools they need so that they can more fully engage with our district to be more actively involved in their children’s education. I think parents will learn so much! I look forward to working with Guadalupe Magaña to initiate the program here.” — Wendy Mejia, ELL Coordinator, Raytown School District

PC is broken into three levels of programming to address the specific informational needs of families of kindergarten, elementary, and secondary students. The grade-specific design of PC is a major factor of its success. The different tool kits take into account the differences in the “language” educators use to discuss student performance during parent-teacher meetings, for example. But PC addresses much more than parent-teacher conferences. Its design contains highly relevant information for families who need English language support while also increasing their understanding of how to navigate school protocols, engage with school personnel, and advocate effectively for their student’s academic success. All PC materials are available in English and Spanish which makes the training materials and the parent/guardian materials easily accessible for districts with higher concentrations of Spanish-speaking families.

Guadalupe Magaña, UMKC-RPDC MELL, prepares for Padres Comprometidos.

Guadalupe has also embraced the training and the project with enthusiasm. After completing training, she expressed her passion for this initiative:

“Padres Comprometidos is here to make a change in the Hispanic families. The goal of this program is to motivate parents to [encourage] their children to go to college by building communication between school and parents, and understanding what is needed to go to college.” – Guadalupe Magaña, UMKC-RPDC MELL Instructional Specialist

Raytown School District is further supporting the implementation of the first PC cohort with provisions for day care, refreshments, and supplies. All of which demonstrates the district’s sensitivity to creating a welcoming environment for families, and underscores the district’s commitment to fostering parent engagement and family participation. Dr. Janie Pyle, Associate Superintendent of Curriculum Instruction and Assessment, Raytown School District, commented,

“This will support parent involvement activities for our ESL families.” –Janie Pyle, Associate Superintendent, Raytown School District

Watch for an announcement communicating the date for Guadalupe to provide additional information at a 2016-2017 ELL Consortium meeting (date to be set). She and Wendy will also share updates about how the pilot is progressing in Raytown.

Based on the anticipated success of Raytown’s first parent cohort, Guadalupe is looking for two additional districts who are also willing to host a cohort during the 2016-2017 school year. To find out more about PC and discuss the requirements for hosting a cohort of parents/guardians in your district, please email Guadalupe Magaña, maganag@umkc.edu.

In 2015-2016 the KCMELLblog featured the ELL parent digital literacy efforts at Center School District. If you have an effective family engagement practice or model to share, please scroll down to the “Leave a comment” button and share your ideas! We would love to feature your district’s great work in a future blog post. You may also share by emailing Diane Mora, morad@umkc.edu

March 2016 study on length of time to reclassification

I predict that reclassification of English learner students is going to be a major point of discussion as states move forward with ESSA implementation. This March 2016 study from REL Northwest is a must-read for anyone who plans to be part of the discussions about accountability measures pertaining to English learner students.

State agencies may wish to consider taking English proficiency at entry to kindergarten into account when determining appropriate targets for federal accountability measures, for example, by setting longer expected times to reclassification and providing additional support to students entering school with basic or intermediate levels of English language proficiency. Many states are also implementing new standards for college and career readiness and overhauling their assessment and accountability systems, both of which involve setting additional targets for English learner students. A better understanding of the factors related to variation in time to proficiency may allow states to establish targets that take particular factors , such as English proficiency, into account.

Conducted in school districts in Washington state, the study (linked above) attempted to use “survival analysis” (meaning it accounted for the impact of student demographics and differences in schools) in its findings. Among several interesting outcomes, the research illuminates a deficiency in accountability measures that is likely seen in many (if not all) states:

“Previously…districts were able to determine only how many students had been reclassified in a given year and not how many years it took them to be reclassified, which is the main focus of this study.” – page 2

While the study focuses on language development based on a student’s English proficiency upon entering Kindergarten, I think the most compelling findings of the study surround the “significant difference” that:

“Speakers of Chinese, Vietnamese, or Russian or Ukraine are reclassified sooner than speakers of Somali or Spanish.” – Figure 3, page 8

And although adult ELLs are not addressed in this research it’s worth noting that the findings quoted above mirror a phenomenon I find in my adult ESL classroom. My classroom consists of 30 adult ELL students representing 14 different first languages and 16 countries. Following a recent language development assessment, I found that students whose first language was a language other than Spanish were progressing exponentially faster through ESL class levels than students whose first language was Spanish. Even when the speakers of those other languages (in my case Persian, Chinese, Portuguese, Urdu, and Tamil) had only lived in the U.S. less than one year they were testing into the next highest level of development after one year or less of English class. Conversely, far too many of my Spanish-speaking students have lived in the U.S. more than 9 years and in some cases were even born in the U.S., but did not learn enough English as children and adolescents to successfully graduate K-12.

Returning to the focus on K-12 English learner students, this research report is worth reading. And if you’re at all concerned with the effects of English language development on high school graduation, I encourage you to check out the references cited at the end of the study. Many of which I’ve earmarked for further reading myself.

If you’ve read “English learner student characteristics and time to reclassification: An example From Washington state”, Motamedi, Singh, and Thompson, March 2016, I hope you’ll leave a reply with your take-aways. And if you’ve read other insightful literature on the topic of EL characteristics and time to reclassify I hope you’ll share as well.

Thanks for reading!

Appropriateness of Online Discussions in the ELL Classroom

Last semester I posted a blog about multicultural youth literature. A favorite book on my recommendation list is Sold.

Here’s how a National Writing Project found that “Sold” fostered immigrant students’ abilities to participate in on-line discussion groups in meaningful ways.

How have you incorporated Sold in your classroom?