School Board Meeting of Trustees Study Session 3-31-26.

001Okay, it's 531. Okay, I'm going to call the meeting to order at 531 p.m. We're going to do the roll call, Michelle. Trustee Bell? Here. Trustee Ching? Here. Trustee Guzman? Here. Trustee Landry? Trustee Lehman? Right on time, here. And we'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Great. Spanish language services? Wordly online, great. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? I move to approve the agenda as presented. I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Communications to the board, public comment. Board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and provides this time for members of the audience to address the board. Do we have any public comments in the room? Step right up. Now it's on. Okay, good evening, trustees, Superintendent Sutter, and ladies, I'm glad you're here today. Tonight you're holding a study

002session on multilingual learners. That's great. But a study session rings hollow when decisions you've made are working against these same students. 26% of our students are multilingual learners. The majority are Latino. There are kids who depend on a fully staffed, fully funded district with strong instructional leadership. And this board is systematically dismantling the very infrastructure that protects them. You've pink-slipped Jillian Beal, the Director of Educational Services. Her job by law is to ensure the district meets its legal obligations to English learners, students with disabilities, and every child entitled to an equitable education. She will be gone in June. That's not a budget decision. That's a policy decision, and it puts the district at legal risk. Presswood needed to close, hard but defensible. What is not defensible is what came next. Granting those same families a

003charter school over community objections, diverting millions away from the 31 students who remain, two-thirds of whom are Latino to serve roughly 200 other students. You closed one school and opened a private pipeline. My interrupting anything so the public comment needs to be on. Oh it is items on the agenda it is well you're talking about It is but it's a it is It absolutely has been critical Maybe maybe maybe let me finish and then you'll know well if you're gonna be off topic then that's an issue. It doesn't say items on the agenda, off the agenda. That is not what is stated on the piece of paper. And I asked people, district staff, before I got up here. Okay, so this is public comment for items on the agenda. This is absolutely a part of

004the agenda. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. That is not equity. It's a betrayal to the students of this district you are supposed to serve. You cannot study your way out of a leadership vacuum. You cannot hold a session and then go back to making decisions that harm the very students you pretend to care about tonight. These children deserve a board that doesn't gut the office responsible for protecting them, doesn't drain the budget funding their education, and doesn't treat minority families as collateral damage. Do better or resign your seat. One of you was elected. One who is not here currently ran unopposed, and two of you were appointed. None of you are acting like you answered to anyone. These children and the community deserve better than that. Thank you. Okay, anybody else in the room? Come on

005up. I didn't prepare a statement or anything, but I'm here, Gail Miller, as a retired speech and language therapist, having worked a little bit in this district, but also over in Napa, which is a highly, again, bilingual community. And both schools where I was, one was dual immersion, Napa Valley Language Academy. The other one, Wes McPherson School, highly bilingual. So I have some background in terms of working with kids who are coming directly from Mexico, Latin America, and it's just so apparent to me that unless those kids, even if they're 10, 12, 15 years old, if they're just thrown in the grade where that age indicates for them, they're going to fail. Our test results are going to be awful. You're just letting them sink. Until a program is provided where those kids get academic

006English instruction for at least a year before they're put in a grade-level classroom, you're doomed. Those kids come from families where the background, I would go out for walks at lunchtime and be amazed at the parents picking up their kindergartners, first graders, or preschoolers, and they would walk home and not a word was spoken. They come from families that don't use a lot of language. Maybe the parents are illiterate themselves. If you don't have a strong base in A language, whether it's Spanish or English, it's like building a house without a foundation. You can't expect them to assimilate and to be able to handle this. Whether it's reading instruction or math instruction, any kind of instruction, they need that strong base. So I'm just here to, and, you know, I know the state has just

007provided you with a recommendation to teach reading using phonics, and I understand it's just a recommendation. Come on. We knew that was necessary. But the state needs to provide you with funds to have a classroom for kids coming in from out of the state, out of the country, where they are immersed in English academic skills. So I'm here as a proponent of that. Thanks. Thank you. Anybody online, Michelle? So we will then move to the regular agenda, multilingual supports presentation. Christina, please. Yes, good evening, Superintendent Sutter, President Bell, Board of Trustees, and the Sonoma Valley community. Tonight we are providing you with an overview of the instructional programs and supports for our multilingual learners here in Sonoma Valley. I'm joined today with Principal Liz Liskam and Coordinator Amber Williams, and we have Director Troy Knox

008here as well. We recognize that multilingualism is a gift and an asset, and it really supports inclusive, culturally responsive education, while the term English learner is more deficit thinking. And while we're shifting to the term of multilingual learners to emphasize asset-based language, we... recognize that the term english learner is still used in education code it's still used in reporting categories so it will be used somewhat interchangeably but we like to view our students as a multilingual learners for their brilliance and gifts that they bring as a multilingual individual so as we start i'd like to turn it over to principal liscombe to ground us in the lens of a multilingual learner hi everyone thank you for having me tonight So I want you, we're going to do a little activity, and I want you to

009imagine yourself as an elementary school student through the lens of a learner. This excerpt that we're going to be doing tonight is for grades three through five, and we are going to be doing part of the listening portion of the ELPAC assessment. So the first thing I'd like you guys to do, you guys have some paper at your tables, or at your seats, you can take notes, you can draw pictures, anything that you need. Because at the end of this oral presentation, we are going to ask some questions. So if I were the teacher, this is what the directions say. Listen to the teacher talking to the students about apples. Listen carefully. You will hear the information only once. After listening, you will answer some questions. As you listen, you may use the blank areas

010in your test book to take notes. Okay? So I gave you guys some. That's at the end. You can take it. If you have, if you have, you guys don't have blank paper. Perfect. Just take some. There's no wrong way. Okay? Yes, but you're asking just the right questions. Okay, so. We're going to listen to this prompt. Have you ever noticed when you're eating an apple that the inside part that's usually white when you first bite into it starts to turn brown after a while? Why does the inside of an apple start to turn brown? Well, it's because of what apples have inside of them. Apples have a certain type of enzyme in them. When you bite into the apple, oxygen in the air reaches the enzyme in the apple. When the oxygen reaches the

011enzyme, the apple starts to turn brown. An apple's skin protects the inside from the air. But once you take a bite and break the skin, the enzyme helps begin a chemical reaction. This reaction doesn't only happen with apples. Many different plants also contain this type of enzyme and will turn brown when their inner tissue meets the oxygen in the air. Sometimes this reaction is used while making products that we recognize for their brown color. For example, this reaction is used to produce the brown color in drinks that people know and love like coffee, tea, and cocoa. Now, drinking a cup of brown tea might seem more appetizing than eating brown apple slices. So, if you don't want to eat brown apples, there are some things you can do to slow down A.B. the process. After

012you cut the apple, you can squeeze lemon juice onto it or dip it in a glass of orange juice. Some fruits, such as lemons and oranges, contain citric acid, which will slow down the browning. Okay, so if this was the alpaca... the test that the students would be taking, they would be answering some questions on their own, on their Chromebook. But since we're in this venue, you each have, you have a set of cards, okay? And I have four questions. There's answers A, B, and C. Superintendent Sutter, you can join if you'd like to. Oh, you have two Cs. Okay. Okay, so. So if you were a student, an English learner, you would be reading these questions yourself. It wouldn't be me reading them to you. So I'm going to ask the first question. What

013is the teacher mainly discussing? I would like you to determine which answer you believe. Okay, one, two, three. Awesome. Next question. What does the teacher say that apples have inside of them? A, a type of enzyme, B, a lot of oxygen, or C, citric acid? Win. Awesome. You are correct. But if you were a student right now, I would not be giving you that reinforcement that that was correct. B, the next one. Why is the skin of the apple important? Awesome. Awesome. The answer is B. Why does the teacher talk about tea? Awesome, thank you. So if you think about that, you guys passed with flying colors, but when you think about that, this is an example of the oral presentation for grades three through five for the ELPAC. Think about the skills needed to

014be answered these questions accurately. Think about a newcomer who recently enrolled and are expected to know words such as enzyme, citric acid, suggest, explain, describe. Chemical reactions, are there any other words that you heard that? Did they say oxidation? I don't know. I think they did. Can I ask a quick question? So would any random third grader get this question, or is this a fifth grader question? So fifth grader and third grader questions could be identical. They don't adjust for age. Ninth and 10th are the same, and 11th and 12th are the same. Okay, I'm gonna pass it. Thank you for participating in this. I'll be back shortly Thank You principal this gum so that was just a sampling of a packed assessment the outback stands for English language performance assessment and It's provided or

015given to any student who is identified as an English learner in grades K through 12 Until they are reclassified. There are two types of LPACs that's given to a student one is the initial depending on their home language survey which i will talk about later on that's only given once upon enrollment and the score ranges from one to three or this or end the summative which is taken annually a score ranges are from one to four we also have an alternate initial and summative lpac for students based on their iep the lpac measures four domains across reading speaking listening and writing So today's learning session, and this slide is revised, so trustees, you have the revision underneath your packet. Because we aligned it, I added the LCAP goal and actions that's aligned to the information

016in the presentation. We're going to talk about our learners, from identification to look at some of the data. We'll talk about ed code requirements, the instructional programs. dual language pathway, CELA biliteracy, working with our parents as partners and moving forward and reflecting. I understand there's a lot of slides. We wanted to be as thorough and comprehensive as possible, but we could adapt and be flexible as our conversation flows this evening. Okay? Can I just interrupt and ask a question? Sure. On that slide, page five, so there's two types of tests, which is the initial and then the summative, right? Summative. Summative. What is the, who takes which, like how many kids take the initial and pass that and then are never classified, or then they're classified out of being? So we'll talk about we could

017talk about that in a bit but the first thing is that let me get back to that slide. So it's given only one time if they initial then they're out of it forever and they never have to do it. They're considered an initial fluent English proficient student. Yeah. Yes. They won't be identified as an EL. Okay. IFEP is what we call them. Do we have a sense as to sort of the percentage of the kids that sort of do? Yeah, the data is in the slides. Oh, okay, great. We'll get there. You guys are eager learners. I love it. So who are our students here in Sonoma Valley? There are a number of classifications or categories that identify students as an English learner. So first and foremost, and this data is from February, captured February

01818th, and this data is always evolving. It's very fluid from day to day. So the number of students that are identified as an English learner is 643. That means they have not yet reclassified based on the ELPAC and the other process that we'll talk about later. Number of students who are considered long-term English learners, LTELs, it's 143. These students have been enrolled in United States public schools for six or more years without meeting reclassification. These students require intensive intervention because we have not yet reclassified them. Our goal is to reclassify them within five years or sooner. Another category that we consider are students who are at risk. of becoming LTELs we have 122 students that are at risk of becoming LTELs these all fall under the 643 so it's not 643 plus 143 it's of

019the 643 143 are LTELs 122 right are at risk okay Sure. Clarification. So can you just paint a picture for me of the 143 LTELs? Like, who are they exactly? Like, I'm trying to figure out, are these kids that really started with us in kindergarten, the majority of them, and they matriculated and they just didn't get reclassified by fifth grade? Or are these predominantly, you know, newcomers who maybe came in middle school and they're still LTEL in high school? I'm just trying to figure out who these are. Like try to paint a picture for me of who they are. So newcomers are, we'll talk about the definition of newcomers later on in the presentation. It's they're enrolled in, they have been enrolled with us no more than three years. So the long-term ELs are students

020who have been with us meeting any public school in the United States for six years or more and have not yet been reclassified. But generally in our school. have these kids been with us for six years or are a majority of them transferring from other schools we would have to look into that so we don't know not at this moment but we can pull that data okay um other reclassify or other classifications i think that david this alludes to the question that you asked 81 students when they took that initial lpac they achieved the score of a three. So they tested English proficient, even though they come to us with another language that's spoken in the home. We currently have students, 473 students who are identified as RFEP, meaning that they've been reclassified fluent English

