001Judy can you please call the RO uh here Donald Carpenter here John Here Vivian Demco here Dr lurel Ericson Carson Mrs Tracy magn here Dr sham pide I'm present Mr J santz here president Mr here thank you can I get a motion to approve the agenda so moved any discussion all in favor say I I I opposed the Motions approved we had an executive session tonight to discuss uh Personnel can I get a motion to approve the minutes for March 11th 2025 so move second and discussion all in favor say I I I opposed the motion's approved uh we have no recognition or presentation this evening um our unfortunately our high school SDA representative uh is not available so we'll move to the uh superintendent report Miss Vass thank you Mr dmar we just wanted
002to uh recognize Our IT team who are who will be competing tomorrow evening in what's cool for with manufacturing I can't speak well very well tonight and some of us will be there for tomorrow and hopefully they'll bring a uh a win back to S Valley and we just wanted to send out a reminder about our comprehensive plan it is still on our website and there is still an option for anyone who is reviewing it and has a public comment um before we bring it to the board in April for final approval so check that out if you haven't gotten an opportunity to and let us know what your thoughts are that's it for the report this evening great thank you uh C of the floor to visitors agenda items only would anyone like to
003speak seeing no one can I get a motion to approve presentation of the bills so move second any discussion all in favor say I I I opposed the Motions approved can I get a motion to approve the treasur report well moved any discussion all in favor say I I I'm opposed motions approved uh on to education uh we have a presentation this evening on Spanish Immersion and ELD in the Cal report right I'm going first uh so I'll be discussing the Spanish Immersion um report so thank you for having me tonight uh the longly awaited um Cal report for Spanish Immersion uh has been completed and will be shared with you guys and with with the public uh following the meeting so tonight I'm going to be presenting the recommendations but the full I think
004it's like 80 some pages um will be available for review so it can you it will have further depth so so just as far as the Cal evaluation process went and again remember we were here um in the fall it feels like not that long ago but we did have our Spanish Immersion teachers here and some of our um Spanish Immersion students here and we had shared at the time that um over the summer we had um the board had contracted with uh uh the Center for Applied Linguistics to take a look at the overall Spanish Immersion program at the elementary school because we we we had now completed up till fourth grade and then we were moving into fifth grade so we wanted to take a look at the program see what was working
005where we needed to improve and then also talk about that transition into the middle school so the Cal evaluation process uh happened this fall uh it included a sip parent on-site listening session and uh the Cal people asked for two representatives from each grade level so we had eight parents um involved in that but to give a wider um variety of responses we they also sent out a a pretty comprehensive survey and there were 57 uh sip parent respondents for that uh when they were on site they did teacher listening sessions and those occurred with both sip teachers as well as non-sip teacher comparative in the grade levels to kind of get the perspective from both uh they also spoke with gifted special education uh technology reading Specialists so they had many many people that
006they spoke with while they were here uh they conducted staff observations so they conducted staff observations of the Sip teachers um including when the Sip teachers were teaching um SLA and for our fourth and fifth grade or third and fourth grade teachers who also taught Ela they went and saw those um teachers teach Ela as well uh they also saw comparative teachers in grades um 1 two three and four for non-ip classrooms Cal during the evaluation process we also provided to them demographics so they did a review of our sip population uh they we provided them with um a bit of performance data and they conducted an analysis of that they took a look at our curriculum for Sip and then they they um completed and shared the report and that's what we're going to
007be um talking about tonight their recommendations so uh through the report there were six major strands that the report dealt with the first strand is probably the one that affects the public the most because it affects really our structure and our delivery model model at the school so we're going to talk about that in strand one and and Cal's recommendations and then at the end although it's not a strand we're also going to talk about Cal's recommendations for moving into the secondary um level but I sh I'll be sharing the recommendations for all of the St can I ask a question uh this is more about so this is It's really two questions one is uh who has created these slides is it you you have created them or they have created them I just
008I created them however the language from them is directly from cow I did not alter the language that was from C so and the second question is that people who are watching this uh on Zoom are are they seeing the slides or are they not I this may be a question for uh we'd have to get my Canon to make sure that making it visible to the public Dr Paxon yeah so just sorry I didn't I don't mean to interrupt you I just wanted to make sure that everybody knows going on slide three okay yeah yeah I I I keep Mr said that it is visible by the public okay and Mr Stern said it is yeah and the presentation will also be shared publicly along with the documents that cal um has produced as
009well okay so um again starting with our program structure before we go into uh Cal's recommendation I did just want to remind everyone of what our current program looks like um our current program is a grade one through four program there is no kindergarten at this time uh grades 1 and two are primarily in in Spanish uh e Ela or English is supposed to be taught at home uh by parents it is there is no expectation that it is taught in school so all um Ela instruction should be taking place at home in grades three and four we do move to more of a 5050 model um with SLA math and social studies being taught in Spanish and then Ela and science being taught in English so that that's the current model that we're following
010in the current model is there a an expectation of parents doing anything at home for grades three and four no not I mean aside from Reading there's continuing but there's explicit English instruction in grades three and four so any homework that would come home to parents but in grades one and two it's specifically there's not to be any homework except for working on Lexia we provided them that the the parents that tool to utilize with their students as well as reading in English thank you okay so um based on Cal's um discussions with um San Valley's parents staff um as well as best practices their recommendation is that um the overwhelming majority of dual language programs begin in kindergarten or preschool uh kendor is beginning our dual language program in kindergarten and svsd is advised
011to do so so that's their first recommendation I have one more question uh what's the difference between dual language program and great question that is a great question so and anyone could correct me if I'm wrong but uh so dual language the way Cal talks about it is like the overarching um the overarching term for dual language programs Spanish Immersion is one specific type of them in Spanish Immersion though the way they utilize that it is typically English language Learners going into a different language or a Spanish language learner going into all English whereas a dual language would be more that two-way program where you have students that might have a native English as well as students that are native Spanish speakers and they're both in the program the Reon I'm asking is that we
012have an immersion program so uh would they uh kind of like recommendation that is based on Dual language would it be applicable did I need to get to the next slide for that answer okay not respectfully okay all right so um that's the first recommendation that they have uh the next recommendation that they have is actually to move to a 50/50 program model so to your point um based on feedback that Cal received from um the parent um service the parent um listening sessions the staff listening sessions as well as best practices um Cal believes that or Cal's recommendation is that the 50-50 program will be best for s spsd in light of English-speaking parents worries about English literacy attainment and the questionable practice of expectations for parents to develop English literacy at home uh
013it all they also say that moving to a 5050 program would remove barriers to the involvement of a wider profile of children in the program um throughout the um report they talk about making connections between both languages as they develop uh and again they believe that the 50/50 program model will guarantee equal attention to literacy development in both languages so that's their recommendation um at this time for svsd so what that could potentially look like uh oh bless you uh what that could potentially look like would would be fairly similar for K through four and again I included k at this point in time um just based on their recommendations but we would be looking at doing um Spanish language arts social studies and science um in Spanish particularly because um they talk later about
014how social studies and science really have a lot of discussion within them and would lend themselves very well to Spanish in the later years um even moving into middle mid school they talk about how social studies and science should be considered to be taught in um Spanish for our sip Learners um and then the ELA instruction would be That explicit instruction for our students K through 4 um as well as the math would be in English as well they do include in their report and when you're you're taking a look at it they include um pros and cons for uh the 5050 model uh as well as the 8020 model um which you can review they're not extensive there's not a whole lot there are some pros and cons for both um programs the the
015pros for the 8020 um have more to do with um the native language speakers but it also does talk about that it may be easier to establish schoolwide value of the minoritized language Spanish during the early years in the face of the dominance of English um but it does note that as you know one of the main disadvantages is in the 8020 um program the onus of English literacy teaching usually Falls to families um one of the things that is recommended in our current program as in most programs that are of the 8020 9010 is that students um are at proficient or above when they enter the program in the ELA um language so that you know they're not falling behind going to the 5050 model where you're giving That explicit instruction in English would
016allow for you to kind of widen the birth of students that um the program would be available to and then the final um recommendation that cal made as far as um program structure was inclusion of elll students um currently there's nothing within our policy or our practices that excludes ellc students from um joining the the program um all of our students are welcome however uh Cal noted that there was not a great inclusion of students who were elll Learners um and then they felt that um bringing a greater number of Spanish speakers into the program progressively from kindergarten on would allow for the potential to move from that one-way Spanish Immersion mainly English-speaking students to a two-way true dual language program in which students serve as models for each other so that that's their recommendation
017at this point in time for the structure okay the next um strands two through six um are all things that we've been working on um it's it's areas that we've been moving um but we did we appreciated the feedback that and the guidance that Cal provided to us us uh in these specific areas you're going to talk about curriculum instruction professional development so I am going to go through these with you but the with you but these are things that we've been working on um and they've definitely been provided some guidance to us in moving forward so the first one is our curriculum recommendations um one of the big points that they talked about is looking really at that standards based curriculum and providing that guidance so that we're really focusing on connections between langu
018is um one of the reasons that again they had recommended that 50/50 model earlier was really so they that students could explicitly be taught those comparisons between English and Spanish foundational skills um and grammar and So Cal recommended that we do take a look at ensuring that we built that into our curriculum they also talked about um our resources they said we should expand efforts to promote multiculturalism within the curriculum by incorporating more diverse materials and with cultural relevance um and that included not just within the Sip classrooms but in all classrooms and I think even moving towards our Ela curriculum which I think um the board we greatly uh appreciated that you adopted does in fact address um some of that need that Cal recommended continuing in curriculum uh they also talked about uh
