Best Practices for English Learners

1
Best Practices for English Learners

• Odyssey 2014
• Oregon Dept. of Education

2
Introductions (5-10 minutes)

• Who are you?
• Where do you work?
• What is your job title/responsibilities?
• What is your favorite color?
• Choose one of these locations to go on vacation
• Theme park
• Stay at home
• Beach
• Snow lodge

3
Purpose

• To share English learner best practices from
  districts in Oregon.
• To collaborate with other district staff on
  services for English learners.
• To inform the State specific areas of need for
  future professional development and guidance.

4
Group activity one (10-15 minutes)

• Find your favorite color group
• Using the chart paper
• Make a list of all the areas you have questions
  about for English learners.
• Prioritize the list by number once listed.
• 3 minute rotate with current color group
• Read the list in order of priority use your
  marker
• Star agree with priority level
• Dash- lower the priority level
• Plus raise the priority level

5
Group revisit

• Return to your original poster and reflect
• Feedback from other groups.
• Other group ideas.
• Any additions to be made?
• Choose person to report out.

6
Did you agree with the State?

• SPED/EL identification
• SPED/EL service models
• SPED/EL proficiency
• LEP programs models
• Recent arrivers
• Early Childhood
• Promoting/exiting

• Instructional practices
• ELPA 21
• ELP standards
• Instructional Materials
• TAG/EL
• Kindergarten Assessment

7
Group report out

• Please report out any areas that were not on the
  State list of priorities.
• Any Group ah-has when seeing other lists?

8

• Now lets
• DIVE
• into some of these topics

9
Data

• Recent Arrivers
• Add an element that you can search for identified
  recent arrivers in your district student
  information system
• Include in this element an expiration date when
  the student is past the 3 year timeline.
• This will allow for ease in searching for the
  students who are Recenrt Arrivers and make
  submitting easier.
• If your district receives an Immigrant grant you
  will know which students and families the grant
  must support

10
Data

• LEP Flag
• Consider changing the LEP flag from YES to NO the
  school year following a students exit from the
  ELD program.
• Discuss with a partner what could happen if this
  change doesnt occur?

11
Data/Testing

• Exiting Waiver Students
• Consider testing waiver students first in the
  district ELPA testing cyclescores will come back
  first and you can proceed with exit portfolios
  earlier.
• Why?
• These students arent served, thus it may take
  longer to pull content level work samples
  together.
• The ELD teacher will need to review the samples
  for linguistic errors.
• Classroom teacher input will be critical.

12
SPED/ EL Testing

• Have the Special education teachers take the ELPA
  practice test prior to having discussions on ELPA
  domain exemptions or participate in ELPA testing
  as a test administrator.
• Discussions on ELPA exemptions will be informed
  based on the ELPA tasks the students must
  undergo.

13
SPED/EL testing

• Each spring there are IEP meetings for the
  following years Kindergarteners. If any of
  these students are English learners, then the IEP
  team must include a language specialist.
• ELD program of service must be discussed and
  written into the IEP.
• ELPA participation must be discussed and written
  into the IEP.
• Typically state assessments are not addressed at
  this grade level as most state assessments begin
  at 3rd grade.

14
SPED/EL Exiting

• What is the Billion Dollar Question?
• What is English proficiency for a student with a
  disability?

15
So what do we look at?

• Find your favorite place to go partners and
  discuss, record your thoughts on chart paper.
• Reminder Choose one of these locations to go on
  vacation
• Theme park
• Stay at home
• Beach
• Snow lodge

16
SPED/EL exiting

• Students who are dual identified in special
  education and ELL who have a documented learning
  disability or communication disorder may never be
  able to score a composite score of 4 or 5 on ELPA
  due to their disability.
• In such circumstances a large gap between the
  oral and written domains typically exists, and
  will do so for a number of years.
• In such circumstances, a student could be
  considered for promotion out of ELL services when
  they have consistently demonstrated proficiency
  according to their individual circumstances or in
  the domains that are not affected by their
  disability, and it is deemed by the ELL teacher,
  in consultation with the parent and the IEP team,
  that continuing in ELL services will no longer
  benefit the student. The regular promotion
  process will be followed with the addition of a
  special education representative present at the
  team meeting use the required forms.

17
SPED/EL

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

18
Group share

• Round Robin each group will share 1 pro and 1
  con they discussed until all are on the group
  sheet.
• Then each group will share 2 items they would
  consider reviewing for exiting an SPED/EL as
  proficient.

19
SPED/EL Identification

• Lots of questions abound on identifying English
  learners who are non-verbal coming from a home
  where a language other than English is spoken.
• Title III participated in a joint agency meeting
  in July with Title I, School Improvement and
  SPED, guidance was provided at that meeting.
  Lets take a moment to read and discuss as a
  group.

20
SPED/EL Program of service

• Once an English learner is identified as Special
  Education and has an IEP, the instructional
  program must be written on the IEP. ELD teachers
  must participate in IEP meetings.
• ELD Program options
• ELD by ELD teacher (group or individual)
• ELD by SPED teacher(group or individual) with
  consultation from ELD teacher

21
Early Childhood

• One recommendation is that the district reach out
  to local early childhood groups and provide
  training/support in
• language acquisition
• Bilingual family support
• Training parents what students need to know for
  kindergarten and how parents can help students
  learn.
• There has been a few cases where ELs in Early
  Childhood programs are identified as
  communication disordered because they doe not
  progress in English as fast as their peers.

22
Kindergarten Assessment 10 minutes

• Time to move again
• Find your color group
• Discuss what your district did that worked -
  didnt work and what will do differently this
  year.
• Prepare to share out.

23
Kindergarten group share

• One district set up a one on one appointment for
  each student for assessment.
• Then they had three days where only 1/3 of the
  class attended school, as an orientation.
• Finally on the 4th day the entire kindergarten
  class was there.
• The district reported a smooth transition for
  students and families.

24
Kindergarten assessment

• One district shared that some of their students
  were far behind the academics of the kindergarten
  assessment.
• They developed their own checklist to see each
  students actual level of knowledge and compared
  that data fall and spring.
• This extra growth measure gave the district one
  more way to look at student achievement and
  teacher effectiveness.

25
Instructional practices

• Scaffolding
• Districts are being more diligent on having
  sentence frames available for students to use
  during instruction.
• Recommendation leave the common dialogue
  starters up for the entire year.
• I agree with______
• I disagree with ____________

26
Now its your turn

• Think about one thing you are doing that is
  working well for your ELs or ELD program.
• Share it out so we can capture it for other
  districts.

27
And now Homework.

• Please give the State, homework
• Go back to your vacation group discuss with
  them what you want the State to work on.
• We cant promise more money or more time for you
  and we cant change the laws/rules overnight.
• As a group fill out the Purple form to turn in.

28
Ticket out the door

• Please fill out the feedback form
• If you have burning questions/needs please add
  that to the back of the form and we will be in
  touch.
• Thanks for coming..