021proficient. So they were formerly identified as ELs, and now they're considered as RFEP. And we have 82 students who have an IEP and are identified as a multilingual learner. Okay, so what do these numbers look like by school? You could see here the majority of our multilingual learners attend Flowery at 148 students and El Verano 127 with Sonoma Valley High School and Altamira coming in over 100 students each. So those are the numbers of our students within our district. In terms of academic performance on the ELPAC, I want to do a comparison of where we are with the state of California. So on the left is the California ELPAC proficiency with 15.53% proficient at the state compared to our district at 11.29%. You could see, I mean, it's pretty much similar to the state, especially

022as you look at students in level three, about 32% for both the state and California are at that moderately developed level. So coming back to the ELPAC scores, there's a lot of acronyms. ELPAC, ELCAP, I always mix them up. So ELPAC, just want us to get an understanding what an ELPAC score really is. An ELPAC score is made up of an oral language score and a written language score. And those scores, you break them down into domains. I talked about reading, speaking, listening, and writing. So reading and writing makes up the written language, and the listening and speaking make up the oral language. So this is a sample of what parents could receive or parents do receive and have access to based on the parent reports of what their score report looks like. So this

023student, this student's name is Fort, received a level three. So they are at moderately developed. The 1520 is a Lexile level for every grade level. It adjusts. The scale scores do adjust depending on their proficiency level. We always know that level four. is the goal and so there's four levels of proficiency within the lpac when we take a look and break it down to oral and written language the lpac grades them on a three level scale from beginning to develop somewhat moderately and well developed so this student named fort received a three in both oral language and written language with two different scale scores so that gave his score as an overall as a three So just sharing with you what it looks like for families as they receive scores. Okay, knowing that. This is

024where our students performed in last year's ELPAC. So the top table shares the breakdown of the pipe chart I shared with you a few slides ago. And you could see here at the bottom the domain proficiency levels of how our students are performing across all grades. You could see that both reading and writing are less than 6% to 7%. are well developed with more students performing at the well developed ranges and listening and speaking. And this also shows that in all the domains, most of our students are in the somewhat moderately to the beginning to develop range. So they're not yet well developed according to the ELPAC. Well, to ask questions or how do you want to run it? There's some stopping points, but if you feel the urge to ask a question, just naturally

025we could. So Michael. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'll hold my question. Okay. Like, give me four slides and we could take a pause. Four slides. Yep. Okay. So the next slide is our CAS scores. This shows a student performance of meeting or exceeding standards of all students compared to the multilingual learners. And so we see a significant gap between all students in the blue and the ELs and LTELs in the red and yellow. The green is the English only. The orange is the IFEP, the Initial Fluent English Proficient. And the turquoise is the RFEP. And you see it in ELA and math. Can I ask, what do you notice about some of these scores? I mean, it's consistent between ELA and math. I mean, there's a correlation for each group. Yeah. How about our performance of

026our initial fluent English proficient? Our IFEPs always outperform the ELs or the ALs. Yeah, the AL students, yeah. So they're already strong. They have a strong foundation. They're starting ahead. and even our RFEPs. So if you once, you know, reclassify looking at the English, the ELA assessments, they are outperforming, you know, or outperforming at the same level in terms of ELA. once students are reclassified we see data that shows that they do as well as most students yeah so if you can if you can get to the point of reclassification then you're back on track compared to the rest of the district I think we'd all agree we'd love to continue to raise the bar where all students are but today that's where they're at they're on par with their yes yeah the rest of

027them and we could see that consistently across schools as well thank you but it's interesting that they don't they're not at the same level as the IFEP the RFEPs are still behind in particular the gap is in math the the gap's a little bit smaller in ela but the when they reclassify and those students in math are still i mean it's 11 percentage points behind that's pretty significant definitely here's a couple more slides on data Comparing school-wide and EL performance by school, we do see the gap, a huge disparity in terms of achievement performance compared to our general student group. And we know that achievement gap exists, and I think sometimes it's because of opportunity and access, and we'll talk about the instructional programs in a bit. There are some bright spots. While, you know,

028we do see some data that shows our students are not yet performing well, we do have highlights that we want to share where we've moved some of our performance. As a district, we moved in the CCI indicators from the red to the yellow in terms of ELs and LTELs. Alvarado moved students in English language arts from orange to yellow. You could see flowery presswood. In 2024, 0% of their students or students with disabilities who are eligible for the CAW, the alternate ELPAC, 50% had made progress. So that's significant gains for our students with disabilities, predominantly in the ESN class. Altamira also showed growth on the LP which is the English Learner Progress Indicator and Sonoma Valley High School showed some great gains on the LP, CCI and Math where LTELs were also increasing their performance

029by 40 points. So I do want to just take a moment to just celebrate and just you know share the bright spots that we do see with our data. So now... How is it still an orange if they if it's a 40 that seems like how's that not agreed I guess? the last it's it depends on it's depending on the score and how many points they move if they increase maintain or decrease and it goes by status and change so questions what stands out to you what wonderings do you have so one of the things that I struggle with is that if you if you look longitudinally at our historical ELPAC scores which I went back to when we first administered it You know, we've had a decline, obviously, a lot of it is due

030to the pandemic, but there's absolutely no predictive power of the ELPAC to how kids actually do on CASP. In fact, both scores are really, are not something to get excited about. And so I'm just wondering, what do teachers think the root cause is here, right? So you show a few bright spots where there's, we're showing progress, but you can have all the progress in the world that you want on ELPAC. And that doesn't really correspond to any growth in CASP. So I guess I just kind of want to understand. I'm trying to wrap my head around this problem. Like, what do teachers think is happening here if there are these bright spots? Like in the classroom, like paint a picture for me. I kind of disagree with you that there's not a correlation. If a

031student is performing well on the ELPAC. It's a hard test like it's it's assessing reading writing listening and speaking where your CASP scores There's not it's like answering questions. It's it's also a different type of test. So it has resource documents and primary source documents and they're having to use three different things to then write a response to one of the questions. Like the fifth grade test is like that. In math, the questions on CAS kind of build upon themselves. So your first questions in a section of math might be more like your algorithm-y kind of questions, right? That you answer a question. And as it builds, it... it goes into more of like a performance task where you're using those skills from those algorithmic questions but then you're having to do multiple steps to

032answer a question and be able to articulate like and analyze information to then come to an answer and have multiple questions embedded within one question so the the tests are different in in that way and i think what teachers are thinking is that there's a lot of different skills embedded into these one particular tests and this year in math for example we're looking at the interim assessments and we've been implementing them in our classrooms in elementary school and i think doing that kind of gives us the opportunity to be able to practice the skills that are in and so like we know as an educator what's on those tests but also for our students to have access and to be able to participate in what is being asked of them and then What I did

033as an educator is then I implemented those skills within my classroom and during the core instruction to make kind of like replicate those things make sure I was highlighting them in my classroom and in some of the instructional practices that we talk about address a lot of these things like when I speak later on seal kind of goes through some of the what those educational practices do and strategies support listening, speaking, reading, and writing because you're practicing those skills and that student's getting the opportunity to have more opportunities within the classroom experience to practice. I think what's going through a teacher's brain is a lot. Like, it's a lot. Because you're not only just teaching the curriculum, you're analyzing what's happening in real time and then delivering instruction based upon what that student needs in

034the moment to be their best self in the next moment. So like when you're at your best, what your plan is might not be the plan that you actually deliver that day because you're doing it in response to what's happening in the classroom in real time. And in regards to data, I always say behind... Every data point has a heartbeat and behind every data there's a student and a student with a story. And academics is one lens in which we could take, you know, view a student. When you look at a whole child approach, you take a look at maybe their social emotional needs, their attendance, their behavior, the family support and family circumstances. Some of our students who are enrolling into our schools are coming from hard circumstances from their home country, right? They're

035avoiding situations or they've risked leaving their families. And so there's some trauma there that. students are also dealing with um and so it's hard for teachers to really you know look at the students through that whole child and be able to support them but like amber said the lpac and the sbac are apples and oranges and we take a look at assessment or the assessment types ones on language proficiency with different standards and the other one is common core standards and so there may not be that correlation but ultimately we want them we want them to be at grade level proficiency because we don't want to perpetuate the opportunity gap, the income gap that exists, right? Correct. And so we can say all we want about this is, I mean, I'm not discarding or I'm

036not disparaging the skills behind ELPAC. I mean, reading, listening, writing, all of that is very important. But I'm just wondering, if you do look at the raw data and you compare them, they are not correlated. they are uncorrelated that the the the lpac data is not predictive of how kids are going to do in grade level proficiency correct so it's a problem and i i think we need to figure this out what i think these are good questions one thing that i would add on to what's been said is that is that they do measure different things We're likely not going to see students that can't, that aren't reclassified on, that can't pass the ELPAC, but miraculously are scoring, are proficient on the CAS. So in one level, I think of it as a prerequisite.

037Like we, they need to be able to, we need to be able to have them be reclassified through the ELPAC in order to then be working on. the achievement that they need for the, what's that? I said grade level. Yeah, so I think that it isn't correlated, but it is those skills that they're measuring on the ELPAC are prerequisites to being able to be grade level proficient. So they are related in that way that you don't have somebody that's a newcomer that's proficient on the CASP test. I just have two things I wanted to point out just really quickly. One is, We'll start with, can we go back to the California data and the SVUSD data? So I always have a really hard time when we compare our data to California. With this, with Youth

038Truth, with everything. And I think what I really struggle with is like, one, okay, so these numbers don't look great. But two, could it be? the like if everybody's doing the same thing could it possibly not be the teachers the districts the kids like could it possibly be the test itself i mean i just feel like This is so, there's so much information when we compare data and we're so similar. It just, I don't know, I wish there was a way, because it's so, this data is so important, right, for reclassification, for making sure our students are staying on track for all of the reasons. But this is information, and it always seems to be very similar. And we get some sense of, like, relief when it's like, oh, but it's okay, because... We're the

039same. We're close to the numbers that the rest of California are. Well, not really. That's not great. And so it just makes me wonder about the test itself. And. listen, I know we have to do this, but could we be that district that does something innovative and tries something different? I'll be honest, I got so nervous when you guys said I walk in late and then we take a test. I was in school and I was that kid. you know of questions so i just i feel for these kids because i just don't think it's an accurate measurement and then i feel for the teachers because there's like everything you were explaining what else are you not able to do in your school day because you're trying to teach to a test that the state

040of california says this is what they have to do to be reclassified to progress so it just i just we don't necessarily have to talk about it right now but I'm interested in the conversation and I don't know. I think you want to. Well, I think my first thoughts in hearing you is that like this is one data point, right? Well, two, if you're talking about two separate tests. We have so many other factors as an educator in a classroom that we're thinking about our local measures that we provide just from our own assessment, a ticket out the door, right? An end of the unit assessment, right? Your homework. has lots of different ways that you could assess that right, but it's I don't love that data point as an educator myself But like there's

041a lot of different ways that we get information on a student and this is one way I think if you're doing it, right you're not teaching to a test right you're teaching to the standards You're making sure and you're ensuring that students have access to those standards through your curriculum through your supplemental curriculum Through strategies and you're you're trying to unlock and give them access to those things So like and when you do that for an English learner, you're thinking how you're unlocking it for them in listening, speaking, reading and writing. So like what key do they need to access your lesson in that moment? And as an educator, you're like diagnosing that to be able to provide a mini lesson prior or after in response to to give them access for that next lesson