019the possibility of increasing the assemblies uh that could Foster a culture of bilingualism through regular assemblies and schoolwide events that celebrate both Sip and and English only classes uh they also spoke about uh developing a comprehensive scope and sequence document that outlined foundational Spanish language skills to be taught at each grade level making sure that there was not any D duplication of areas um Andor any gaps in any of the areas particularly as students were moving moving into the middle school Cal also took a look at supports that were offered uh to our students and they um they recommended to continue to utilize our Student Success team which is our mtss team which um currently uh we do include our Spanish Immersion students uh for any for identifying any students that may be you know
020struggling academically socially or behaviorally and and we would continue with that process and uh lastly in the curriculum they said we should consider offering um and encouraging opportunities for staff and parents to learn Spanish Andor English uh respectively uh to support Community engagement and enhance the overall um educational environment moving on to our third strand where they talked about instruction and again they um had the opportunity to observe our Spanish Immersion teachers again in both the SLA and the ELA classrooms as well as um their their counterparts in the different grade levels what Cal shared were that there were many examples of effective uh dual language instruction in sip classrooms uh they said to con they they recommended to continue to support teachers in the use of these practices and assist teachers in growing their
021practices in areas they have not yet mastered or do not use as often as may be me as may be beneficial and when we get to profession development um we'll talk kind of how we're going to incorporate or how the two go together so they included the areas for best practice uh particularly in um dual language and Spanish immersion programs to ensure that effective language use is is used by teachers and students uh for example um if the teacher is is talking to Dr casy and Dr casy is the student and we're working in s LA or we're supposed to be speaking Spanish if I say something to Dr casy in Spanish and he responds to me in English I'll accept that I don't necessarily need to point out that you need to respond in
022Spanish but I'm always going to respond in Spanish to him and then you know conversely if I'm speaking in English I would expect him to speak in English to me uh provide differentiation and Scaffolding they talk about how in language development students learn at different rates the the whole class is not going to learn exactly at the same um rate so they're going to acquire their language at at different um at different points as they're being taught so we really need to to provide those supports for our students uh they recommended to have content and language objectives available to the students to develop metalinguistic and meta metacognitive skills to use peer models and to integrate the use of Technology where appropriate the professional development very much builds off of those um best practices uh for
023instruction So Cal recommended to continue to identify or develop and provide professional development sessions specifically tailored to the needs and methodologies of the Spanish Immersion teachers addressing their unique challenges and teaching practices um they specifically talked about including targeted training on trans languaging and what means for immersion programs trans languaging if if you don't know Alex uh is just that ability to move fluidly between languages so for example if you're listening to a story in English you might respond in um in Spanish you might respond in an essay format in Spanish so they definitely uh repeated that throughout the report that that was an important skill set a skill set for our teachers to have um they also talked about implementing structured observation opportunities for teachers to learn from each other so that peer observations
024um so they could have that peer feedback and collaborative growth and again as we move into the different grades address the need for Spanish emersion staff I think the board knows the public knows the Spanish Immersion teachers know that we always we've struggled in the past finding um staff and we are thrilled that we have been able to do that and Cal just said continue to um make sure that supporting our our sip teachers strand five uh this is the second to our last assessment and accountability recommendations So Cal actually said that we might be over uh assessing our students I think um we really want to make sure that uh our students are progressing both in Spanish and English and one of their recommendations was really to see if there's any duplication that we
025can take out uh when we talk about the Middle School in a little bit uh they say uh they shared a comment that one of the biggest complaints of middle school students is that they get um assessed so frequently because they're getting their Assessments in their English they're getting their Assessments in Spanish it's just a lot of Assessments so um they talk throughout the report about how we could potentially look at pairing that down um so that we're still getting the data that we want um but not over testing the student students and not causing that test fatigue and last but not Le not last but not least our strand six family and Community recommendations uh Cal recommends that we strengthen our communication and engagement efforts uh we provide workshops and resources for parents so
026that they can better understand um the goals and then we also provide workshops for parents on expectations for language development that was something that came up throughout the report of you know the expectations for where their child should be and really talking to them about what that looks like um uh in the language uh development process and then finally um our secondary recommendations so it was important that as uh the Spanish Immersion program as our fourth graders were moving into the Middle School uh that we had something in place for them because we we recognize the importance of this program uh to the salken valley community and we wanted to make sure not only were we looking backwards but we were also looking forwards uh and we were very very pleased to find that the
027recommendations from Cal fall in line with the original planning uh that is moving into the middle school so uh for grade five um initially they said that there should be developed and offered a single Spanish World language class tailored specifically for the transitioning Elementary sip students with language literacy and language art goals integrated with historical cultural and contemporary themes which in fact the middle school is planning on implementing in the fall for the students and again it looks different than a Spanish one class would look it is specifically tailored to students that have been through the Spanish Immersion program in the elementary schools they do also recommend looking at um possible enrollment of Spanish speaking students and seeing if they would gain benefit from um entering that class in grade five additionally um Cal recommended
028that there be a development of uh a continued development of the Spanish program by offering a second class in Middle School uh in one additional core subject area and they recommend uh social studies Andor science and and speaking with Mr sacarias if I have this correct uh so it will be social studies that will be offered in Spanish and grade five and then science which will be offered in grade in Spanish and grade six and that is accurate okay and that is an addition to um the SLA class that the students will be receiving uh students one of the things that we'll talk about in a second for consideration well we'll just get there um so just some additional considerations as we move to the middle school and the high school uh that Cal pointed
029out uh they they wanted to really share that the world language classes are not dual language language arts classes so again as the students from the elementary sip class move through the through the middle school and into the high school we need we need to really keep that in mind we need to progam you know the the SLA classes that they're they're taking should be thought-provoking uh providing fiction and non-fiction texts that build on the language and content that they have learned in the earlier years um they're not just a Spanish one class uh there should also be curriculum guidance uh is needed to ensure just as in the elementary level that there's vertical alignment and language skills expectations uh that that continues uh through the Elementary uh middle and high school one this was
030what I was going to point out they talked about one of the considerations being that there should be availability in the schedule for students to take electives if classes are a substitute for other electives um currently you know something always tends to need to come out of a program in order to fit something else because we only have so much time in the day uh currently our Spanish Immersion students don't have um IE built into their schedules um and in speaking with Mr sack larus that would continue in um the middle school at least in fifth and sixth grade so they would get one of those courses um during IE time so they're not necess necessarily going to lose out on taking electives but that should be something that's considered as our students move again
031through the middle school and up into the high school and then uh the last thing they talked about is something I had mentioned just that fair and balanced assessment practices just as you know we all want to make sure that the students are progressing both in English and in Spanish we don't want to over test students so we really you know that that's one of that was one of the biggest complaints that they said happened at the middle school level and and it creates this fatigue and then students don't necessarily stay engaged in the program so we really want to make sure that we plan that out and don't duplicate um anything that we don't need to duplicate so with the overall conclusion that uh Cal shared um Cal shared that s spsd has dedicated
032administrators and teachers who are committed to evolving an effective sip program the report has scrutinized many aspects of the uh Spanish Immersion program at svsd and there are numerous recommendations in the report um and an overarching call to action is to ensure that the Sip program serves a wider profile of children from the early years through high school so that is really um what I think we are all dedicated to doing um at the administrative level and I know that the parents have echoed that they feel that from the board um so we we are taking these recommendations um very seriously you know to to make sure that we can build the best program we can for our students and with that I know um at this point in time these are recommendations I know
033no um definitive decisions have been made uh there will be a survey that is going to be oh nope okay can I just see that previous slide slide sure is that one I that had or or is there another way for me to which one that one right there yeah I really that one I wanted to spend more time with sure while Mr Brun is spending time on that I can I ask a questions so uh one one other procedural question which is uh what is the sort of like plan for uh uh presenting this to you know especially the Spanish emerging Community here and kind of like getting their feedbacks about this I mean is there uh something that you are planning to do uh I I must admit that I was expecting that
034the room today would be full and I was too we were too I have to be honest I was expecting that as well but I think uh Miss uh Mrs Blast has spoken at length about this um because we do want feedback from our Spanish Immersion parents uh because it will affect them it will affect the ones that not not as much the the ones going into third and fourth grade but definitely the ones that are are have already signed up or wanting to enroll in first grade and the ones moving from first to second grade as well as to see if there's an interest in kindergarten so with that I'll turn it over back to mrsas and she can share so we're taking the reports that we received in its entirety and making both
035the reports available to the public specifically they will be sent to all of the Spanish Immersion parents along with a survey that they can fill out very short and sweet about their desire in regards to kindergarten and also um for the 50/50 model versus what we currently have now so we are going to be doing that tomorrow making that active to everyone um so our whole Community can view it not just our SI parents but that survey will be sent out to we receive feedback from our community especially our SI parents and we will also be contacting those families who have incoming kindergarteners to determine whether or not we even have an interest from them to have enough students enrolled in a kindergarten classroom from there we're going to look at all of the recommendations
