Best Practices for English LearnersOdyssey 2014Oregon Dept. of Education

Introductions (5-10 minutes)• Who are you?

• Where do you work?

• What is your job title/responsibilities?

• What is your favorite color?

• Choose one of these locations to go on vacation:

• Theme park

• Stay at home

• Beach

• Snow lodge

Purpose:

• To share English learner best practices from districts in Oregon.

• To collaborate with other district staff on services for English learners.

• To inform the State specific areas of need for future professional development and guidance.

Group activity one (10-15 minutes)• Find your “favorite color” group

• Using the chart paper

• Make a list of all the areas you have questions about for English learners.

• Prioritize the list by number once listed.

• 3 minute rotate with current color group

• Read the list in order of priority – use your marker• Star – agree with priority level

• Dash- lower the priority level

• Plus – raise the priority level

Group revisit

• Return to your original poster and reflect:

• Feedback from other groups.

• Other group ideas.

• Any additions to be made?

• Choose person to report out.

Did you agree with the State?

• SPED/EL – identification

• SPED/EL – service models

• SPED/EL – proficiency

• LEP programs models

• Recent arrivers

• Early Childhood

• Promoting/exiting

• Instructional practices

• ELPA 21

• ELP standards

• Instructional Materials

• TAG/EL

• Kindergarten Assessment

Group report out

• Please report out any areas that were not on the State list of priorities.

• Any Group “ah-has” when seeing other lists?

Now let’s

DIVE

into some of these topics

Data

• Recent Arrivers

• Add an element that you can search for identified recent arrivers in your district student information system• Include in this element an expiration date when the

student is past the 3 year timeline.

• This will allow for ease in searching for the students who are Recenrt Arrivers and make submitting easier.

• If your district receives an Immigrant grant you will know which students and families the grant must support

Data

• LEP Flag

• Consider changing the LEP flag from YES to NO the school year following a student’s exit from the ELD program.

• Discuss with a partner what could happen if this change doesn’t occur?

Data/Testing

• Exiting Waiver Students

• Consider testing waiver students first in the district ELPA testing cycle…scores will come back first and you can proceed with exit portfolios earlier.• Why?

• These students aren’t served, thus it may take longer to pull content level work samples together.

• The ELD teacher will need to review the samples for linguistic errors.

• Classroom teacher input will be critical.

SPED/ EL Testing

• Have the Special education teachers take the ELPA practice test prior to having discussions on ELPA domain exemptions or participate in ELPA testing as a test administrator.

• Discussions on ELPA exemptions will be informed based on the ELPA tasks the students must undergo.

SPED/EL testing

• Each spring there are IEP meetings for the following year’s Kindergarteners. If any of these students are English learners, then the IEP team must include a language specialist.

• ELD program of service must be discussed and written into the IEP.

• ELPA participation must be discussed and written into the IEP.• Typically state assessments are not addressed

at this grade level as most state assessments begin at 3rd grade.

SPED/EL Exiting

• What is the Billion Dollar Question?

• “What is English proficiency for a student with a disability?

So what do we look at?

• Find your favorite place to go partners and discuss, record your thoughts on chart paper.

• Reminder: Choose one of these locations to go on vacation:

• Theme park

• Stay at home

• Beach

• Snow lodge

SPED/EL exiting• Students who are dual identified in special education and ELL who

have a documented learning disability or communication disorder may never be able to score a composite score of 4 or 5 on ELPA due to their disability.

• In such circumstances a large gap between the oral and written domains typically exists, and will do so for a number of years.

• In such circumstances, a student could be considered for promotion out of ELL services when they have consistently demonstrated proficiency according to their individual circumstances or in the domains that are not affected by their disability, and it is deemed by the ELL teacher, in consultation with the parent and the IEP team, that continuing in ELL services will no longer benefit the student. The regular promotion process will be followed with the addition of a special education representative present at the team meeting; use the required forms.

SPED/EL

• In your group – discuss pros/cons of the wording in the plan – add in any additional items you would consider after reading this proposal

Group share

• Round Robin – each group will share 1 pro and 1 con they discussed until all are on the group sheet.

• Then each group will share 2 items they would consider reviewing for exiting an SPED/EL as proficient.

SPED/EL Identification

• Lots of questions abound on identifying English learners who are non-verbal coming from a home where a language other than English is spoken.

• Title III participated in a joint agency meeting in July with Title I, School Improvement and SPED, guidance was provided at that meeting. Let’s take a moment to read and discuss as a group.

SPED/EL Program of service

• Once an English learner is identified as Special Education and has an IEP, the instructional program must be written on the IEP. ELD teachers must participate in IEP meetings.

• ELD Program options:• ELD by ELD teacher (group or individual)

• ELD by SPED teacher(group or individual) with consultation from ELD teacher

Early Childhood

• One recommendation is that the district reach out to local early childhood groups and provide training/support in:

• language acquisition

• Bilingual family support• Training parents what students need to know for kindergarten

and how parents can help students learn.

• There has been a few cases where ELs in Early Childhood programs are identified as communication disordered because they doe not progress in English as fast as their peers.

Kindergarten Assessment – 10 minutes

• Time to move again

• Find your color group –

• Discuss – what your district did that worked - didn’t work and what will do differently this year.

• Prepare to share out.

Kindergarten – group share

• One district set up a one on one appointment for each student for assessment.

• Then they had three days where only 1/3 of the class attended school, as an orientation.

• Finally on the 4th day the entire kindergarten class was there.

• The district reported a smooth transition for students and families.

Kindergarten assessment

• One district shared that some of their students were far behind the academics of the kindergarten assessment.

• They developed their own “checklist” to see each students actual level of knowledge and compared that data fall and spring.

• This extra growth measure gave the district one more way to look at student achievement and teacher effectiveness.

Instructional practices

• Scaffolding

• Districts are being more diligent on having sentence frames available for students to use during instruction.

• Recommendation – leave the common dialogue starters up for the entire year.• I agree with______

• I disagree with ____________

Now its your turn

• Think about one thing you are doing that is working well for your ELs or ELD program.

• Share it out so we can capture it for other districts.

And now Homework….

• Please give the State, homework

• Go back to your vacation group – discuss with them what you want the State to work on.

• We can’t promise more money or more time for you and we can’t change the laws/rules overnight.

• As a group – fill out the Purple form to turn in.

Ticket out the door

• Please fill out the feedback form –

• If you have burning questions/needs please add that to the back of the form and we will be in touch.

• Thanks for coming…..