042or for the lesson that you're currently on. Right. Right, no, that makes sense. I just, I feel like then that would be great. I would much rather be able to be like Amber. tell us about your students i can't you know because i feel like then if you could sit down with them and do all of these things i would love to see the difference and when you sit down and do the reading and the listening and all of that you know and the writing with them as opposed to them having to take a test i guess that's all i was saying and then the second thing is if we could go to page 10 really quickly and i just have a question about this this is something i've yeah yeah um so i think

043it's interesting that that the number of ELs by school so we have 148 at flowery and that's a percentage across the board here where we see you know or that's a group of students where we see a significant lower percentage in terms of progress and so our our flowery model is a is a model that is a 90 10 until fourth grade right so i just wonder as a district if we should be re-evaluating either that and if we change that and or how I mean I'm it's just a it's just a question I have because I know there's other dual immersion schools that do a different percentage of English to Spanish throughout their day I mean I can see value in especially if a student is coming here from let's say Mexico and they

044have no you know they they have we don't want learning loss so they get immersed in the classroom at least they're still learning that's super important but then when we have to do these tests so where's the balance for these students i guess is my question well the number at flowery is a little higher because they have more enrollment so that's one off of this particular strand and think if you were to evaluate the dual language program it would I would encourage the to expand it you're not just evaluating them in elementary school because it takes six years to acquire language so students you know what I could speak as a parent so my own child in is an English as a Spanish learner but she Sorry for my kids. They're probably hopefully not watching

045but do not score proficient in Spanish while she was in elementary school But now as an eighth grader is excelling in it is it is reaching above grade level standard in Spanish So like it takes time to acquire that language So I think like if we're a lot of factors would go into evaluating that model to to have evidence to change it because I think if you look at it longitudinally of like how kids perform later and the research behind dual language models in 9010 will tell you that, that like they eventually outperform their peers. That's what the research shows you from that. I guess I'll just, if I could just play like. the other side of that. So your students were Spanish learners and they came home and there's that level, those things to

046consider. So you as an educator yourself with all these resources, I'm thinking about our English learners that don't have that support at home, that don't have that. They have 10% of their day where there's access to the English language, which we are trying to get them to move towards, and they go home, and some of them may have that, but some of them may not, and so I'm just thinking about it. I'm thinking about those students in that consideration. It's really like 10% of their day, and then we're like, okay, you gotta be proficient, and yes, I get the long-term goals, and I don't think the model was... like perfect for the district in terms of kids wanting to stay on this side of town and go to Altamira for the accessibility close to home

047all of those things which obviously we don't have that problem anymore because we're not you know a Dell close but I just I'm couldn't I think about those kids and it's something I've thought about for this is my fourth year and We just haven't had an in-depth conversation about it and now might not be the right time You know I was speaking to have only my kid but that same that research applies to students who are English learners That same that same catching up and trajectory applies to the opposite side of the coin so i would i would ground us in the research around dual language programs as we move forward in that evaluation process have we evaluated our dual immersion program like at any point in time 2013. that was the last time I

048mean, I think it's worthy. I mean, it would be worth just looking at for the sake of our students, right? And the data, obviously, is very important. But again, it's comparing it to that national data and how are we actually serving the students in our community and the needs. I'm going to follow up with... on Katarina's point, the numbers on this chart would be interesting if we could have the LTELs by school and then if those LTELs started with us or if they've transferred in, so if we've gotten them, so if an LTEL has been with us since the beginning, since all of their schooling, then that statistic overlaid over this would be really interesting because you would then see Because obviously if someone is a long-term English learner, we haven't got them to proficiency.

049That's one of the things. And then my second question is, I spend a lot of time looking at test scores and talking about test scores. I've got no idea what the test looks like. I just have no idea. I haven't taken an English language test since I'm in school. Well, yeah, but I'm just saying, and so I don't know if anybody else sitting here has, but it would be fascinating from my perspective to see the fifth grade CASP test and to read through it, to look at it, to say, so there's a perspective, right? Yeah, it's available to the public. Oh, okay. Yeah, online sample tests. We should. We should take it. We should. I mean, I can volunteer to proctor that if you guys would like. How long is given to take the test?

050Yeah. That would be, I'll get up and look at that. Okay, coming soon. We could send you the links too. Trustee Guzman. All the pamphlets and books are very like locked down and by law and you have to follow these rules. We could do a sample like the practice ones with it, but it's something that as an educator we talk about a lot that like, man, if an English only kid took this, they would have a challenging time with it as well. That's why as we speak about our instructional programs, when we talk about this is really good for English learners, but this is also good for all students, you'll hear that throughout some of the things we talk about later. Also, a couple of data questions that you had presented. So just to be

051clear, everyone takes the ELPAC, even if you're in high school, until you become reclassified. So we have, like, 11th and 12th graders taking this. Okay. And the 473 reclassified students, do we know what percentage are reclassified by fifth grade, like generally? Because isn't that the goal? The goal is try to get them reclassified by fifth grade. And then how many are the stragglers? Like what does the tail of the distribution look like? Do we know? Is it like pretty much 85% of kids get reclassified, or is it? By fifth grade or is it a very small percentage of kids get reclassified by fifth grade? I'll share with you some of the reclassification data in later slides. Okay. I know, but I'm just. I mean, that's the goal. That's what we're aiming to do. And I'm

052just wondering, are we hitting the mark? The first question that you asked David was how many LTELs do we have by site? So Creekside has 14. Altamira has 65. Number of ELs? 10. Okay, Creekside has 14. Altamira has 65. El Verano has five. Yeah, because long-term English learner is after six years. Flowery has two. Sasserini has six. And Sonoma Valley has 49. Presswood has zero. I didn't hear Sasserini. Six. Sasserini, six. It takes six years. Just a little plug for elevation that we use for this. How quickly I could pull this for you is a platform that we have. So you're kind of seeing it in real time how quick. So elevation. She didn't say. So where do, so how do we get the, where did the 65 in middle school come from? We have

053such low numbers in the elementary schools. Where are they coming from? They're coming from other schools then. Is that the point? They're coming from all of our elementary schools, but it would take me time to kind of see where they came from. You can picture a scenario where someone started in the first grade, second grade. They haven't been reclassified. Then they get classified as the long-term ELs. And if you came in at first grade or later, you haven't been there long enough to be eligible to be LTEL in the elementary. It's impossible until you get to middle school. But to Kat's point on the numbers that they just gave us, you were asking about flowery. I mean, if we're looking, they had most number of ELs, and they actually have the least number of LTELs,

054which is not conclusive, but some kind of data that's saying, well, they're doing a pretty strong job in that program. Yeah, I have. Just wait until we talk about it. I'd love to know how the program's performing at DeGray data. How do those kids get... Yeah, the cohort, how do they end up performing in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade Altamira? LTEL specifically? Or, yeah, the classification. What we would like to know is the kids that went through, we probably have to put a minimum of years at dual immersion program, but how they're performing at Altamira and if they have a different percentage of students. You're going to pull it up? You ready? I have a different, if it's, what's the core, you know, do an A, B, right? So our A, our control is all

055students from our other three elementary schools and how they're performing at the middle school and then how our flowery students are performing. And if they're outperforming, like that's a great, that's a great thing to know. If they're underperforming, also great to know. Do we, do we know if we have the? No, we don't. We have to find out. We have to find that out. Yeah. Yeah. I'm good. That's great. So we do our old, the old study did compare that. They did a control actually. And this is why when Katarina says, like, I want to evaluate how our dual immersion program is, that's not to be, I don't think we should take an evaluation as an oversight. This should absolutely be a positive for us, like, to understand what's working, maybe what's not, and it

056should be a learning opportunity and an opportunity to implement, right, and an opportunity to learn. Yeah, it's something I've talked to Directora Zepeda. I still call her Maestra Zepeda. But we just went to CABE, and one of the sessions I went to was an evaluation tool for a dual language program, and it's at the district level, at the site level, and in the classroom level. And it's not about, like, what, like, it was a very useful tool, and I have that, but also, like, just revisiting our program and just kind of how you said that. What did we say we did we were doing what did we are we doing what we said we were gonna do right? What's working? What's missing right? And what do we need to start doing so a continuous stop-start

057kind of protocol with them would be helpful I think it's time it's been like over ten years the percentages would help clarify this chart a little bit more Thank you. Are you ready to move on? Okay So this next section here starting at slide 20, we're going to talk about some of the requirements and processes and systems that we have in place here. Most of what we do is, you know, best practice, but it's also grounded in compliance and ed code requirements. And really it dictates what we do, such as students have to take the ELPAC that are identified as English learners, but how we do things here in the district. So here are some of the key Ed code and components for EL monitoring. Specifically, districts are required to identify students through a home

058language survey to identify potential ELs in our district. We have to administer, which we talked about, the initial and summative assessments. We need to monitor reclassified students for four years. So once they're reclassified, we're still required to monitor them, and we'll talk about that in a minute. We need to provide instructional programs that focus on language acquisition. We need to annually monitor progress of our students and report out to the families on their progress. And we also need to provide parental notification on their students, their assessment and their program placement. So how is a student identified as an English learner in our district? So when the families enroll, they complete through the PowerSchool, right now PowerSchool registration process, a home language survey. And if English is the primary and only language based on the survey

059results, they're identified as an English-only student, and the process stops. Nothing else that happens. That's on the right arm of this flowchart. If language other than English is noted... Predominantly we do have, you know, most of our students do speak Spanish, but in our analysis right before our meeting, based on elevation, thank you, Amber, we do have a student who speaks Japanese, a couple students who speak Arabic, a couple students who speak Nepali, and one student who speaks Amharic, okay? They take the initial ELPAC upon their enrollment, or the alternate ELPAC if they're eligible based on their IEP. If a student earns a three, They are identified as an initial fluent English proficient student in IFAP and that process the process stops There's no monitoring required there in our system identified as IFAP if the

060student student earns or one or two Then they are identified as an English learner And then after that initial ELPAC, they continue to take the summative ELPAC in the spring until they're reclassified and teachers are required to monitor students and their performance. So that's how students are identified as an English learner, an IFAP, and even an English-only student. So when we talk about monitoring, as I mentioned, districts are required to monitor their multilingual learners, and this is a collective responsibility. in terms of supporting and monitoring students across our district. There are two types of monitoring. There's annual progress monitoring that happens twice a year and the RFEP progress monitoring that happens twice a year for four years. Time is built into the teacher workday, which predominantly is their Wednesdays, to complete these forms in elevation.