036and the feedback that we receive and make our own recommendation moving forward based on all of that information um in about two weeks I'm done with that but the first can I ask for clarification on the first point like that that one I I'm sorry I must have missed or no and it it it really is is specific for our Spanish emersion elementary students so like if if you have a student that has been through the Sip program getting up into a world language class like a Spanish one it would not be appropriate for them they are well beyond that and they should be focused more on things like authentic texts um lit oh I got it thank you got yep totally good thank you could I could I ask a few questions sure um
037okay so I just uh I a couple questions one the first one is um does the report and I'll read the report it's fine does the report provide um like data yes okay it does okay yeah so just uh you know it's just like because you said there's like pros and cons to both an 8020 and pros and cons to a 5050 so is there like some some data in there that report about like those pros and cons or it's well it it speaks more to the pros and cons well there's a pros and cons in the appendix that isn't specific to Salk and Valley it goes into more just pros and cons of the two programs overall what's in the report though the first almost 40 pages are it takes a look at soan
038Valley's data it takes a look at uh the Sip parent responses uh to surveys and that's kind of where you saw the the concern about the English being taught at home that came spe specifically from the parents um and the feedback so that's listed within the data that you talk about there's oh go ahead uh that's data on opinion surveys I meant data the data that we've shared is um with them is how our students did on math testing in um both uh Spanish and English in math and Ela and SLA we have also included Dibbles data and uh lectura data which is the equivalent of uh Dibbles data um so all of that is in the report for the student the uh the I I understand the recommendation like if you're not teaching English
039then you know you might have a problem but like do we actually have a problem is the question correct very valid question and they say that that at this time they're not seeing it because if you look at pssa you'll see a higher percentage of students but it does it it it does dis it talks about the discrepancies of the the the students that are in the Sip class versus the overall student population and how they don't really match up um and that there are some concerns like for for that so that for example there are more female students in the Sip classes than there are in the school there are more boys in the scho school so the percentage it talks about the number of special education students that are in sip classes vers
040in The Wider um population it talks about you know how many El students that are identified as elll are in the different population so it does go through all of that and it that's one of the reasons for the recommendation because it says it will open up to a wider population of student that would be eligible or and and do well in the Sip program okay next question sorry um it it's along those lines about um the number of students can you can this is and this is I'm sorry forgive my ignorance can you just jump in anytime you want great question um and and they talk about that a little bit in the um report it would be very difficult we actually though however did have and one of the things when we talk
041to the kindergart or the kindergarten student parents going into first grade is that there are only so many slots according to board policy it's 26 slots that are available um for a class and we ask that you know when they're signing their students up that they really take that seriously because if we do get to a lottery then someone else can't get in because the class is already full we did the this year have interest and I this was the first year I had it I don't know if they've had it in previous years where um a family contacted me and said we would like to put our students in and we did talk about like okay are they are they where everybody else is in the class and are they going to be able
042to continue with that so we talked about doing some type of assessment for them but we would only be able to accommodate one of the two students um because the other class was full and we couldn't go beyond the board policy for that that group okay so going to the 50/50 model would allower a little bit more of movement in and out because you're doing the explicit instruction okay I I guess I guess I some of the recommendations are like essentially increas it sounds like increasing the number of students in it but it's not increasing the number of students in right we're still ining the total number just the the the so when we talk to the parents typically we recommend because there is no explicit instruction in English and it talks about this in
043the report and it's similar to what many of the school districts that I've talked to that have the Spanish immersion programs with the 90 10 or the 8020 model um is that they recommend either the student should be at proficient or above proficient there's one of the school districts I spoke to said they're actually asking for students that are above proficient level um in ela uh getting into the program because there is no explicit instruction in first grade in English because you're basically relying on the parents to instruct the students at that point in time so offering them the opportunity to come into a program where we're explicitly T teaching not only the Spanish but also the English would allow students that might just be you know they might not be at that proficient proficiency
044level right then and there but they would continue to get that explicit instruction in English so again it wouldn't be adding to the overall number of students 26 is a lot especially for those younger years um but it it would open up kind of um who might be you know who might be able to to get into the program okay okay so wait sorry one more question maybe maybe one more question oh jeez okay so let me can you tell me if I'm accurate now in my description of the recommendation and the current practice we don't restrict anyone from going into it right now but there's like a heavy recommendation to not go into it if you're significantly struggling in English correct and that's specifically because um again there is no explicit instruction in English
045so you're relying on parents and there's no really no IE time built in so if we do find we still we still test our students in in the Dibbles to to ensure that as they're moving through that they're maintaining their English skills and what we found is that there were times you know going through that SST process where we actually needed to pull a small group of students with our reading Specialists and they were actually able to catch up pretty quickly but they needed that explicit instruction uh but we also had students that were much much lower that were not really able to catch up that ended up you know exiting the program through conversations with the teachers but the parents made the decisions abut okay abely so so really the only the the I
046mean at we called the best case scenario of following recommendations would just be to increase the number of people who enter the lottery to go into the program not necessarily to increase the number of students in the program and then there just wouldn't be this recommendation that that would exist correct but the recommendation wasn't it didn't stop anyone from entering the lottery it didn't but I mean there were definitely conversations with the teachers and you know that happened you know just talking about how you're doing and how you might perform just based on history from the program you know kind of moving forward and how students were able to either keep up or or you know not keep up with with the expectations yeah okay thank you sorry I more questions go ahead com um
047um thank thank you um I think I remember like maybe three years ago or was it two years ago that um when the Spanish Immersion program was um maybe it was longer I can't remember but I remember Brian ield the previous board member was was very supportive of um the the program if I remember right and um um I just really I I I thank him for the the foresight do you see the the benefits of the of these programs um I um one of the things that Jay and I were creting notes a little bit about this um that um there's there's a lot of research that shows that the uh the the Dual language uh students they outperform their counterparts in um in math and science also um there is something that happens
048with the brain with dual language instruction dual language immersion programs that improves um performance across the board but you know particularly in math and science um if if the children are learning at a young age if it's young you know um so I think that's a really something our community really needs to um understand as as a as one of the many benefits um that that this offers I I also think that um you know we are slowly seeing an increase of of students moving into the district who speak Spanish and um and the 50/50 program um if they're able to move into it is I think it it could help also um address that challenge and making sure that um the students that we have moving into the district are going to be able
049to participate in the um in in our our or are going to be able to sort of aim for our performance standards in a in a high achieving School District you know um half the world um speaks at least two languages in in United States it's 20% you know U we're we're the oddballs I mean my son knows four more languages than I do you know um so I think it's definitely the future um I really appreciate the just you know this presentation thank you thank you may I ask a couple questions did you want to yes please has been yeah being on the left side is like they don't look that way when somebody's presenting this way I get it um so you said um I don't want to quote you but it said
050something like kindergarten it's standard in these programs typically they have any data that said it's it's essential essential to these programs or it didn't say that it was essential and I didn't I didn't I don't recall reading anything in the report that said it was essential but it it was a strong recommendation from them um in what and even speaking to um the the person that wrote the report and then you'll read it in the report there's just it's they say there's such a wealth that students gain by getting the instruction in kindergarten through play through you know building those foundational skills in that kind when they're most apt to absorb it that moving then into that first grade when you know you really start getting more of that rigor they already have some of
051those those foundational skills under under their belt um they did not give any specific numbers um as far as uh it just said the overwhelming um the one the again some many of the districts that I've spoken not many there's there aren't many out there but the ones in our area um I know I spoke to at least two of them recently and they do start in first grade um I believe there are two others though that I did not get a chance to speak to that do start in kindergarten um and again there really wasn't a reason necessarily why one way or the other I was surprised to hear there was no scope and sequence for this at all or it exists or it's not as structured as they want it yeah I think
052it definitely needs more structure I think now that you know as it was built up through the four years um with the marrais program and the estral test and I apologize if I said those incorrectly but the phonics program and the the reading the ELA or the SLA prr program that exists you know as we built it up um it was kind of building grade by grade I think now looking backwards it really gives that that look at where are there as I said where are there gaps and where are there duplications that we can either eliminate or add um based on the need and I think one of the things that they really talk about in the um report is really kind of also focusing on those connections between the English language and the
053um Spanish language and making sure that we're explicitly telling you know building that into our instruction of you know how those exist and I don't think that has been that part has been built in yet and I think that's something that definitely is important just one more quick question is it typical for limiting to 29 students per grade level that's like a quarter of our students almost and well that's Southern leis we are not 29 we're 26 um that's okay it's it's I mean it's a big CL I'm not going to say it's not um typically the students are you know they're they're typically very motivated to be there um we that's go ahead I don't want to interrupt you I take up your time but I just meant is it very typical for schools
054to limit the number of students in the program yes to one class it seemed it seemed to me even in southern Lehigh that has two different or or multiple elementary schools they only have one classroom and they do the lottery from both you know both of their schools thank you and I don't know like right now we're at we're almost at the end of our registration Pro process going into first grade I would say right now we're at about 21 or 22 we have not needed to go into a lottery um even though we hit 25 and 26 we had a few that joined or registered after the deadline the last couple of years um but I would not say we would have enough for another classroom okay I have couple J Jay was oh