061Elevation holds all of the forms and the data. The document here does outline the established timelines that we've set in our district in terms of when we are monitoring them, as well as who is responsible for completing the forms across our district. So that is the what. This is the how through the elevation platform teachers provide input for students based on various questions they have to most of the questions are drop down we made it as simple as possible the beauty of elevation it automatizes a lot of the information of students so teachers don't have to copy information regarding student demographics and student performance and they just answer questions from check boxes or checklists. The questions are outlined here on that right document. And I do want to say that while this fulfills Ed code

062requirements, it also helps educators in making instructional decisions like Amber was saying about what to do in terms of their reading or speaking or listening and what activities that we could provide. The other piece I wanted to share too regarding the progress monitoring for RFP and the annual monitoring process. is that we received a lot of input from our educators because as i mentioned this is a collective responsibility it's not the eld sole resp teachers sole responsibility or the ela sole teacher's sole responsibility to monitor how our multilingual learners are doing it says here We have our history teachers, our science teachers, even our PE elective teachers also participating and contributing to the information in terms of students making progress because they too are responsible for providing integrated ELD instruction within the content. So it's

063based on, and we've refined it over the past couple of years that we've been here to make it simple for our teachers and informative and meaningful. Okay, so let's talk about reclassification. My question there is if we go back to the slide 24, we're testing, we're monitoring twice a year, right? And is that enough to give us information to figure out if a student is meeting? the standard progressing or not. It seems like it sort of, is there any other testing going on in between those two time testing to kind of figure out what the progress is going and what to change and what we're doing, things like that? Well, it's like two trains running at the same time, right? So you have your content standards that you're assessing and then you have your language

064standards for ELD. So as a, like... in my opinion, every classroom's an ELD classroom has the opportunity for that because you should be teaching your content standards and then you also have to address your ELD standards within your classroom too. So yes, there's checkpoints along the way and as a teacher, like I said earlier, you're doing that in real time with students and adapting what you were providing for a student and their experience so that they could... Evolve and and and grow as a an English learner as well as in the content standard. So you're saying that Students are getting tested in other subject matter along the way. Oh, yeah. I would go out on a limb here and say that every teacher has quizzes and checkpoints throughout their classrooms, like probably when you went

065to school, like formative and informative assessments, as well as summative assessments at the end of chapters or units. But is that then being used for their English language development to assess the progress versus the monitoring twice a year? Yeah, those monitoring twice a year, you're taking all of that information from those assessments to then put it into this form to progress monitor them and to check. And so prior to us using elevation, they were... It was hit and miss where these documents lived there were physical papers They were hard to find if we were like where's this progress monitor from it might live in different areas and we couldn't access them like nobody could access them unless you had that physical file so now we have a way to be able to Ensure that all

066students are being progress monitored I'd like to piggyback on that question just so I can understand concretely. So in other words, you know, the kids are getting benchmark tests like star testing, for example, right? So are you saying that so and then there'd be a file and a student would have all of their different star tests, but... the teacher will aggregate all that information for the biannual reporting and then under demonstrated, for example, writing proficiency, I would grab all the star test and then write a subjective paragraph about whether or not the kid has been progressing or not. Is that how that works? Yeah, it's easier than that because Elevation does all that curating of the information for you. of those tests, so the ELPAC, the STAR, CASP. But I'm not evaluating. I'm not doing

067monitoring, like using the... standardized tests to monitor the kid, right? I'm using like actual whatever written material they're providing and these occasional benchmarks that we do and then I'm assessing as a teacher like do I think this child is actually progressing with writing? Like am I seeing a difference from, you know, the first assignment that was turned in to the last assignment? Yeah, you got it. Yep. But it's only happening twice a year. a fit on paper and documented twice a year do i think it's happening more often than that heck yeah because teachers are doing that all the time with their students but we're memorializing it these two times in these progress monitoring checks Moving on to reclassification. So what is reclassification? You know, we refer students who have been reclassified as students are

068identified as RFAP. California requires students to meet right now all four criteria before reclassification can be considered at any point during the school year. The California calls them four criterion. Criterion one is the ELPAC. Right now, all students have to achieve a level four on the ELPAC. Once they get that level four, then we could consider these other elements. Number two is the teacher evaluation. Similar to the monitoring, teachers assess how the student is using their English language in academic settings. We call it the OPTEL, Observation Protocol of Teachers of English Learners. Criterion three is a basic skills comparison. Right now we use either the SBAC, students either meet or exceed standards by achieving a three or four, as well as the star reading performing at the 40 percentile. And we use that as a

069basic skills criterion. And we also need to consult parents. So that's criterion four to ensure that there's meaningful input and families are informed regarding the decision to reclassify a student. I did read recently, I think, in an article that the State Board of Education is re-looking at these four criterion and might eliminate criteria two and three and four and just use criterion one as a reclassification criteria for students. So I think that's coming. The folks in Sacramento are having these conversations regarding re-looking at the reclassification process. reclassification data it was asked about the reclassification data so we went back a couple of years in terms of the percentage so not just numbers the percentage of students who have been reclassified since 2019 you clarify is it the percentage of EL students yeah so number of

070students reclassified over number of EL students do we just know like have we it was you know we have 693 in our district today which is about 20 percent of our student body was it generally been the same there hasn't been like a wild change in six years does anyone know i would not have that data on me at this point i'm going to assume that it's been consistent 20 percent of our students are EL And that's what it is today. I don't know if that's if you know just teaching I Mean this is just six years seven years ago seven years ago. Was it dramatically different? I don't know This is new but that's a different one than EL. That's only newcomer immigrant count That would be yeah we could come back to that

071sorry for throwing let's go back to the percentages okay so this just shows that the number of students who've been reclassified over the past couple of years in 2019 it was 2.36 percent Our recent school year is 21.24%. You see the rates did fluctuate. We've had different processes over the past couple of years. We've streamlined the process and really have systematized how we reclassified students in alignment with California guidance on how students are reclassified. So, for example, I think a couple years ago, schools or the district used Lexile scores on the STAR assessment. Then the STAR used the 45 percentile. And then based on STAR's recommendation, we moved to a 40 percentile for basic skills comparison. our students with disabilities we also had the option to use an alternate reclassification process about two years ago

072so we had a number of students who could fall that fell into that alternate reclassification process that no longer is a process that we could utilize they all have to meet those um their string their stricter requirements for students to even meet exemptions on the lpac Yes. So are the grand totals, are those weighted averages or are they simple averages? I would assume that they're simple averages. Because like what happened in 2023-24, flowery, you know, looks like it's having the greatest weight. I mean, you go from 18% and then you half that in one year. That seems crazy. But it seems to me maybe the flowery is driving it if it were weighted. If it's not weighted, I don't know. I think it's just raw data. No, it would be raw. Yeah, raw data. Yeah.

073Anyway, it's like it's a question. Like, we should know what's going on here. Like, what's driving all of this? I mean, did standards change? Yes. Was that a year where we were in flux around our criteria? Correct. Because there was more discretion in the reclassification? Like, how much of it is really subjective, I guess? In the past couple of years there has been some subjectivity. There was a lot of gray area. There was a lot of, you know, we kind of followed our own guidance and rules in terms of how students were being reclassified. We didn't, not all students achieved the four. We had opportunities for students to have a three, but if it's based on their disability, not necessarily language acquisition, then we could follow. an alternative process for reclassification for students with disabilities

074i also mentioned that we shifted from taking a look at star data we used to use lexile scores then we moved to a 45 percentage or percentile and then we now settled on a 40th percentile so that's pretty much standard so it has been inconsistent and so what we've done over the past three years is really to streamline and put in structures in place as well as guard rails and guidance from California and SCO's assistance to really have a structured process for reclassification that you see here if I assume at the end of the school year we will have the 25-26 data if we could just have an email update with it would be great to see it by school percentage at least I would I would appreciate just whenever that next evaluation is done

075yeah for this school year yeah I assume it comes it comes in the next six months or less this students right now are taking the lpac they have until like the last day of school to take the lpac And we use that data for a complete year until they retake the ELPAC again. So we could take a look at their SBAC scores, and if they don't have a 3 or 4, then we use their star scores. We could use the star scores from May. We could use their star scores from October. We could use their star scores from January. So they could reclassify at any point of the year. At any point of the year. But at the end of the school year, we'll have the total. Correct. Reclassification count. And it would be great

076to get the final number. we may not have I'm saying we may not have it we could have the number of students who achieved a four we will have that but we they could we could use that 2020 year we in 2026 data to reclassify them at any point during the 26-27 school year before they take them and we're like closely monitoring there's there's like a group of students who are like so close and they're just missing one of the criteria so right at the beginning of the school year we get that information that a kid got a four on the l-pack and then we give them that if the star test was holding them back we make sure we give them that test right away because then if we can reclassify them right then

077we do it right right right away so the moment we have they've already have a four and we are monitoring that we try to get them reclassified as soon as possible and that can happen anytime during the school year I can't imagine many kids are excited to take an extra test. I wouldn't be. I'm just curious, is this something that's an achievement? Is this celebrated? Yes. Talk to me about. Yes, it's celebrated at every single school. It's a big deal. And for an elementary student going into middle school, it opens access to another elective for them. And the same thing, because then they won't have to take ELD. Same thing in high school. So there is a motivational factor for them to be reclassified. And it's like a, as a multilingual family, like it's a

078very prideful moment for families when their student is reclassified as proficient in English. Did you guys, I just have to, can we please just take a moment? Number three, like that's so on page. Yeah, the page before. This one? Yeah, basic skills comparison. That just, I mean, if I was a parent, I mean, not only if I, if I was an English learner, or if I was a parent of an English learner, that would be really, I mean, I find it almost insulting because how many of our students, and we just have to be honest, we've talked about this, right? When you sit down and you take a STAR test, how many of these kids are really engaged? And so these are, we're... this is like is this real i mean i just feel like

079comparing these kiddos is just not i just don't see i know life isn't fair and i don't know a better word to say in terms of fairness but it just doesn't seem fair to compare someone that way like I would love to see the state of California do away with that all these other things parent consultation teacher evaluation the most important proficiency overall performance yes but this is less like made me want to jump out of my chair because we've seen our own star data for our you know non-english learners I mean we just kind of have to be realistic about it you guys it's like it just that just to me it seems that seems very unfortunate it's reassuring to hear that you guys have been able to get through. and help in other

080you know not stick strictly to this yeah we do have to follow ed code right and these are the four criterion um but i'm hopeful like if as amber said if there's a if we're close but well i think when kids are close like a lot of things happen at the school site for that student like there are champions at every school site that take it very seriously make sure that there's like if kids really close we're going to have like a smaller setting for them we're gonna talk to them before. We have ELPEC test chats that we have with students so that we can, they're pretty awesome. SCO has a multilingual learner collaborative that a group of us educators go to and I kind of oversee that group when we go and they have

081provided us a lot of materials that we have come directly back and implemented here. So I think we're on the verge of like some, some good implementation for our English learners and for our teachers to be able to provide extra support for students when they're right on the verge so that we can capture those students as soon as possible and reclassify them when they're ready. It sounds like there's a lot of variables at play when trying to dissect this next slide. Like just there's so much variance from year to year especially with the high school. So Aside from the changing of the evolution of the assessments the process Is it also fair to say that some classes are just stronger than others from year to year and that just adds to the variability I think

082yes, and once you reclassify a big chunk of students You know you like look at the trends in Sonoma Valley 8% 35 8% 25 4% 25 because once you reclassify a big group of kids those are out of the equation So then you're like kind of like building up those numbers again and then you reclassify a whole bunch again. So it's you'll see trends like that. So because now they're off they're off the table once they're reclassified. But with your comment because there is a lot of variability but the problem here is that what's Matt what's being masked as cohorts because you could have like a very like you say a very strong freshman class or 25% gets reclassified and then none of the LTL tells get reclassified so it doesn't tell you like it

083the real story of what's happening behind that it's hard it's hard to know if you're just looking year to year. And this slide just reinforces our requirement to monitor reclassified students. We're monitoring academics, attendance, standardized test scores. And the big piece I just want to just share with you is students who have reclassified, if they are showing academic struggles with language barriers that's really emerging, we need to provide additional language support. They're not relabeled as an EL. They are not placed back in an ELD classroom that teachers need to make the adjustments to provide the differentiation and support for the students to continue to be successful. That's what the four year monitoring is about. Before I turn it over to Principal Iskam, I just want to just put a shout out to teacher Janet Garcia,

084who is here in the audience. She's one of our high school ELD teachers. And she has a title of also Newcomer Ambassador at Sonoma Valley High School. So Janet, thank you for being here. Okay, so you've all been promoted in ninth grade. So we're going to give you an example of a ninth grade exam. Okay, so let's imagine you're now enrolled at Snowin Valley High School as a ninth grader in the fall. It is now springtime and it's now ELPAC teaching, or testing time. Okay, who's excited? Okay, so in this next, in this part of the test, and you are very, Trustee Ching, you are very excited. Okay, next slide please. Okay, in this part of the test. You will listen to a recorded presentation. You're going to listen for some information about evaporation and

085condensation. You will hear information only once. As you listen, look at the pictures that are on your screen. You may take notes on your scratch paper as you listen. When the presentation ends, you will summarize the information you heard. You will explain. Evaporation and condensation include all steps in the demonstration and use relevant details and clear language. Well, we're going to get there. Yes, it's the practice test. Look at step one. It shows two glass containers connected by a glass tube. There is some liquid in one of the containers. The other container has no liquid. Both containers are sitting on a hot plate. Look at step two. When the hot plate is turned on, the liquid in the first container becomes very hot. The liquid evaporates and turns into a steam or a gas. As

086you may know, evaporation is the process of a liquid changing into a gas. Then the gas moves through the tube to the second container. As you can see in the picture, after a few minutes, there is an equal amount of gas in both containers. Look at step three. When the hot plate is turned off, the gas in the containers slowly cools down. As it cools, condensation begins. Condensation is the opposite of evaporation. Condensation is when gas changes back into a liquid. After a short period of time, all of the steam, that is, the gas, becomes liquid again. As you can see in the picture, there is now an equal amount of liquid in each container. That is because when the liquid was heated, the gas was divided equally between the two containers. This demonstration shows

087how evaporation and condensation make it possible for water to move from place to place. This process is an important part of the water cycle. Okay, so at this point I would say, if we were meeting, you would tell it back to me with the steps. But I want to go to slide number 31. So as the students are... speaking back to us these are the proctor is also evaluating it for like to get complete points a full response includes all the following steps in the demonstration and at least one detail for each step so if you look how much students need to to re tell back to us to receive credit on this section what what Yeah. Okay, so let's, someone want to shout out what they would say if they were, if they were

088having to respond. So when the presentation ends, you will summarize the information you heard. You will explain evaporation and condensation. Include all the steps in the demonstration and use relevant details and clear language. Okay, Trustee Landry. Okay, step one. So slide one, the water, it will, do I, am I describing the slide or what happens from one to two? I'll just read my notes. The liquid is cool and is only in cylinder A until it is. heated in slide two when the liquid becomes hot it becomes steam or gas and evaporation starts anyone else want to take the lead i'll uh i'll jump in uh so that not once it's a steam or gas the gases dispersed between cylinders A and B as the hot plate remains on and there is still heat being distributed

089up into those cylinders. Once the heat is flipped off that gas starts to condense and that's when condensation starts and I'll flip it over to President Bell to describe the last one. Okay, so let's look at the next slide. So this is the rubric. So as you guys were, as you were participating, I was circling like where I was here, what I was hearing. So then if you look at the rubric, where would you put it? Let's, let's imagine all three of your responses are one student response. Did anyone reference attempt to reference the presentation picture? I did. Okay. Okay. Okay. i think we get it too why what makes you say that yes your speech was slow yours was a little choppy you weren't confident david you were not confident i think i think

090three says speech is fairly sustained through some choppiness or halting Okay, maybe we'd get a three. We didn't get a four, though. Because we didn't describe the water cycle at the end. So we didn't get a four. Okay, so that gets into like when we're, as the proctor, we're coming together and we're calibrating on how we are tackling this. We have an amazing, Allison Glenn Wilson does a whole, the whole Moodle presentation that we are calibrating with ourselves. but can you imagine no no it's hard because you want to cheer for your student and you want them to do well and you're like yes and it's hard to be impartial for me well and if you saw like when i was pointing to the pictures like that's the like level of like support we're offering

091during that is pointing to the pictures bankers tell me tell me more okay so tell me how was this experience I think that dovetails into the next question I mean I would imagine if you're recently enrolled in our school from another country without any formal education and limited English proficiency how would you feel Well, especially if you, like, I would wonder, I don't know, it just makes, it's hard not to have the human component, right? I'm so thankful for our proctors because I can't imagine how challenging this could be. But it's, you could, I imagine you can probably see that this, you know, some of the students may just not understand and that's okay. like you know they think like when you're saying number two it's like that they think that they actually understand and

092their articulation is from their word bank right it's from what they know like we were talking about and so that's what's just so unfortunate and hard is fun fun fact which is not fun but on average our newcomers in in the united states speak for only 90 seconds a day yeah out loud so they're in a school experience and only actually speaking for 90 seconds out of their entire day at school. So that kind of like puts, that fact kind of puts it in perspective for me. So as educators, if we know that, then like you're, I know you as an educator, so I know that she is not, that's not the standard in her classroom, but like, you know, it's something to think about for our students. So we're saying that our kids, our

093newcomers, only speak. for 90 seconds a day. Yeah, that's nationwide like data. But is that in English or in Spanish or in any language? In any language. Our newcomers are only speaking for 90 seconds a day. In school, in an academic setting. So we're not including the lunchtime, we're not talking about in between class, we're just saying in class and what are we doing to combat that? You will see that in our instructional practices that is up next but we are doing a lot of things to combat that. In my former role I conducted EL shadow student day. where I would follow a student who is identified as an English learner throughout six of actually did only five I didn't go to PE five of their classes and in all of those five classes a

094teacher did never acknowledge them they didn't talk to them call on their name or had any opportunity to speak And so that is some of the data that really just supports what Amber is saying. So we really need to think that last question there is like what instruction, what would instruction really need to look like for our students to fully engage and participate in rich oral academic vocabulary environments where they're talking consistently and practicing talking and what supports that we provide for them. So anything else you want to share? It would seem like there's got to be an AI kind of program that they could talk and then the AI would recognize the conversation. That seems to be where the direction would be going on that one. We have a mirror at the primary level

095where students speak into a microphone and they talk back to an AI tutor. So I think we see that coming in terms of education. Nothing replaces a classroom teacher, though. I'm just gonna can I say something really quick the thing that I think about though too is like my experience in high school learning taking Spanish for the first time and just feeling like please gosh don't call on me you know so then there's that environment component where there's a humility to, you know, having humility and then being in an environment with your fellow peers who are going to be supportive. That's all part of this. I think we can't do one without the other. And so I would, you know, I mean, I know we have safe, wonderful classrooms. Kids will be kids. But I

096think when you're, when it's, when there's an extra challenge on top of an extra challenge, and then it's like, oh, have a little humility. read this, do this, I could see how that would be just as challenging or terrifying as taking a test, you know? I don't know. I just feel for kiddos when it comes to that kind of stuff. It's not, it's not, it's, it's 90 seconds and it seems like, okay, we want to fix it, but I think we also have to have that compassion component too and understand how humility is hard, especially for our little guys. Yeah, definitely. Thank you for sharing that. how are we doing on time do we want to take a break or keep going for the next section I have two slides for this section before and

097I'll just go through them really quickly. So as Liz talked about, Principal Liskum talked about, this was the summative ELPAC speaking domain. There are six types of questions that a student could be asked depending on their grade level. We looked at summarizing an academic presentation. In a speaking domain, this is administered one-on-one. So we did it in a group setting publicly, but it's really in a one-to-one setting, grades K through 12. And you have to think about it's not necessarily... just literacy based examples. You're talking about content area examples in science. Both of those examples, enzymes, condensation, evaporate, those are huge words for our students. And then the last piece in this section is, next slide. Oh, okay. This slide is a crosswalk of the ELPAC performance levels, those four levels I talked about, as

098well as the ELD standards proficiency levels, which are really the instructional targets teachers should be paying attention to where students fall in terms of the ELD standards and what type of supports that they need. So if they're emerging in their language development, they need substantial support. and scaffolds and if they're bridging they just need light support so these that students who are like almost at reclassification almost at english proficiency so these are some of the elements that our educators should be looking at in terms of when they lesson plan when they look into elevation and target the students and what level that they're performing at being able to tailor instruction to meet student needs so with that We're done with this section and we could talk about instructional support when we come back. Five minutes.

099Requires that we provide all English learners designated ELD, which is protected instructional time during the school day, focused on California ELD standards. And integrated ELD, which is teachers use the ELD standards in tandem. with the state adopted academic content standards. It's really about providing specially designed academic instruction in English and I want to emphasize this point here that all teachers are responsible for EL support. Here are some fundamental instructional resources that serve as a guiding document. This slide right here describes how each of the elementary schools provide DELD. Remember, DELD is small group instruction during the school day. As you can see here, the supports vary. Some schools level students in groups within classrooms while other students send... Other schools send students out to different classrooms to level out the groups. Through our professional learning

100with SEAL, which you'll hear from Amber in a bit, we're learning about best practices of DELD instruction, and we're working on making the instructional shifts to teach language skills effectively. At the secondary level... ELs are enrolled in an ELD class within their school day to support ELD standards and English language acquisition. Newcomers, newcomers identified as students one year or less, are enrolled in two sections of ELD, one of which takes place in lieu of their English language arts class. Janet Garcia is one of our ELD teachers teaching that newcomer section, the two sections. at both Altamira and high school the high school there are four ELD levels there's an example of the middle school placement criteria for enrolling students across the different levels the high school has a similar document as well this is just

101the middle school document i think note that it's like not just how they enter but the exit criteria so the kids are progressing through each of the levels And in terms of ELD, integrated ELD, we use SEAL strategies for elementary school. All K-5 teachers are trained in SEAL. And at the secondary level, we use elevation along with GLAD strategies integrated with content instruction. All middle and high school teachers are trained in elevation strategies. So before I talk about the CO experience and we show this video, I just want to highlight all of the work that our elementary educators have been going through these past two years and the extra work. When I say extra, it's their work, but it's their learning. And what we know about growth mindset is their brains are growing, and it

102hurts a little bit. We're in that struggle area because we're learning something new, and we're implementing at the same time. I just want to acknowledge all the elementary educators. They're in my heart always and they're really doing a really good job of learning something new and implementing it with our students. So this is a little quick video just to kind of go over an overview of SEAL. Do you guys want to sing the good morning song? In a SEAL classroom, we actually think that kids should enjoy what they're learning about. They should enjoy coming to school. SEAL is about rich, rigorous, engaged learning. For children to learn language, they need to use language. The numbers are acres. Acres are parts of land. We want to teach students to be curious and to want to learn

103and to be responsible for what they're learning. SEAL stands for the Sobrato Early Academic Language Model. Our approach to education is about really centralizing and prioritizing the needs of English learners. In California, 60% of students under the age of five speak a language other than English in their homes. And yet, historically, our schools have underserved our English learner population. It is truly a new day in California. We have a whole new era of standards. In addition, we have the passage of Prop 58 and now the new English Learner Roadmap. Humans should protect the Earth. They must! They must! is in providing protection masks. There is a very different vision, particularly around curriculum, around language and literacy and its relationship to content. Key to that is the notion of integration and that content knowledge and language

104development and literacy development all happen in and through and in connection to each other. Juvenile sea turtle. Once hatchlings leave the nest, they are often not seen again until they return to coastal waters. The focus of SEAL is... language in and through content. Language develops in its most rich way when it's natural and we're using language to learn and to communicate and to access information. Parents are children's first teachers. And for young children who are in school and in programs for the first time, the connection between home and school becomes very, very important. Because of dual immersion programs, your children can truly be bilingual, bicultural, biliterate, and keep their home language. It was a very beautiful experience. It's a huge shift for educators, it's a shift for the system to notice these students as having

105an asset in being dual language learners. Think of all the powerful knowledge you have about the two languages and how many things we were able to talk about. We understand and feel that teachers are core to the solution, that teacher capacity building is essential. We really want... teachers to have the capacity of really understanding how to support the language development within the larger learning that's happening in the classroom. The focus of our work is on changing practice in classrooms, in schools, across districts, and across the state. We're going to cut this one because the wood is used for solid furniture so we can make a sentence. SEAL has changed the impact of how students learn in our classroom and our English language learners have consistently made significant progress where in the past we haven't. And