055sorry yeah please no worries um no no worries uh yeah I think Viv actually asked part of what I wanted to know a little bit more about the kindergarten um phase of this and I you know I wanted to know uh a little bit more about the structure of the program if we knew anything about what we would want to do with that um as well as what resourcing we would need for that program to you know uh take place great question so um when we had originally met with um Lisa the the woman who wrote the report along time ago she mentioned not only to us but also to many of the staff that kindergarten was something that might be coming as a recommendation so I know that during budgeting time I set some
056money aside for um science resources in Spanish um kindergarten uh SLA resources just in case so we do have money built into the budget right now for um kindergarten resources um I AP oh so then it would dep be dependent on the model as far as what the day would look like but again if it was the the 9010 it would look very similar to the kindergart or the first grade and second grade where everything would be in Spanish whereas if it would be the 50/50 we would do the ELA and math in English and then the science social studies and SLA in Spanish you know just um quick recommendation then and then another question I I highly recommend the you know program uh the 910 as it is now especially in the early years
057and I highly recommend also engaging in the kindergarten program because it's one of those things whereas you know we've been mentioning and talking about recently the younger you get into the program the younger that you understand that there is another language out there that you can make a connection to to the English words that you receive at home then the easier it's going to be for that instruction in the future so highly recommend those um one more question uh you mentioned that there was an interest in bringing in already Spanish speaking individual students into these programs and I wanted to know if there are any currently Ser you know Spanish speaking there are there are some but it is disproportionate to what is in our school um so there are students that that do come
058from um uh spanishs speaking houses and again it comes in the report as to the percentage but it is much smaller than I think it's 10% is in the program but 30% is in the school so there is a ve there is a disproportion to it we did I mean we did trial with um a year or two ago a student that was really struggling that that came in as an elll learner that really hadn't had much schooling and we actually had them for part of the day in the um Spanish Immersion program uh to assist and we did actually see some very positives from it so good yeah know that that makes sense to me I I highly recommend bringing you know them in to the course I I can take you know I
059can tell you from my own experience I also enrolled in a Spanish course in in high school uh because I had to learn how to read and write by myself right in Spanish and you know things like where accents go and you know structure of the language that's not something that you'll learn just by being in your home in a Spanish speaking home so you know highly recommend bring those kids in uh it'll also help again as you're saying with the relationship of the language itself right they can share their traditions and you know their perspective of the language with it you know purely English-speaking students so highly supportive of this thank you so much for all your work and efforts on this absolutely I think this is a great achievement great thank you we
060agree we think it's a really good program bill was yeah U so one question I another question I had it and this isn't necessarily um uh for for you it's it's for really um uh anybody do we have any sense of what our community thinks about um the language immersion you know Pro program here and like are are there how can I put are there misconceptions out there that um that we need to do more to address in terms of our public relations about Spanish immersion what it is and what it isn't and or what the Dual language immersion is and and or and and what it isn't like are there ways that um we need to make sure people aren't misunderstanding what happens here um did they need to do we need to do
061more to uh educate the community about um the benefits of of the program and so that they don't just think that it's like you're just learning a language because it really is a lot more than that you know I think um I you know in throughout again that strand six is is really that families and Community um I think we can do a better job at making sure that we're really promoting the program um one of the things that I wanted to do this year was include more of the Spanish the SLA in our math and literacy night and it just kind of came upon us and we didn't quite get there but I think you know we really need to be intentional moving forward now that we're really getting to a point where we're
062solid with our classes and we're not building anymore um I I definitely think we can promote it I think our parents are oftentimes our biggest promoters of this um many many of our of our families have siblings that are in the program um and continue there are a number of students I want to say it's almost 12 students uh that are siblings that are enrolling into the um first grade uh coming up program so um I absolutely think we can always do a better job at promoting um the the program thank you Mr Brun to Amy's Point too um I think we were not part of the onset of the immersion program so the first year I mean it was sort of inherited by all of the administrators and I think just like anything that
063is in a fresh start or a new initiative or a new program there's was a lot of skepticism regarding the program why it was there um is it going to continue and I think the more that the commitment is there and it's shown through the district's commitment to continue it through now four years of Elementary now we're looking at dropping down to the kindergarten level and possibly even going well always going into middle school but possibly dropping down to kindergarten I think that speaks a little uh emphasizes the commitment and know this is a long-term a long-term program so I think that will speak for itself too but I know there was a lot of skepticism to be fair of whether or not this was something that we could continue um over the years and
064would there be participation and commitment from parents and we've seen that so this is from our perspective long lasting and hopefully growing so and it's not I'll say like in our um introductory sessions when we have our parent sessions that's not a question I get as much as I did the last two years like is this going to go away are you GNA find a teacher is this going into the M like or is it just going to stop and just go away and my response has been you know the the board the district office our Administration our teachers we're fully committed for to this being successful you know there has been an investment in it um and to just do away with it wouldn't make sense it's a value it's a value um we
065know that our parents see value in it we see value in it our students are performing well in it I think longitudinally we're going to need to continue to watch the growth of the students as they progress through um middle school and high school um but I I think everyone is committed to the program and do think that that will speak a lot to the community we get um the last few I'll just share this and then I'll stop talking um we I get calls every year from students who have not enrolled their students in kindergarten in um soen Valley but then want to enroll their students in first grade just particularly because of the Spanish Immersion program wow makes sense um thank you thank you very much for the uh presentation I'm looking forward
066forward to uh the other meetings when we can talk about this in particular uh I I I heard your point about the survey and uh uh current uh students parents feedback that's good but uh uh and I'm just saying this as my personal preference for this would be a meeting where uh people can actually interact uh uh you know about this you know some some sort like topics for discussion and uh uh some sort like you know back and forth I I would I would like to uh hear the thoughts and kind of like Pro them a little more uh as as we are sort of like at this stage you know making this decision and uh uh again I don't know how the logistics are and what you were thinking but that's just to
067like take that as you don't you have to but I will say if you when you do read the report you you just something to remember is is we did have 57 respondents of s parents so you're going to see a lot of that within the report and again not that that negates anything moving forward but I think you will see a lot of their um their opinions I understand but that's that's what they said based on their experience my my my point or my kind I'm going to say curiosity is to see what their reaction is to the report oh gotcha so that they haven't seen and that you know they will see it but and they will sort of like send those sort of like little Snippets of information back to you that's
068that's fine but uh again I mean like something to sort like to see what uh what what they say and what they think but uh uh I had a uh I had a few uh questions and these are sort of like all over the place I apologize uh uh but I'll I'll ask them all so uh the first one is uh who's the custodian of the program kind of like currently at the school uh other than the the teacher teachers are obviously sort of like in the classroom sure and uh and uh that that that is fine right but then is there somebody who's sort of like overseeing this uh you know in any capacity is it you is it your assistant principal is it someone in the district office so um and you'll see
069that within the report it didn't come out as a recommendation per se um but they do talk about that um the reading Specialists have a um uh department head that um elll the grade levels have a department head and they did talk that there would be um it would be very beneficial to have a department head for sip not necessarily A fulltime position but somebody like Miss Mickey who's our reading you know our reading specialist who's a team leader at the building level um well let me go backwards so to speak towards the curriculum so curriculum was overseen this past year by um Miss doson and and Dr nicolov so they oversaw that that writing of the that curricul those curriculum documents and then between Tom and I um we oversee the evaluations of the
070Spanish Immersion teachers I also get the Spanish Immersion teachers together so really at that building level it's it's myself okay and this is I I I I I I thought you are uh the one who is doing the evaluation of the teachers I didn't think that there is anything else that would be sort of like appropriate from that perspective also uh uh curriculum wise uh you know the two individuals that you mentioned who are leading the efforts across the district it's not necessarily all of the things that they are overseeing is not their uh uh their their subject area so it's okay for them to oversee this one also but uh uh my my point was more about uh whether there is a uh there is a coordinator or someone who it could be you
071know again one of your responsibilities to say that okay this is this is the point person if there are issues with the program it goes to this person I think that's a good if that is explicitly sort of like already uh decided and communicated with everybody that's good I need to know that but uh if it's not that's just my sort of like suggestion no I can I I think it's a very good suggestion and again I think now that we have a full cohort of our team I think somebody that really is taking that hard look that has that understanding you know as the teachers go back and take a look at that curriculum having that department chair um that is being representative and really can provide some of that guidance good so uh
072the other question that I had which I like alluded to that earlier it's uh more of a maybe I don't know philosophical question but it's with practical uh implications is what is the mission of the program what what what I and and the goals because what when I sort of like first uh learned about this and I was a big Advocate you know from from from the beginning and uh very happy to see you know we have uh managed to continue because as Miss Vass mentioned you know one of the things that I kept hearing at the time one of the sort of like negative things was that s never sort of like does anything correctly or doesn't continue with things and they start something and then you know in a year you know they
073just just falls apart and so so that was one of the concerns that I had heard from uh from from from from others and I'm I'm glad to see that we are sort of like past that infancy age uh and uh this is sort of this has taking Roots uh but uh at that time and you know continue to be my uh my understanding that the goal of the program is to uh give these kids the opportunity to be fluent uh speakers of that language right and uh my concern is that uh we are kind of like maybe uh diluting the the the the experience by uh making it less immersion and more of a just you know you have a couple of other classes in a in a different language uh the whole point
074of immersion was that you are in a in an environment where you are exposed to this other language like a lot and just note that the seven hours that the kids are here at the school compared with their whole day compared with their whole year is a uh you know small percentage of their uh time so I just have that concern that this would sort of like deviate from that uh fundamental goal from my understanding and again if that is the way that everybody else sort of like here on this board and in terms of the parents and the teachers and so forth sort of like understands that that that's fine but uh that is my concern and again this is not something that you need to uh react to I can resp no but
075I can I share Yeah okay or if you don't want me to that's no I'm just saying that I I I don't want you to sort like feel like everything that anyone says you have to sort of like you know respond to it it's just sort of like that's all right you know that again I wasn't here when the started um you know the mission is that bilingual that biliteracy that biculturalism that's what's there when I came down to the program it to me as a as a as an educator it is always important to quantify things so to me and it's probably why we we over assessed a little bit um because I wanted to make sure that we were reaching goals and you're going to see that in some of the upper grades
076the Spanish probably is not where we would like to see it right now um and you know that could be for different reasons but they're also starting at that grade level behind so some of the assessments that we're giving are at well the map assessment is at grade level in comparison to native speakers um I think as we move forward one of the things that hadn't been in place and that we we put in place with Miss Dobson and the teachers was um a a progress report for Spanish uh the SLA which had not been been included and I still think it's a work in progress and something that we would like to work on with Cal to make sure that um it it aligns with the program um not all of the districts around
077us necessarily you know use it there aren't um standards in Spanish for SLA through PA so you know it's it's based a lot on the ELA standards um so it's really taking that hard look and making sure that we're quantifying things I'm I'm going to I'm going to be a little bit sort of like no straight and uh maybe not politically correct but this is like you know these sort of like to me sound like uh just you know education jargon right to me the bottom line is when when these kids are in fourth grade fifth grade sixth grade can they uh uh speak with someone who speaks Spanish or not hold a conversation or that's sort of like the to to me that was sort of like the fundamental selling point right that they
078are at the point that they are either uh uh already sort of like uh uh fluent or they are so close to that that as soon as they are placed in a uh in an environment they could they could they could speak language fluently and uh however you uh you evaluate that that that that's fine I don't want to sort of like uh you know dictate anything about that I don't have expertise I just want to make sure that we don't lose sort of like sight of that as the goal uh in the interest of uh you know other things which was my my first question from you was what's the difference between dual language and immersion because dual language sounds like you're exposed to another language and you could be exposed to another language
079in first grade or you could be exposed to another language in ninth grade uh like but both of them sort of like just give you exposure whereas immersion has a goal and the goal is fluency in speaking that other language to the the goal with though any dual language program is the same it is for that biliteracy biculturalism Etc we do when we looked at the Act full stand standards which are the foreign language standards it does talk about the novice the novice low the novice mid the novice High I think when we speak to parents about it and that came through in the report we need to do a better job at the school of really saying to the parents this is where your child should be at this point in time they're not
080going to be fluent by the end of first grade they might not be fluent by the end of fourth grade but their their knowledge of Spanish is going to be much much greater um um than you know any other student in the building and should be close to what that native language um speaker is but again the goal being as they move up through high school they're taking AP um Spanish you know they're getting that seal um you know from the state that's like that's where the the goal is going to be but it's not going to happen overnight and we need to do a better job at educating our parents that because I think when it was introduced and I wasn't here so I I I don't want to speak for anyone I don't
081know that that was clearly laid out and it may have been but I don't know that it was clearly laid out that they're going to be fluent by the time they're in fourth grade because that's not the expectation of Ju Just Just a thing I mean like related to this was this uh uh point about the ELD students right and the reason I brought that up is that uh depending on what the uh what what the what the goal of the program is you know that becomes actually an issue or not an issue uh so let's say there is a uh there is a kid who already speaking Spanish as their first language right they are in a and they move to this country and they want to live here and so forth so I
082think for them the most important thing to do is to learn English and get as much English as possible because they already sort of like uh are getting uh Spanish at at home right uh you know here uh you know Mr Santos I don't think you were in any Spanish Immersion program but you speak Spanish because of your your family situation and so so it it becomes one of those things that if you want to be everything for everybody then you're kind of like nothing for nobody right and uh you know if if we want to if we want to uh make sure that we have uh uh kids who don't have Spanish as their uh mother tongue they can speak Spanish if that's the goal then by uh doing this because we want to
083expand the number of kids who are there and sort of like provide some opportunities for some others who uh you know that that sort of like for me is a too high of a cost to pay right I I'm I'm completely okay with uh the Spanish emerging program not having elll students right uh uh because the goal of this is something that is not necessarily sort of like one of the things that is important for those kids now if their parents want to enroll them and so forth nobody's going to sort of like stand on on on their way but uh I would assume that that is not the recommendation that the school uh provides to those uh those kids right but again you know this is like I'm just saying that when I when
084I saw those slides it sounded to me like uh uh it is one of those things that you know someone has said you know let's just sort of like go middle of the way so that we can kind of like uh be okay with this side and be okay with that side but then you are like not okay like not really good with either side just like take that as a okay as as a as as a point of view in in your I will say there are there the the Counterpoint to that though is that the experience that each student brings to that table um is going to strengthen each I completely agree with that but this is my point is that uh there is a cost to that to both groups right and
085that cost has to be evaluated right so you know the the the cost is that the kid who could benefit really from a fully English uh program is not getting that so they may not reach the level of uency in English that they would uh uh they would they would really need and uh uh the cost to these kids is that they are deprived from a uh full immersion uh program and the benefit obviously is that both of them are intermingling and they would learn from each other so what I'm saying there is a it's it's not just sort of like just benefits right there are there cost to it there's pros and cons to both yeah so uh the other thing that I just wanted to say is that uh the advantage of doing
086uh k to uh whatever six is that sounds like we would have uh What uh Mr Santos had said before which is the sort of continuity of this K to 12 right so this is because kids from K to six have uh Spanish through uh through this program and then uh after that they can kind of like join the uh foreign language track the only problem with that is that we don't have a lot of courses at that point for for them right so uh you you noted that uh Spanish classes at that point the beginners of Spanish classes are not really appropriate for uh for for these kids and then uh I don't know we have one Spanish you know AP Spanish and uh even that one was designed not for uh Spanish uh
087speaking kids right that is designed for those who speak Spanish as their like you know second language in school so uh if if that is the goal you know we have to kind of like do a lot more right uh for the for the later years and I just wanted s of like uh make make a note uh about that and the last point that I wanted to mention was about the inclusion of uh kindergarten uh at the time that the program started the reason for not having that be a part of the program was uh so that uh the the the the teachers could evaluate the kids and could provide the recommendation to the parents that is uh that is Meaningful and uh I'm just worried that if we sort of like not uh
088not have that then we are uh we we we may sort of like end up with kids who uh really kind of like float uh uh in this sort of like uh you know area of uncertainty about whether they really you know can can flourish uh in in the program or not I'm just sort of like bringing that off as a uh a cautionary point because I I when they said at the time you know we really need the kindergarten year to be able to provide that feedback it it made a big difference in you know how I was viewing it I I really sort of like thought it's important so uh this may sort of like negate that but thank you very much and uh we'll we'll talk about this more I'm sure okay
089thank you okay thank you Miss brm okay moving on um we have there's a oh oh sorry we were finished mine is short take your time take your um the the El report a lot of the recommendations in there were repetitive through a lot of the different sections so that's why you will see a difference in what these look like so um the sections that they looked at for um our El students there's an overview of um uh our program demographics of the students that we have at the district um language development they anal uh analyze the data for those specific students um talking about identifying them placing them exiting them monitoring um program model and Staffing curriculum instruction professional development assessment and accountability um El and special education and then families and community so
090like I said the recommendations that I have here um you you will see when you read the report carry over to multiple of these sections so the recommendations that uh the Center for Applied linguis Applied Linguistics gave um reviewing over our identification process for students um making sure that our El students are not getting over represented in a the special education population based on their El status um we do have a bilingual school psychologist that does um a lot of the uh evaluations for any of our Spanish speaking students um to help prohibit that but that's something just to make sure that we're very careful on that um consider having the Spanish-speaking students in kindergarten or first grade involved in that Spanish Immersion program you'll see this recommendation goes throughout the El report as well
091um as in the Spanish Immersion report continue to analyze their performance data by when they're entering the us and our district make sure that those students are growing um and that we continue to look at that data not just the first year that they're here or the second year but continually in their time within the district um this uh the next recommendation is similar to something that was talked about for the Spanish Immersion program consider designating that staff member to Ser as to serve as that El and Spanish Immersion coordinator one person that can oversee both of those pieces and coordinate between both um especially since the recommendation does come for the students the El students to be immersed in the Spanish program they combined that into one coordinator um make sure that the documents
092um are translated all of our school-based documents and that translation services are available um we do have these in place but I do think making sure that it is um parents know about it more and every staff member across the district has that information to make sure that they are using it all of the time um make sure that the regular Ed teachers are continued to um provide that professional development um that they have of the proficiency standards of the proficiency of where their student is uh performing in their class their first language information assessment information to make sure they're servicing them um make sure we're providing social and counseling supports for those recently El uh arrived El students um so that they are getting acclimated to um not just a new District but also