106now we're going to be studying in English. It's really embracing a future that's about preparing our kids not just for career and college readiness of course, but also for leading and thriving in a global, multilingual, 21st century world. SEAL is really working across all levels to shift the paradigm to valuing multilingualism and multiculturalism to have a robust and rich community and society. You are like superheroes with two languages. I'm going to highlight some of the areas of focus. So there's family engagement. So here on the left, this is at Sasserini. They invited families on campus to experience all the work that their students have been doing in their classrooms. You'll see the gallery walk on the right-hand side is a drawn label, and it's highlighted that it supports both languages. So as you rework this

107strategy, it shows both English, but it also Has cognates embedded in it. So students are interacting with each poster. So it's not just a one-and-done activity you rework it There's family engagement opportunities embedded Within the program that can go home just not as like a homework where you have to return it every time But it is nice when they come home, but so the parents are Aware of what they're talking about like think about John Lewis and why he was a problem solver Thinking about their neighborhood and their communities and the rules around it and governance. So just some different Age groups and things that go home and there's homeschool connections for every unit that we have These are some examples of student participation. So every student has an academic processing journal where they kind

108of can take notes, they can write about what they're learning. There's research rotations in the upper grade. So in the third through fifth grade, there's research rotations where students have access to primary resource documents and images, and they do research based upon what they're learning. And then, like I talked about, reprocessing strategies, so opportunities to um rework strategies that you've already gone over one time and you're you're reworking them my kids in that picture so she's asleep now but that's cheating up up at the board There's small group instruction embedded within SEAL as well. So you'll see here on the left, these are designated ELD small group instruction. So on the left, that's at Presswood. And this teacher was working with a group of students in preparation for the upcoming lesson that was about to

109happen. And then there's a sentence patterning chart on the right-hand side. And this is really so students learn the structure of a set of a... a significant sentence that has all the different components. So verbs and adverbs and adjectives and all the articles within that. So this is my favorite part of SEAL. I know it's about students and but as an educator the teacher collaboration that I've seen through SEAL is something that I have not yet experienced in education. It's challenging, it's hard, but the level of rigor that our teachers are going through and how they're processing the standards, the vocabulary. It kind of reminded me when you were pulling out the words from that the lesson from prior from condensation or the one with the erosion, whatever the I can't think of the apple,

110right? So as a teacher is going through a lesson they're also doing that and pulling out all those vocabulary words and those words that are going to be a barrier for our students, especially our multilingual learners. and those are embedded within the strategies like chance and your drawing labels and other activities throughout seal on the right hand side you'll see this is our fourth grade team at el verano which is my old group um those two fellas they are you don't see the instructional coach in the picture because she's taking the image but she worked with these two gentlemen and planned out their entire unit with them it's on the whiteboard in the back and like so just That's what our instructional coaches are there for, is not just during the professional learning days, but

111they're there on the site in real time in response to what the teachers need to be able to implement these strategies. And they're there to teach model lessons, to provide release time for teachers if they just need a little bit extra time, or to plan with them or kind of digest what they're being asked in the unit. So high impact strategies to teach language and literacy we use social studies and science mostly right now we've made a shift so seal does have foundational units and We've made a shift this year in response to teachers wanting to really use like our curriculum So you'll although the units that provided with steel that we started with are all grounded in the state standards of ELD and the content area standards. We're shifting into using our curriculum to

112help us prepare these so that we're also using our district adopted curriculum in that process. So it has created, it's just in its infancy of that shift, but that it will feel like a little bit of a lighter lift because we're using something we already have. We're not pulling from all these other areas. So here you'll see government, there's your 13 colonies, right? So a lot of really rich and engaging activities. Yeah, you got it. Sorry, I'm used to eating the mic as a principal. Here's the cycle. That's what you have to do in front of a whole bunch of kids. Here's the cycle progression for a K-6. So there's three cycles that our teachers have gone through. Oh, my God, I just lost my train of thought. there's six cycles in total but we're

113in the first three cycles and it's really about moving from asset based instruction to responsive teaching so and you'll see all the strategies that our teachers are learning on the bottom part so those are all the strategies that they're learning to embed so know that remember we talked about this before that this is not a program these are strategies to support our instructional programs All right, so this is our professional learning. So each cycle includes three days of professional learning. So one and a half PD days and one and a half unit development days. So the unit development day difference is like that's when teachers are prepping and planning. the activities and the unit in total. They're having really rich conversations and it's a kind of a divide and conquer moment. So every grade level

114does it differently from kinder to fifth grade. And what I've noticed in watching them during these days is that they're really leveraging each other's strengths in the activities that they are. prepping and planning together. So Regina Mellinger loves chance and she has created chance, you know, and then the rest of the... The teachers get to benefit from that because she's the one that prepped it and then they take it they make it take basically Something that cat that goes off of what you said previously. I was like the cycle one There's two days of welcoming and affirming communities. So these they're like mini lessons and seal units that are right at the beginning of the year and it's really creating a welcoming and affirming environment for your students so that when you are doing the

115listening and speaking and the kids participating and out loud and the whole group that they you've already created this environment where it's safe and welcoming for everyone to share what they what they'd like to in that lesson All right, so this is a really exciting opportunity for our teachers. It's really about the teachers, but it enhances our summer school experience. Last year, we had three classrooms that did the Summer Bridge activity. So what program? So this has two teachers co-teaching together for two weeks in SEAL, but there's a two-week teacher and a four-week teacher, but SEAL Bridge only happens for the first two weeks, and then that four-week teacher takes over the rest of summer school for the full 20 days. They have professional learning opportunities with our SEAL professional development. Jen, she's amazing and

116really engaging and fun. And then they're co-teaching SEAL units together in the classroom. So we went from having three classrooms of SEAL Summer Bridge to this year being able to have nine. That means there's 18 teachers that are going to get this very specialized professional learning. which I'm excited about because as we move into that next school year of seal and implementation they're going to have this extra opportunity and so if you go into the classrooms of last year's summer bridge opportunity you would see a higher implementation than teachers who did not get that same experience so I'm really excited about that and it's not just any one particular grade level it's across all the grade levels so it's really exciting So we did a survey with teachers just to kind of give us a

117pulse check of where we're at with them. Their favorite strategies are the drawn label. It's really the most popular one. It's kind of magical for students. An image is revealed in real time in front of them. It's pre-drawn by the teacher, but the students don't really catch on to that. It's like lightly drawn. And the teacher kind of does like a lecture about whatever topic that is and includes. Picture cards and facts you'll see that in that top left one and then the narrative input chart its favorite It's it has high student engagement It's keeping images visible throughout storytelling process So basically like you would all have a card here and I would be telling the story and then all of a sudden you'd be like Oh my god That's my card and I have

118to go put it up there and you interact with with us So students are paying attention the whole time because it might be their card that their teachers talking about and they want to know and then when the kid doesn't know the person next to them is like that's you so it's like everybody's participating and paying attention and being helpful so the little wins this is my theme for this year for myself is we've had a heightened engagement and participation with our students and this is coming from teachers this is not coming from me this is from their survey proven instructional techniques and support for ELs and collaborative learning This is about just our coaches because it's a big part of seal implementation and something that is like a non-negotiable with seals that we have

119to have in country instructional coaching support so The teachers are really in favor of their in-class modeling for them their logistical relief so just like just helping them prep and like figure out how to do some of this like the like really meticulous and tedious act acts like laminating things or cutting things out or prepping a poster. And then strategic collaboration, just one-on-one planning sessions. We moved some of their Wednesday planning times so after that first bit that they can then, the instructional coaches are available upon request to meet with teams or an individual teacher for extra support. But they're also available at any time a teacher asks for any various reasons. Okay, so there are challenges and barriers that we've come across and bumps along the road. So there's some, you know, struggle between

120prep and pedagogy. So like planning time and like it's a lot because we've never done it before. And this is new and it takes time. And it's, like I said, very rigorous. There's instructional uncertainty so like just there's a lot of new materials and We're getting better at organizing our materials, but it's a lot to keep track of and and to just make sure you're organized There's a logistical strain so they There's like a little bit of lack of space and and long-term planning time. I think like It would be helpful for us to make a stance on what we what we how we want to move forward with seal so that we're not thinking like are we just gonna stop doing this in a year like I think that would be helpful for our

121teachers to know are we making this commitment then let's make it and let's make it let's say we're gonna make it so then we're not thinking it's uncertain and then the need for deeper collaboration so They want time to really dig into The thing, so like they don't want to spend as much time prepping materials. They want to move into that really deep thinking than just building the charts and the stuff, which will happen as we've done this, as we do this more than one time, right? So because you, once you prep materials, there's some materials you have to prep every time, but there's some that you can keep and take and use over and over again, like the chance. Question, the summer bridge, we've increased the number of classes available. Are we meeting the

122demand? Yes, no, so in world like the number of teachers is based upon enrollment as of this afternoon We have 295 students that are currently enrolled in our summer school Yes Thank you, Amber. That was integrated ELD and even DELD at elementary school. So I'm going to transition us to how we support our secondary students, but I want to just give you a quick peek into how we use Elevation. So here is what the dashboard looks like. it's real-time data that all teachers have access to where you could click and see and drill deeper into the data so this gives the teacher dashboard of how many students that they have according to what classification so if you take a look at the 11 current el's the next slide shows that you could drill down into

123their performance level drill down into their overall proficiency levels, their home language, how many years they've been in U.S. schools, what their birth country was, and be able to just get a little bit more information. And the more you click into the student's profile, the more data that you could find and dig deeper into. So that is that data for elevation. Secondary teachers. have access to the elevation strategies, which is an instructional resource within the elevation tool. It provides modules and activities for learning so that they could support their English learners, multilingual learners through classroom activities and teaching strategies. So you could see here is a example of the module activities for professional learning. This was on how to assess language and learning using quick checks. or assessing multilingual learners and on the right really

124drills down into specific activities that supports the domain so if you needed support with speaking there's four students and six students depending on their level you could drill down and elevation strategies will give some recommendations in terms of what strategies that you could use Secondary teachers professional learning, they're engaged in the two-month cycle of learning. They've been taught four of the elevation strategy modules, and the way it's designed is that they come together in a PD, usually facilitated by the principal or vice principal. They learn a strategy. They learn an activity through watching or going through the elevation module. Then they work together in their... content area teams or grade level teams to plan the lesson using those strategies. Then they go back to their classroom, then they practice teaching the strategy, they try it

125out, they make it their own, and then they come back in a fall, in like six to eight weeks, to come together to reflect and debrief on how that strategy went, make some adjustments, and just share best practice. It's the teacher collaboration that really enhances that professional learning. I'm not going to go through the details but here's an example of what teachers go through in terms of how do they learn about an activity. This domain focuses really on reading and writing. Teachers learn about it through reading an article, they watch a video, there are resources that in order to understand how to use this strategy. Next is like scaffolds. So this shows me and identifies if I click on, if you see on the right side it will say hide six students. If I click

126on that or toggle on that arrow, it will tell me those six students that need that level of support in terms of their, because of their reading level. So they need high support in terms of how to access the instruction versus the students in, I can't see, the moderate support, those five students need a different type of scaffolding. So elevation strategies really helps you tailor the needs of students. And it also shares with you some quick tips and what to watch out for. The lessons also are tailored to content areas. That's the beauty of elevation strategies. You could see here's a science lesson, how you could use that same strategy, same activity in a science lesson where you have a content and language objective. And you could also see how it could be applied in