093if they are new to uh the country um the specific training for the General Ed teachers like I said making sure they not only have the English language proficiency information but this for the students but also that they're continuing to get that training um the El teachers continue to make sure that they're involved with curriculum development making sure that as we adapt new resources that they are included in those discussions which they have been um you know as the district has gone through those curriculum review Cycles but continue to make sure that we are looking at that um looking at continuing to use the supplemental pieces that we are for El students um as as well as re uh replacing that outdated stuff and um one of the recommendations in the Sip uh report about
094making sure that we had culturally relevant information is also present in the El report um make sure to create and offer parent social events not just things on campus but also off- campus making sure that you're meeting them where they're comfortable letting them build a community within the other parents um and it not just being only District events here on campus um and that making sure there are classes available for students at all grade levels those are the recommendations for the El report I I just want to return to one of the points that Dr pad made about um that our English Learners if they spend half their day in learning in Spanish isn't that going to slow down their acquisition of English so I think the the recommendation from that um really comes from
095those newer El students that might not have a lot of English proficiency you have to meet them where they are them sitting in a class that is only English all day long when they don't really understand the language is a struggle for them so if they're in a combined immersion program where they're getting both a Spanish and an English piece talk to them together and you're hitting the English um you know the ELA piece and the phonics piece but also covering into the Spanish it's bridging that gap for them so they're not just sitting in a classroom where there people are talking English all day to them when they're not understanding it you're giving them things in their native language and bridging that Gap to how it coincides with the English language instruction which is
096kind of what that 5050 model looks at that you're giving them the ability to start to understand the English without with still getting language in their native language I I make that makes sense to me um but it seems like that would only be something that they would want to uh experience for one or maybe two years and then they would return to the English all day long classes wouldn't it so I think the thought is if we start them in uh the beginning of the program they learn the English skills at the same time that the uh other students are learning the Spanish skills and that then over time they both continue to grow from each other so as they continue to immerse them themselves more in the Spanish culture as they get older
097they can speak to their own experiences but then they're also still learning from the English language Learners in the in the class over time that it's not just a I've now acquired the language I don't have anything else um to kind of learn from but they're able to continue to grow their skills together over time could I just that I just yeah one more Point um when I was a kid I lived in Colorado and there were a lot of Spanish-speaking people that would come from uh the South and they would they call them migrant Farm Workers I don't even think that phrase is in use anymore but there were a lot of them and there was a always a a lot of talk about um you know what's the best way for them to
098learn to to to live where you know in the geography where they're living in the United States and um for a while they had sort of Spanish you know they would teach them with Spanish with Spanish-speaking teachers and after some years it really seemed that everyone agreed that that was a mistake that they needed to be exposed to English as much as possible with some transition um otherwise it just slowed down their acquisition of English and so I I really I just feel like I mean if if there's like lots of data then I'll bow to the data but unless that's there I'm very skeptical uh that having having Spanish-speaking students not being exposed to English as much as possible is going to slow down their acquisition and make it harder for them to do
099well in high school where you really have to have good English skills in order to do well I mean I can only go on what what they gave us and their information and relying to them as the experts at this point on that just just the thing I wanted to say both to you and uh miss braire that this I I I think we realize that you are presenting someone else's report so this is like I I just I just I I I kept saying that you know to miss brm also and I'm just saying this to you that uh you are a placeholder for the person who's hearing uh these comments right don't feel obliged that uh to to respond and you know some of them you may not agree with uh with with
100the point that you presented so that's just a sort of like General point to Mr dear's point just just quickly and I will give it to you is that you know who else you don't have a gav you know who agrees with with with with the fact that immersion is good for learning language Spanish emerging program the whole idea there is that you go to a an environment where it's h you know as much as possible Spanish and that is how you learn Spanish but then we are not willing to sort of like say it the opposite way for those who are trying to learn English and that s like sounds to me like a you know oxymoronic uh thank you uh yeah that mean I as an aside if immersion is good one way
101it probably is good the other way I don't know we should probably have data um the the other thing I wanted to say though is that that there's a I'm hearing a lot of talk against I'm not blaming you I'm just talking about the report I'm hearing a lot of talk on the report about how this like you can Target you know have these elll students now be a part of the program and now there's going to be this um symbiotic learning I actually probably agree that it's probably better for the English students if there's a Spanish speaker in there but I'm not sure if it's better than for the Spanish student but um but but the important thing I want to say is that there's we don't there's no way for us to ensure
102that this happens we're operating this on a on a lottery system or just a whoever signs up we're completely at the mercy of of like which parents sign up and if tons of parents sign up like the role of a dice of who goes into the class so there's I just I just feel like the report is talking a lot about all these like targeted things that you can do here but like we don't have a program where we like engineer some kind of class that is going to be the reports ideal of the class we have no like and we would and the report does not recommend that we put in some engineering proposal of how the students get selected so that that to me that's like a real like um blind spot here
103of like talking about some of this because like even if I accepted the reports conclusions and there's tons of data to back it up even if I accepted all of that we actually have no way to make it necessarily happen because like we're we're not we're not saying who can join and who can't one just real quick point to that is when they spoke to us um a while ago Cal did say that there are schools that do engineer that we don't have the elll population to say like 50% of the students are going to be Ells and and 50% would be um native English speakers we don't we don't even have the Ells take priority because it's going to create a symbiotic we have nothing we have zero engineering yeah that requires affirmative action
104liter how much did we pay for the the report from the center of for Applied Linguistics how much should we pay for that as a district it was wasn't it something like $30,000 or something like that both reports together were 60 60 so I mean I do think that it Bears some we did decide to pay for that and I feel nervous about just throwing out the you know the recommendations of the of the experts because of what we're thinking oh I I wasn't saying throw them out I'm just saying I'm hearing things that seem like they require more than what was recommended right I I'm just hearing things I'm not thinking you Don but I'm just thinking it's like we did pay for yeah a really expensive you know report which has some you
105know research-based uh recommendations and um the idea that we would just toss that out because it doesn't seem like people could you know learn um uh you know English well enough if they're studying some Spanish during school I I don't know that just seems really kind of um I don't know risky arit yeah this is like I I just just say that this is I I I think from at least from my perspective uh uh this is an opportunity to discuss and probe and uh you know understand I I I don't think I don't think uh any of us here have uh uh any kind of like prescriptions about you know what we should do whether uh we should uh you know ignore it or not ignore it or adopt it I haven't heard anyone
106say that it's just basically at least from my perspective trying to understand what the assumptions were and whether sort of like you know we have uh more information about about that can can I ask one one question that I wanted to ask about uh about the E sure so so this is what percentage of do you I'm sure you know this what percentage of our ELD students are not uh Spanish speaking in their like as their first uh first language because my understanding was that there's like a significant number of them who uh are ELD but their native language is something else is not Spanish uh no the majority of our students it is Spanish majority but what is the What's a what's the breakdown I understand the majority but off the top of my
107head I couldn't tell you but remembering like the the list of our El students I don't even know if it's 10% that's not Spanish speaking it is the majority of um I think our second language if my memory is correct is Mandarin um is the second predominant language but there are very few and far between in comparison to the Spanish speaking so did they have any recommendation about what to do with uh with those students those who uh are ELD but uh their native language is not uh not Spanish yeah beyond the Spanish Immersion program all of the recommendations do fall in line with what you would do for all El students it's not just the Spanish speaking so looking at how our are we identifying them for special education making sure that the documents
108are available for parents to understand that we have translators available in different languages all of those things the curriculum components like all of that falls to no matter what language the student speak and so did did did they I seems like if there is something that you know is is really good for these students uh it shouldn't sort of like depend on their native language whether it's available to them or not right so you know what I'm saying what what the if the if if what we do for the non-spanish native uh students is uh good uh my question is why would that not be good enough for the native Spanish speakers that's does that make sense uh it it's kind of like sounds like there's but anyway that I'm just saying that point of
109curiosity I just one last question go ahead promise you it's very simple I hope where can or any member of the public read this report once it's published it will be on our website excellent thank you and there's two reports yeah there are two separate reports oh both reports will be available on the website excellent thank you so much anyone else yes I wasn't going to based on the hour and the discussion but uh I'm gonna have to differ with Jay we listen to all that structured literacy language and how important it is for children just like the language to learn it young so that we're not dealing with third graders who who don't know how to read um so that 5050 program um sounds very appealing to me where they are getting the basic
110structure of literacy for the English language as well as Spanish and um I did hear that we seem to have some criteria some people are counseled out of the program based on their students ability and I like the um potential that we could have a more diverse student population and I'm talking in all areas male Fe you know the ability level um if we offer that so that's just my opinion please don't respond thank you I I want to say I just completely agree with that too because I think um to me the you know learning Spanish is is is a really great goal but I I do think biliteracy should be the goal I think that to me that's that's what we should be working towards is biliteracy not not someone learning Spanish you
111know and that and the recommendations to me are they support that they support teaching by by literacy and multiliteracy eventually if I could respond to that briefly I I respectfully disagree with that I I know I respectfully disagree only because let's say if we do have a student who does you know require that English um you know help then probably the recommendation should be to not place that student in the Spanish emergent program right maybe keep them in the English program so they can get that sort of reinforcement that they need to me in my mind this program is Ser servicing those students who already are at the level that they need to be in terms of English and now they are ready to you know Excel further in a in a more rigorous program
112if you respectively disagree with you because we had students who looked very proficient in kindergarten in first grade they came to third grade and they ran out of um memory for words they were recognizing and all of a sudden they tanked and couldn't read so your prediction may be off and if we're going to do kindergarten I'm not sure where you're getting your data on who's going to be in the program and who's not just just my opinion that's just we don't need to argument this let's read the study wait a second so so this raises a question to my mind um I've been under the impression that our uh Spanish Immersion students are doing reasonably well and I believe Miss brm said that a few of them were uh struggling a little bit and
113they got some special attention to and they were able to get up to speed do we really have um third and fourth grade Spanish imersion kids who are are are behind we do I mean we have some that have that have special education needs and they do get their special education needs met um in English I think Spanish Immersion though we found that there's um I think the question if I'm remembering correct from what you said before was that are they growing at the same rate with their English skills as the students that are getting instruction in English they might be performing High to begin with but is that growth the same as what the rest of the student population yes I think was the question and as you take a look at the data
114and I'm thinking just grade by grade it goes through in the report it goes like grade one and it does the comparison of how they did in English and what their growth was compared to their non-spanish immersion peers um so it goes throughout the only pssa data that they had was from the third grade from last year um I think there was a note though that they they did perform I'm going to give you the wrong information off the top of my head because now I'm um I'm not sure but I thought that it was they performed better in math um in comparison to their to how they did in ela although they did perform stronger than um their peers and their non Spanish Immersion peers is that the question okay um wait wait wait
115no not oh jeez well no so so uh uh M Demco raised that we have kids in third grade who don't have lot don't have VOC the vocabulary they need and potentially other problems um that are that are significantly gonna inhibit their progress in in going forward is that is that in the Spanish Immersion class or in general Spanish imersion Clash yeah I mean the the the the implication is that well maybe you can confirm are are you talking so I was talking in general that you cannot predict um like Jay was talking about who is going to be proficient in the English language always they look really good in the beginning at some point and I believe this is what I believe I've heard that those kids are performing well because we're we're selective
116even though we don't have a policy we're still selecting a certain clientele for this program well that's what I was hearing so so you're gonna have better performance and you're going to have better I think that there in my mind at least there's little doubt that it's a bigger challenge to learn both English and Spanish at the same time and so um I mean that that's just the reality of it and so what I recall hearing was that students who looked like they were good candidates for the program when they were had finished kindergarten if if there in fact turn out to be not then then they're typically counseled out of the program and they return to English all day classes right and the reason for that being that there is no explicit instruction in
117English um in first grade so it's left completely to the parents in first and second grade to provide all instruction in English um to the students and we should be honest with ourselves that some parents will do that and some parents won't yeah okay yeah okay correct which is solely why that recommendation is being made so by Cal that recommendation specifically is being made based on the fact that it is dependent upon the expectation that parents are instructing at home so though you're not explicitly saying that you're closing it to certain people by stating that there is a commitment for parents to give the instruction at home what Cal is saying is does limit the demographic of students that are then having accessibility and success in the program that is solely what Cal is saying
118which you will read in the report which you did emphasize to your credit in the slide but that is accurate yes that is the reason because of the parent feedback that was also given to Cal which it states in the report there is explicit concern from the parents that the students aren't attaining the level in which they need to be based on the fact that the parents are unable to also provide that instruction and saying that in the feedback and the surveys and an actual uality until we even provided the Lexia uh app or the app website to the to the um we give it to all of our students in school but that we also give it to the Spanish Immersion students at home because it it's more systematic for the parents to utilize
119than just saying you have no resource besides just reading in English I I have witnessed to just just I I've I've witnessed students learn English and Spanish simultaneously at a superior level and and not I mean I've witnessed that where where one did not hinder the other at all in fact it seemed to be create a a synergistic um uh kind of uh um you know um escalation of learning uh I don't exactly understand that I mean I'm not I'm not a linguist but um but I've been I've I've witnessed that and uh firsthand and it's it's it's an incredible thing that happens with kids I have not seen that Cal gives that specific and and uses it almost identical to what you said and and for that reason like in the lower grades that's
120why they that's part of the reason they 5050 so did just say I mean regarding what we are talking about now we have uh it's not at this point anecdotal we have we have probably data from our uh Port of students you know we have had several of them that have gone through the let's say first grade and second grade so we can test that hypothesis whether uh uh these kids are uh you know learning enough English or not right uh so there are there are many uh many ways to to look at that that's uh one thing that I'm I'll be reading the report and hopefully this is addressed there the other thing is uh the parents uh feedback this is one of those things that is is pretty important uh to me in
121other words I want to know whether uh the parents of these kids who have uh been in first and second grade 8020 Spanish are they kind of like comfortable with going to a lower model and the reason I'm saying it is because uh through the past uh you know few years almost all of the interaction that I've had with the parents the complaint that I've heard is the opposite of it so they have always sort of like said that uh we want our kids to be in as uh much of an immersive uh environment as possible so now I I'm not saying that that should be the determining Factor but my my point is that uh so many of them if you talk with them they want more of it they don't want less of
122it to the point that when somebody you know through the means that Miss brm mentioned that they were pulled out of the class for various things uh the complaint that I have heard and I'm sure you know everybody here who has had these interactions has has heard the the same thing is that uh why did my kid uh get pulled out of the class for uh for English I don't care about that I want the kid to stay in in the Spanish class again that is sort of like one one data point I just wanted to sort of like you know bring it up and uh and and and the other thing that I want to say this is the last thing I say is what Miss Demco mentioned is absolutely completely correct that uh
123uh the performance in kindergarten is not uh uh guaranteeing anything that happens in third grade we actually have data to show that not with the Spanish Immersion cohort but with with others we have the kindergarten cohort kind of like consistently coming here they score 80 percentile 90 percentile in uh math and uh and and Ela and by the time they're in the second grade they you know sometimes you know we have had a huge drop you know we go from like 88 percentile to the 308 percentile so clearly instruction and what happens during those years is important so I think that is some and and maybe I'm speaking you know contradictory with but but this is I think I think that's why this is a hard problem so uh yeah there is no sort of
124like one easy solution to it and that is probably sort of like reflective of that report and all of the conversations that we have here I just wanted to sort like bring that up thanks for letting us have this discussion too cedc is it is an amazing discussion really I mean a lot of school boards they they don't do this you know this this is a great discussion it really is well and I also appreciate that uh you know what said on main meeting here so that uh all the folks at home if they're interested they can watch too um okay um I'm moving on uh to the um uh the recommendations in education we have three items um unless anyone has rejections I'm going to consider them together um I'll read the read the
125items and then ask for a motion number one Capstone Academy extended school year item two f bla state competition item three indoor percussion Ensemble competition can I get a motion for items one through three second a discussion just my typical question everybody who wants to go can go even if they don't have the funding are they you're talking about the which one are you talking I'm assuming right fpla because it says covered by participants I just want be sure that yeah yeah absolutely that's not a hindrance at all these are the qualifiers for fpla that travel out to Hershey uh on the 7th and 8th of April so absolutely y they can go thank you okay um I I would just like to uh thank you Dr casy for taking the fpla kids to the
126competition appreciate forward awesome are they visiting the park also while they yeah I didn't think so I just wanted to make sure that everybody knows that I've been to it's all work okay all in favor say I I I opposed the motion's approved onto Personnel uh we have no items for uh discussion um we have five items uh unless anyone has objections uh we'll vote on them together I'll read the items and then ask for a motion item number one athletic workers item number two extended school year item number three High School head C odian item number four resignation and item number five resignation can I get a motion move second any discussion all in favor say I I I opposed motions approved on to facilities uh we have uh uh no items for discussion
127we have one item Surplus obsolete can I get a motion move second any discussion all in favor say I I I opposed motions approved on to finance uh Mr bonenberger can you just give us an update on the budget progress um the goal will be to discuss the budget of the next Finance meeting hopefully then at that point we can bring it forward to the board meeting after that for the whole Board review Once it goes through Finance right the the spreadsheets uh when do you when do you expect that that would be available to everybody after the finance meeting I would hope once we make the changes to it that it would be available to to the whole board I would send it out okay thank you okay um we have three items um
128would anyone like any of these items considered separately um I'll read the items and ask for a motion item number one ciu20 contract item number two 2025 2026 Colonial Intermediate Unit 20 General operating budget item number three 2025 2026 Northampton Community College budget can I get a motion so moved second any discussion quick question and I don't remember this uh Mr bonenberger uh so we are approving the total budget for both of those uh uh entities as well as our contribution or we are just approving our contribution I believe we're just for reference telling you the total budget but we're approving our contribution yeah this is wed as if we are approving Northampton Community College budget in the amount of 75 million dollar full stock right and then it says so and value portion is
129you know whatever that is so it the way that it's worded I don't know is like this is it sounds like you're approving the NCC budgets just move the word approv to the um second the beginning of the second sentence okay Dr pad is it just number three or or is the offending motion both two and three okay and I don't know whether if we s like change that uh period with a comma at the end of the number it would potentially sort of like address my concern which is that sort of like the total amount is that but we can kind of like argue that what we are approving is our portion of the budget but I don't know whether legally we need to approve uh the total budget that may be the case