127math. So it gives you ways that teachers could use. They don't have to follow it formulaically. The beauty of teaching is that there's that art of making it your own so they could utilize the strategy how it best fits to them and their teaching style. So sorry to interrupt so just these are really great tools how how do we know that teacher how are they using it in the high school? So here here's some teacher reflection. At the end of every unit, they reflect. So these are not Christina's words. They're not Principal Kiss's words. These are the reflections from the teachers of how they're using it and why they feel it's important. They have to reflect in order to complete the module, so they follow up with these questions that you see here. They share

128it out also during their PD time or professional learning best practices. They talk about it in their PD. I know Principal Kiss shares it across. campus through leadership team they do a lot of reflection here is another teacher reflection in terms of why it's important list two reasons and why they use it in their classroom I think it's very important for teachers to continuously reflect on how it's doing and we also have the usage data also in elevation yeah we can see when teachers have completed modules within the within the platform of elevation so we can see when they've accessed it when they've completed it so I mean, the responsibility of ELD, you said earlier, is the responsibility of all teachers. So, like, if I'm taking, you know, U.S. history, does that mean that there's

129dedicated ELD instruction that happens during my high school U.S. history class? So it's integrated within the content. I mean, that's what I mean. It's integrated. Yes, it's integrated. And you think it's happening effectively? I mean... It's happening to various degrees. The question is then Power School is the program where teachers are inputting grades, attendance and things like that. And so then they're having to then open elevation and then have a second set of data, right? It's curating all of the data from their big assessments, not their local assessments like their unit tests, but it's curating all those big assessments and their ELPAC level, and then it's giving them strategies to support the lessons that are in their classroom. Think of it as like seal for secondary. Like right? They're strategies to support the learning. So

130it's not a curriculum. So they could support. So to answer your question, Ann, do I have data to tell you if designated ELD is happening in every classroom? No. However, I can say that we have done this in response to Tier 1 instruction through our MTSS work that English learners were an area that we needed to focus on, and this is how we attacked that problem, by providing professional learning and a cycle of inquiry with our teachers to ensure that they are learning strategies to support English learners within their classrooms. And the high school team has done a phenomenal job of... putting this in their professional learning at their site with their teams. So elevation is only? Yes. Yes. I would just add, Principal Kiss has said that they do track which modules are completed,

131and she said that they do have a very high completion rate. We can get you more detailed information if that's of interest. There's completion of the modules and then there's implementation as well. So, you know when teachers do that reflection They're reflecting on how they are implementing so you could see here from this teachers excerpt They're starting to integrate the daily exits to tickets to really assess students and since we have four classes a week So you could you could see how they're thoughtfully thinking about how they're implementing these strategies in their classes so I think this this is a a huge shift we have the leadership support the structures in place to really see some gains at the high school are we using um clk through eight uh k through five what are we

132doing six seven and eight elevation strategies oh so this is okay so that's that is the secondary so it's okay yes specific strategy the way SEAL is right you're not gathering teachers together and they're doing training they're getting these basically a computer program is saying hey look at these students that are grouped together they could use here's a strategy you might think about it's not mandatory but you may want to do that Some of the departments have chosen the similar strategy. So some of that collaboration is happening because they're choosing the same strategy. Then they're going and teaching those strategies. And then they're coming back and reflecting upon that with their... What they're oh my gosh, sorry. I'm getting tired that their peers so the the modules there are there is some alignment with the

133module So module one is activating background knowledge through demonstration and experience Module two is clarify input with supported lesson delivery module three was introduction to develop academic language and module four is assess language and learning using quick check so that's the umbrella of the activity and then there's various strat there's a number of strategies that will help the teachers achieve that goal or that approach and they the teachers could choose based on their content area whatever fits with their style of teaching in terms of what they want to select to implement into their classrooms and they also have access to the full library so like those are the modules that we're focusing on this year but like if a teacher got really super nerd alert on elevation strategies they could go in there and do

134more than than what's being asked so when in the middle school then We could have one class with a particular teacher is being taught English in a sort of somewhat different manner than another class based on the teacher's selection of what these units that they want to teach. And then where is it the... K through five using seal it's all fairly standardized between the classes. These aren't units their strategies to support units So the content area standards are what's being taught at the elementary level Right and and we're teaching the content area standards through the seals using the seal strategies to support them Where the same thing is happening in secondary they're teaching us history and they're using these strategies to support English learners in U.S. history using the strategies from elevation strategies. For an

135English language arts class at the middle school versus a history class? So for an example, you know, one of the strategies or modules I shared with you was activating background knowledge. So depending on the content, you could approach activating background knowledge through the water cycle. Tell me what you know about the water cycle. That's activating background knowledge in the science class. You know reading a book have you heard of this author before like have you read anything from this this genre before and activate how so students can make those connections to their learning so those are some of the strategies that could be used to access that activity of activating background knowledge so it's cross-curricular The same thing would happen with seal so right now we're learning seal through social studies and science but in

136theory you could apply a lot of these strategies to other content areas as well like math or So we're not using SEAL for teaching English in K-5? You learn English, right? And you learn... So you're using the SEAL strategies to support your ELD content standards and your content area standards. And so SEAL are strategies to support learners in, like I said earlier, like unlocking that access to be able to understand what they're learning. So the strategies are a way to make it. for lack of a better way, easier to understand what they're learning. So there's a lot of visual supports. There's a lot of coral response. Think pair share is a strategy. The drawn label where it's kind of like revealed and you're revisiting. There's cognates that so a student there like the primary language

137is celebrated in seal and and that so that that's always brought in as much as possible and when kids can make that bridge between Spanish and English and and understand that relationship between it regardless if they're at flowery or if that if they're at Alvarado making that bridge between those two languages helps them better understand it and those strategies are there to support that student in unlocking it so that they could have better access to understanding those content areas and be able to participate at a higher rate. And it's really about supporting language and literacy. And language and literacy crosses all domains. Literacy does not just live within an English teacher's course. Literacy is in history. Literacy is in science. Literacy is in math. So you can see here in this example from Elevation Strategies,

138there's a content objective, which is based on the actual standards of science on the left and math on the right. And then there's a language objective, which really supports the English language development and language acquisition. So that's where I say that integrated ELD uses ELD standards in tandem with the content area standard. So we're paying attention to the content, but also building skills in reading and writing. And designated ELD is like a very specific skill of the English language that you're teaching. So like like verbs like very specific skill like really drilled down, right? You stopped doing designated ELD When students are reclassified, so there's designated ELD when you get in middle and high school. That's our ELD class They have designated ELD in elementary small group introduction and then in middle and high school

139the it's it's East it took place of their elective technically in a six period day but because we have the seven period day at middle school students can now take the required ELD course plus pursue a passion and a class of interest such as leadership, STEM, makers lab, Lego robotics so they could still take an elective so that was the beauty of providing them that seven period day. So what's our ELD curriculum in middle school because in elementary school it's Wonders or Mata VS? English 3D. English 3D. Yeah. Okay, the next if I can move on to newcomers you tell me I don't do a time check Okay, and we're near the 8 o'clock. I know also there were a lot of questions on the newcomers So if we have we're able to extend just

140a little bit it might be great to at least get through the newcomer section Okay, so this is the new we're this section talks about newcomers Newcomers is frequently used as an umbrella term by the state for immigrant students in their first year of US schooling or their first few years of US schooling. These students could include English learners, refugees, unaccompanied minors, migratory students, or other students with limited or interrupted formal education. Newcomer students are protected under federal laws to a safe and free and appropriate public education regardless of their immigration or home language. This chart, actually the table on the left talks about the definition of newcomers as defined by state ed code, meaning that they are aged three to 21, not born in any U.S. state, and have been attending schools less than

141three full academic years. So based mid-March, just a few weeks ago, These were the numbers that we captured in terms of our number of students that are identified as newcomers. Students who are identified one year or less is 28, two years or less, 98, and then three years or less, 164. Okay this slide right here represents I know it's the numbers I'm sorry I don't have the percentages the number of newcomers by school based on what the number of years that they have been enrolled three years or less you could see here that Alvarado's at 38 similar to Altamira at 34 Flowery's at 22 Presswood's at three Sasseroni's at 20 and the high school's at 47. Christina so for example at alvarado 38 is inclusive of the six and the 20. yes yes okay thank

142you good clarifying question superintendent center okay this slide there was a late request and this is a revised slide so if anyone wants a copy of the trustees you have that in your underneath your packet i do have a revised slide here there was a request from a trustee to provide historical counts of newcomer students across our district over the past four to five years so this is what we were able to gather this is from calpads data the previous slide was from newcomers i mean from elevation based on the count of march this data is from calpads data which is taken on calpad census day which is the first wednesday of october and we know that the number is always in flux every single day because once you hit the 12 month mark or

143the 36 month mark you're no longer identified as a newcomer. Oh, it's really hard to see. So how, when students enroll, I apologize for the, we just need to know that we can't use that font, that color on presentations. When students enroll, family register student, as every student is registered and enrolled in our district, then we go through like an interview intake process, and that is done by the bilingual community liaison or the school counselor to really just interview the student in terms of their history. their family situation their enrollment in schools if any and then we provide we assess students we could provide them with the initial lpac the amira if they're elementary we provide sometimes the star spanish we take a look at the health assessment students enroll in appropriate courses and to

144include deld if they are secondary And then we communicate with families in terms of the information at the school. We have drafted a newcomer intake process that was developed a couple years ago, and we're still working on streamlining and systematizing that approach. Newcomer supported elementary. So this example, this slide talks about the varying degrees of support at the elementary level. All schools have a full-time community bilingual liaison who could serve as that main point of contact with the families. Additionally, we do provide bilingual IAs to the various schools and you could see, you know, the high, the schools with a high number of newcomer students have, you know, the three bilingual IAs, Sasserini has one, Presswood has... zero but you could see that the supports do vary in terms of how they provide newcomer support

145especially using you know bilingual IAs El Verano has access direct access to the family resource center to provide family with additional resources outside of school and other schools use walk to read and other small group approaches to support their newcomers in terms of Altamira in the high school as I mentioned DELD for newcomers is two periods one of the classes is in lieu of their English language arts class other support or bilingual aids the newcomer group through the wellness center there's bilingual tutoring There's translation with tech tools, especially some of the languages that we don't have a bilingual IA for that we're able to leverage the IT department for some technology. The high school, as I shared with Ms. Garcia, they have the Newcomer Ambassador Program where Ms. Garcia is released for a period. one

146period in the day to provide academic support to push in to some of the classrooms as well as collaborate with counselors and wellness and to check in on the students and there's also other supports that the high school has on campus and they're exploring there's algebra lab there's a co-teaching in english and they're looking at an english one recording stopped college placement bridging class for next school year Okay, that's newcomers. Any questions there? Do you want me to go on to dual immersion? I just had a basic question because I think there's been a debate about this, which is we've dispersed our newcomers across all of our schools. I'm just curious why we don't aggregate them all in sort of one program. I mean, wouldn't that be... I don't know, it seems better if you

147had them all in one place and you had a very streamlined approach because it seems like things vary across campuses, almost to sort of the comment that was made earlier, which is... When you've entered a new country, you know, I mean, I've lived in other countries, and you do, like, this very immersive, like, social language. You're trying to survive. You're trying to understand culturally, like, why do people dress the way they do or why do they eat the way they do? It just seems like, but we have this very different approach, and I'm just curious why it is that we just kind of. integrate them immediately into their grades and I realize they have some designated ELD but I'm just wondering why we don't have a like one program at one school with one approach

148I'm just curious you're asking about specifically the elementary because we have multiple schools whereas we have just one one middle school than one high school or is that what you're meaning that's up yeah and I think the other thing is that the other question I have on that front is that if we've got a newcomer who's in kindergarten or first grade, you know, early, you know, would we sort of be saying Flowery would be the best location for you or not? And that's the, I mean, that's the other question that sort of taking it to that, you know, obviously if a student is a newcomer and they're in the third grade or fourth grade. that program doesn't fit, but if they're the right age, are we saying potentially that's the best support system for a