130that they require uh a certain number of districts to approve their total budget if that is the case then it's fine I'll go look I can look at the 900 series of the IU um we may need to approve their budget hold on one M on that one yeah we're in discussion right now I gave you what the oh oh oh oh I see I mean what the IU this is what the IU is there any there's just two copies here right um I'll I'll just read this while we're uh while um thank you you're looking that up thank you um it says concerning Colonial Intermediate Unit 20 budget um I'm going to paraphrase a little bit on the section numbers and all that uh section uh 914a requires that the Intermediate Unit budget shall
131be approved by at least a majority of school districts comprising the Intermediate Unit so the language is yeah there you have it and then um it goes on yeah I mean that's really the that's really the part of this that we need so we do need to approve their budget and then I guess also approve our portion we will approve our portion as part of our for next next year so this this is worded correct so we we are so we're we're approving their budget not our okay we do need to improve it thank you Judy okay so these uh the language on these stands one other question the IU contract number one is velocity is that uh for a student or is it a uh contract that is like standing contract that we are
132appr I didn't get the chance to to look at yeah for number one that's a contract that usually will come before the board for a student who needs a one toone in a particular classroom so this is for the San Valley um Elementary School autistic support classroom for one student to receive one to one services and what we are approving does it have a dollar amount attached to it it does I vaguely remember it being about 15,000 not to exceed 15,44 okay thank you did you have a question M dco yes I did um so this is IU providing the services who is overseeing that the services are being provided and as they should be and as per director who oversees that in the autistic support classroom the teachers responsible for writing the IEP But
133ultimately us as sock and Valley is the LA a so we are ultimately responsible to ensure that the IEP is being implemented and or revised if necessary and we can assure that's gonna happen right I can assure by the person that I know is overseeing it I feel very confident I'm she does in her own ability to oversee it as well all right thank you to that point so this is the the uh the person is under the supervision of uh IU supervisors or uh under the supervision of our uh administrative team the staff itself is employed by the IU and over the supervision of the IU our implementation of the IEP and the services are both done by the IU but the actual um responsibility falls on rlea so that would be Mrs Broadhead
134serving as the Lea representative for the district but from from that perspective it's the same responsibility that Miss Brad has whether that student is uh receiving Services here in our buildings or the student is one of those who is transported to one of the other IU classrooms correct okay anyone else okay um all in favor say I I I post motions approved on to community updates um Mr K anything for the Chamber of Commerce no meetings nothing to report okay uh miss magnata anything for the sakan valley Foundation nothing to report thank you uh Northampton Community College uh Miss Baxter will give us a report at the next meeting um Bethlehem Area botch um we haven't had a meeting since our last meeting in this room um Colonial intermediate Dr pson the meeting is tomorrow
135okay um Mr Carpenter Mr Santos anything for psba uh I mentioned it last time but there is uh coming up a seminar webinar on April 14th about the ethics act and common violations by board members so you can watch and make sure you're not violating the ethics act uh there are also some new micro courses which are small courses that you can take um about budgeting and comprehensive planning which are topical for uh the time right now there's also a statement that the psba has uh has requested be read at meetings I'm not going to read it because it's really long um but I will summarize it as uh the psba has taken the Pennsylvania uh auditor Generals Report of cyber schools and recommends that a cyber uh funding form be uh changed for the
136state so as to not encourage profit making on taxpayer dollars that would be that would be the psba statement that they are making so so this one is specifically about Cyber Charter uh Cyber Charter yes it's right there yeah any uh any any updates about uh legislation regarding Cyber Charter that you you heard from because this is in the past uh we would always hear about that uh from our psba representative I don't know whether they are uh the second half of the statement is about how they are continuing to engage in constructive dialogue at the state level to to come up with uh with uh reform but there's no uh no discussion on what that discussion looks like so and do you or Mr bonenberger know whether uh the formula that was was adopted
137last year for uh for the Cyber Charter uh is it continuing into this year's uh budget or or not for the special ed students that are cyber educated my understanding is it's still you're still calculating the PD 363 the unknown is the governor proposed again um capping it at $88,000 for um cyber students but don't know if that'll pass through his budget but but last year and this is what I recall is that they didn't do anything for the special ed students for the regular Ed there was a uh kind of like Kickback uh coming to the district from the state there was two things right one was a kickback for which was about 150 to us for the students that's not in his budget The Proposal is changing it to $8,000 funding cap for
138that but it's also for special ed they did do part year that as of January our formula was changed for the students that are going special ed there's a change in that that saved us some money about 7,000 per student and then it's full year for next year so that is in effect again for the special ed students only for cyber so so cyber special ed $7,000 we will get from uh from the state this is not from no we they reduced how much we pay so basically we're just paying we when we do our calculation using the PD 363 the calculation based on our average daily membership for special Edge students gets in that calculation instead of the full ADM and then that brings it down by like $7,000 so it goes from $42,000
139roughly to 35 yeah how many uh how many of those students do we have I have to go back I I think it was saving us aund and some thousand about 20 students yeah I think and how many uh regular at Cyber students did we have what do we have you're the numbers guy that's why yeah well I don't have that memorized I mean I haven't I I'd have to look up in my computer the second I mean if the $8,000 uh cap is uh uh implemented then uh our uh obligation goes down from something like $177,000 to8 right yes 178 so this is this is about 10 10 10K per per student and and then we have about 8K per student I think last year when we looked at it we was potentially saving
140us around $600,000 I believe is the number we were looking at last year if if they did that with the formula so Mr Carpenter does psba uh have any plans to do any uh lobbying or anything anything like they did uh before for the other uh to like Charter uh reform thing for for Cyber Charter because I mean that I think that is one of those things that I would assume will have a broad base of support uh uh from everyone who's not attending Cyber Charter and we don't know you know who is attending Cyber Charter who is uh you know supporting that because this is this is one of those things that as long as the I mean there is there is this sort of like know very well understood notion that uh you
141know especially for the Cyber charts you know a lot of people are getting rich uh and uh that that is one of those things that I think is uh yeah that's the for-profit part of that right yeah it's the for-profit part uh I there was a there was like when the budget came out I think there was a there was like a callar you could register under pbsa to go and meet with Congress state State Assembly uh people so I I I there was a sign up about it but it was like more when the budget came out maybe two months ago or something like that that uh you would sign up for a slot to go and and and you know kind of like tell the your State Assembly person through pbsa organizing the
142sort of the talk that you wanted to do that I don't know if I mentioned that during the meeting so apologies okay um moving on um new business I I just wanted to see if Mr fitgerald has any updates about um the proposed elimination of Department of Education and what the implications would be on U on on the schools in general I think last time you mentioned that the civil rights office was closed and that is one thing but uh the broader one I mean I budget wise I don't see that it would impact us much but uh no as as I mentioned in real time time at our last meeting the reduction and force notices were being provided to the um to the office for civil rights field office in Philadelphia which indeed happened
143um there are there are various lawsuits out there um in regards to how that process was done though interestingly enough another client of mine did just receive a notice of Investigation from the US Department of Education so maybe it's demise is greatly exaggerated who knows um I I think one of the interesting things is and I don't know if it was mentioned at the last meeting but I think one of the things that I think at least the statewise we need we need to keep an eye on is is a lawsuit that was filed against the governor and the Pennsylvania human relations commission um there are two school districts and stop me if I mentioned this one um there are two school districts in the Commonwealth who has who have sued the governor um uh
144as well as the commission claiming that they've effectively made law that is in congruent with the state constitution um in particular with regard to additional areas of protected classes that the commission has identified that um they believe is unconstitutional um that will be very interesting because the commission certainly did it through ruem appropriately and there's been a lot of things over the last couple years about how maybe pde hasn't done things correctly through ruem or other departments but the commission did but the the argument being made by a series of parents and these two school districts one in Beaver County and I believe the other in Butler County is the fact that um the regulation does not comport with the state constitution so that will be the interesting legal landscape to to keep an eye
145on the state constitution it predates the US Constitution by a couple decades doesn't it or oh I was not ready for that question tonight okay sorry that's a good one though bill um and I want to I want to look that one up very very soon after we get off here tonight but but regardless I I do think what what their argument is is that certain definitions that have been expanded in the in the regulations aren't in the Constitution yeah so so so uh from from the uh money perspective budget perspective do you think that there would be any uh implications from the potential elimination of Department of Education on S Valley School District No and this has been repeated in a number of places that I've been speaking with superintendents or IU executive directors
146I mean most of you virtually all of your money is through through block grants through pass through dollars that come through the state um unless or until we hear the Pennsylvania Department of Education um you know screaming bloody murder about about those dollars your dollars are are are block granted I do think that um you know if there were specific areas that we sought grants in the past whether for for certain initiatives that may have been in you know in play during the last Administration I don't think those grants are going to continue prospectively so so I I think those are the areas but but in terms of the what I'll call the meat and potato funding the the the title funding Ida funding um USDA funding for for our meal programs I think those
147are going to remain status quo we don't we don't have a lot of meat and potato coming from the feds so no no you you are not you are not Allen Town you know where your budget is is ring on that okay anyone else on new business any old business I wanted to ask about the the signs if the if is is that okay just if there's any update on the big signs um because I I hadn't heard I I looked in the news and I I didn't see anything um from you're talking to the mares yeah the mares sorry the mares they should be here over than um Easter break uh start installing them that's fantastic what a great thing thank you so the uh the the zoning variance was was approved and we
148have you received okay for yes that uh yep both were taken care of yes well thanks uh lower sck and Township too yeah and the zoning offs okay um citizens inquiries and comments would anyone like to speak seeing no one uh announcements uh our future meetings April 8th 2025 at 7 p.m. here in this room and again on April 22nd at 7 p.m. here in this room uh we've reached the end of the agenda our meeting is adjourned thank you all