149newcomer from that perspective? Well, I think that's like a decision of the parent because it's a program that you're choosing so that parent would be choosing if that programs the best fit for their child because they get to choose what what schools their goat their kid goes to in that regards I think that something that we're doing with seal and regards to designated and integrated ELD is really looking at our programs and our goal is to have an articulated approach to them so not just designated and integrated ELD but also our newcomers and that work that we're doing with seal and and the professional learning is not just happening with our teachers, but also our site leaders so that we are collaborating with one another. And so, I mean, the goal and the vision would

150be that what you get in that regards at El Verano would look similar to what you would get at Sasserini. It wouldn't be so different. And we just need time to work on that because it's a goal of ours to do that. And we definitely could explore maybe a subcommittee or a small group to engage educators and parents and even students and how we could design a program supports for newcomers in our district. Or ask a question. Just piggybacking off of Trustee Ching. So Alvarado, correct me if I'm wrong, but their intervention is paid through their... Community Schools grant when they were able to do that so to the point that Trustee Ching is making it we don't I mean yes we have big goals and that's great but I do see the concern and

151it's so great that Alvarado has the funds to do that Sasserini doesn't have those funds and so And I'm not, and Flowery doesn't either. So I just, it's great. We have three bilingual IAs at Alvarado and Flowery. Presswood has zero. Sasserini has one. There's not an equitable distribution. And really what it comes down to is like servicing those students. So yes, SEAL is great, but it's only great if we have people to implement it. And I feel like the teachers can only do so much, right? There's other things that are happening. And so. Yes, I know through cuts and everything we had to get rid of a lot of our intervention. So consolidating and then having robust programs that, I mean, I can see the value and the question I think is really worth exploring

152because it gives us an opportunity to, you know, really invest in a program at a school and really progress monitor like very directly. And by we, I mean you all. so that's a good point i just appreciate that definitely we could continue that conversation in terms of the other supports too yes el verano has a community schools grant el verano and sasserini do have title one funding and they have invested in an intervention sasserini does have an intervention teacher on site paid through title one funding to support students as well so there's different resources and supports at the schools no i didn't put in that that's that support But I mean like Alvarado has has 39 Newcomers right and sasserini has 22. I mean you're spreading 22 to 1 and then you have you know

15336 across 3 Definitely we need to take a look at that allocation Well, if you look I mean if the numbers are correct, I mean I'm looking at sasserini has 20 was it 20. Was that right? and they have one aid and then flowery has 22 and three so it certainly comes emphasizes your question are we are we allocating our resources in the best way but those aids aren't for newcomers then they're those they are but they would have other other students are supporting that aren't just newcomers could be other I yeah members other newcomers is a subset of the English learners Okay, are we ready for dual immersion? I'll go through this really quickly, but slow enough to take your questions. Is it working? I think it's telling me something. Yes, slide 75 talks

154about, we talk about 90-10 model. We say 90-10, but I want you to visually see what a 90-10 really looks like. It's really about in the primary years. Kindergarten, first grade is a 90-10, and then they gradually... shift to a 50-50 model in fourth and fifth grade. So it's not 90-10 all the way through. So we know why dual immersion matters. Flowery provides, is really focused in terms of what they provide for their students, what the beauty about. flowery it's not just about the instruction it's about the school culture it's about the school community where families are engaged teachers are engaged the next couple you know you're supporting the social emotional aspect of the student you're supporting academic excellence you're supporting equity you're supporting college and career readiness and the social emotional I think I

155said social emotional aspect in terms of their school culture and the next couple of slides Can I just ask one quick question? Because it seems like this is dual immersion. So specific to our school, Flowery, in terms of grade level K1, 2, 3, and then 4, 5, is this accurate? Are we doing, this is what's happening? Yes. And it varies in terms of what grade level, what's taught in Spanish, and what is taught in English. So for example in fourth grade it what's taught in Spanish is Spanish language arts and math And in what's taught in English is science number corners and ELD So it varies depending on subject when they get your 5050 and teachers are looking for transferable and non transferable skills in both languages So like skills that like you really only

156have to teach in English because they don't transfer into the Spanish language and vice versa Okay, I apologize that it's not the powerpoints not working But you'll see the slides of the pictures where you could feel that culture that feel that multicultural Climate on that campus Sure. I think the magic behind some point both sides of the coin struggle and have to rely on that other side to help them through that moment. So like in kindergarten a non-Spanish speaking student is in a 90-10 model where only 10% of their day is in English. They're relying on their counterparts that are Spanish speakers, native Spanish speakers. And then it kind of in ELD time though when it's in English. those English speakers really shine in those moments and help support the native Spanish speakers. So that

157happens throughout the whole program. And I think that's really what's magical about it is because they have this community that they build because they know that they can rely on their peers to support them during their struggling times in the language. Thank you for that clarification, Amber. Slide 80 talks about students who are continuing in that dual immersion pathway at the secondary level. In Altamira, they're enrolled in two Spanish language courses. One is history taught in Spanish, and the other one is Spanish language arts. And at the high school, students could choose a class, whether it's Spanish 3 or 4, AP Spanish language, or AP Spanish literature. So we take a look at some of the data. We also take a look at teacher recommendation to make their appropriate placement for students at the high

158school. Do our middle school students now that they're on one campus and they're all together do they have access to what are the choice classes called? I can't think. Electives? Yes. Yes. Because of the seven period day they could have their DI class or their Spanish language arts class plus an elective. The next section talks about the CELA by literacy starting at slide 81. This state started in about 2011, this program of students could earn a state seal of bioliteracy by demonstrating proficiency in more than one language. They're demonstrating proficiency in English as well as world language proficiency. It's typically based on coursework and it's typically based on assessments. Sorry. You could see here that the number of our students earning a seal of biliteracy at the high school has increased over time where we

159had 60 students earning a seal, a state seal of biliteracy last year. And they're being recognized upon graduation where they receive a special cord and we celebrate that multiculturalism. The next slide talks. shows the requirements to earn a state seal of biliteracy as i mentioned you need to demonstrate english proficiency by completing coursework as well as mastery or standards met or or above on the casp if you're an english learner you need to have achieved a four on the lpac and then you have to demonstrate a second language proficiency it's usually our students usually take an ap course or they need to have four years in high school of that language with a 3.0 or higher. So there's various ways to achieve that state CELA biliteracy. So that's at the high school level. Next slide,

160please. We recognize and acknowledge student progress along the way and so both Altamira and Flowery provide promotion award, Biliteracy Pathway Awards at promotion where they receive a special certificate if they meet some of this criteria here for the Biliteracy Pathway Award, Dual Immersion Excellence Award as well as Language Acquisition Award. So there's lots of ways to celebrate Amber calls them little wins along the way to encourage students to continue along that pathway. In terms of parent and guardian partnerships, you know, there's many opportunities for parents to be involved. There's required groups as dictated by education code. Next slide. So two formal committees that we have are the ELAC and the DLAC, District English Learner Advisory Committee. So the ELAC is our schools with 21 English learners or more. And they have... key legal responsibilities dictated

161by ed code in terms of looking at needs assessment supporting parent awareness about attendance and then looking at and advising at the spsas the dlac which is something that we run here out of the district office also has legal tasks our next meeting is april 18th you're invited to come we look at the reclassification procedures we are required to take a look at the annual notifications we they provide comments on the lcap and explore and take a look at the data from the site needs assessment So those are the opportunities for parents to get involved. So we're in the final stretch, folks, as we talk about reflecting and moving forward. So in Sonoma Valley, we offer comprehensive support and resources, as we shared, for our multilingual learners and our staff. And they're working hard, and

162we recognize that. At the same time, we do have a long way to go. So it's important that we reflect on opportunities for improvement and areas that we could strengthen. So I want to take us back to the EL roadmap, which I just briefly like clicked through a couple of slides ago. It really lays the foundation for a system wide approach. And this is really a guiding document that we really need to lean into to provide meaningful access of language instruction, relevant and rigorous teaching. And it's really a shared direction of what we want for for all schools and for all students across the state. Next slide. So in the roadmap, there are four principles. The first is asset oriented. So I mentioned earlier, we use the language of multilingual learners, and we're also responsive

163to their student needs that reflects culture. The second is intellectual quality of instruction and meaningful access. So we have seal and elevation strategies and the ELD standards. The third is system conditions that support effectiveness. And the last piece is alignment and articulation within and across the system of our district. All of these components is really what we need to focus on to transform that experience of our multilingual learners. So the following slides really quickly are quotes that I just want to lift up without systems, coherence, infrastructure and aligned investment of resources. It. the vision and mission of the EL roadmap cannot be enacted. And when we talk about systems, we're talking about leadership. We're talking about adequate resources. We're talking about assessment. We're talking about capacity building. And it's that collective responsibility of our whole

164district, of our whole team to really deliver on that promise of public education and actualize this principle of this roadmap. And there are no shortcuts. Next slide. For the past two years, we've been intentional about building capacity of our educators and our leaders from data use, instructional professional developments, using evidence-based strategies with intention. And, you know, is it hard work? Yeah. Does it really stretch our thinking and how we teach? Yeah. Does it require accountability? Yeah. It promotes teacher collaboration. It improves student learning. And that really is what our commitment is to our students. They're counting on us and we owe it to them to deliver on high quality instruction each and every day. Next slide. This slide talks about the system. What are the shifts that need to happen for us to be accountable

165for and responsible for English learners? And this document in the next slide, I'm not going to read them all through, but here are the shifts that need to happen in a district from traditional practice to systemic practices. You know, I mentioned earlier, it's not the EL departments that's responsible for English learners. It's everyone's responsibility. It's not just about accountability and compliance. It's really about doing the right thing for kids on quality and excellence. It's about supporting belief that English learners have problems and deficits and require like a lower level of education to really thinking that all students come to school with an asset and that they could achieve high levels. That using information as a hammer versus a flashlight. It's around, you know, we have a smorgasbord of initiatives, approach to change, to really having

166that coherent, powerful, aligned models for change. That's why we've really invested in both seal and elevation strategies to have that aligned approach so we're not doing different things. There's areas that we need to work on. Trustee Ching, you know, pointed out, yeah, they're doing different things for newcomer support. Even with DELD, there are places that we need to tighten, and that's something that we need to focus on. Sonoma County Office of Ed, next slide please, put together this language and literacy agreement. Amber talked about her and a team attend through the multilingual collaborative at SCO. And this is something that they shared to the committee at their last session regarding some agreements. These are four agreements that something that we could take a look at here in Sonoma Valley is about honoring and leveraging home

167language. Using language and literacy, I talked about that, how that is developed simultaneously, they're not separate. foundational literacy is not taught in isolation and that in order for students to meaningfully comprehend and learn and to think there needs to be language rich content that's available to them so this is something that we it's just fresh off the printer from SCO this is something that we just need to digest a little bit something that we want to explore and how we could adapt how we could implement these agreements across our district next slide And lastly, when schools improve instruction, systems and support for multilingual learners, and keeping them in mind, it really lifts and elevates instruction and the experience for everybody as a rising tide lifts all boats. And it really just raises the quality of

168instruction for all so that everyone learns better. And with that, we're at slide 96. And, you know, I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate the question. There's a lot that we're going to need to take back to do some improvements, but we're in the middle of developing our LCAP for 26-27. So these are some of the pieces that we could, you know, lean into your direction and your guidance on what we could implement for the upcoming year. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Any comments, questions, discussion? Thanks very much for the presentation. It was great. And we'll adjourn the meeting at 8. Oh, sorry. Study session. Okay, sorry. 8.25.