Meetings>Fall 2008 Member Meeting
Fall Meeting
Identifying & Meeting the Needs of English Language Learners
October 29th - November 1st, 2008
Sheraton Denver
Denver, Colorado
Thanks to everyone who helped to make this meeting a success!
Culturally and linguistically diverse students present challenges for school districts in providing appropriate instruction, and educational opportunities. As a result, many of these students have been referred to and ultimately placed in special education programs. English Language Learners (ELL) have a right to services in special education if they do have a disability and many school districts have been working to distinguish between a learning disability and a learning difficulty attributable to linguistic, cultural, and experiential differences. Our Fall Meeting focused on what our Member School Districts are doing to meet the needs of ELL students through general and special education.
To download any of the following presentations, please click on the "Member Exchange" button located on the left hand side of the screen.
Keynote Speaker:
We are privileged to be having as our keynote speaker, Dr. Alba Ortiz, Director of the Office of Bilingual Education, in the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin where she is also a Professor in the Department of Special Education. Dr. Ortiz is a Past President of the Council for Exceptional Children. She is also a recipient of the President's Achievement Award by the National Association for Bilingual Education for her contributions to the development of the bilingual special education field and for her advocacy on behalf of Hispanic students with disabilities. At UT Austin, she is the holder of the President's Chair for Education Academic Excellence, an honor bestowed in recognition of her research, teaching, and service contributions to improving educational opportunities for American youth, but specifically for her work in the fields of bilingual education and special education. Her keynote address is titled Educating English Language Learners in General and Special Education: Lessons from the Past and Directions for the Future.
Concurrent Sessions:
Presentations
- "ELSOL (Exceptional Learners Speakers of Other Languages): Meeting the Needs of English Language Learners in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools" Miami-Dade County Public Schools (FL):
- "Achieving Academic Success: One Locality's Collaborative Approach to Working with English Language Learners" Chesterfield County Public Schools (VA):
The enormous influx of students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and the concomitant need to provide a broad range of appropriate services and instruction, resulted in Miami-Dade County Public Schools establishing a comprehensive program to address of English Language Learners. Best practices - including collaboration across departments and agencies and a unique assessment intervention strategy (Language Proficiency/Dominance Assessment) - will be shared. Data was presented that indicated students are successfully learning English and that the over representation of ELL students in SPED is no longer a serious problem. A number of tests to assess the proficiency/dominance levels, even in students with significant cognitive disabilities, was described as well family involvement activities that are designed to engage parents in the education of their children. The challenge of appropriately delivering and monitoring programs and services served as a point of discussion with the participants.
- "Student Achievement Linked to Services Alliance (SALSA): Linking Special and Bilingual Education Services" Clark County School District (NV):
In the Clark County School District, the Student Support Services Division encompasses Special Education, English Language Learner Program, Related Services and Title I. As the 5th largest school district in the United States, Clark County School District (CCSD) serves a large (310,700), diverse and highly transient student population. CCSD’s large urban population, suburban populations and vast outlying rural areas create some unique challenges. With 20.3% of students identified as Limited English Proficient and 10.3% of students qualifying for special education services the need to consolidate the process of providing support to students and families has become essential.
With the onset of No Child Left Behind, the expectations have changed for English Language Learners with special needs. Linking service provision for Special Education students who are also English Language Learners into one collaborative team makes sense. This collaboration has provided school intervention teams with a problem solving process for students struggling in classrooms using a 3 Tier response to intervention model. Also, the collaboration has provided special education teachers and related service personnel an opportunity to support the general education teacher in providing behavior and instruction interventions. Using funding from both general and federal funds, support students with a more comprehensive yet streamlined and economical program of services. Session attendees gained knowledge of this innovative, holistic approach to providing a continuum of service to students that are language minority and suspected of, or found eligible to receive, special education services.
- "Working with English Language Learners: Making Connections with Learners, Parents and the Community " Austin ISD (TX):
- Bilingual special education programs offered and taught by dually certified teachers.
- Parent initiatives underway to reach out to our Latino parents including-Collaborative meetings offered in the evenings jointly with Austin Travis County MHMR and the Arc of the Capital Area and
- Parent “Platicas”(Parent Chats) designed to be informal chats on relevant topics held in several neighborhood schools during the day.
- Staff development regarding ELL issues held throughout the school year for school staff and the addition of several bilingual special education support specialists for the ELL student population and
- Partnering with the Bilingual/ESL department to conduct joint training and through the Bilingual Special Education Collaborative meetings held monthly regarding joint topics.
- Community initiatives to support the outreach efforts with the Latino community through our Special Education Community Advisory Committee(SECAC) and Family-Co-op.
- Professional outreach through our partnership with University of Texas-Austin’s four-year study on the Bilingual Exceptional Student.
- Provision of interpreters and interpreter training
- Ongoing review of data to determine equity and excellence in services to all students
English is not the first language for more than 2,000 students enrolled in Chesterfield County Public Schools, Chesterfield, Virginia. Data show that these English language learners (ELLs) are capable of meeting high academic standards when provided appropriate learning opportunities. Chesterfield County's ESOL department has produced a Resource Guide for Teaching English Language Learners that provides practical information on instruction, language acquisition, scaffolding techniques and proven methodology effective with English language learners. The presenters showed how this guide is used to support efforts to meet the needs of ELL students in general and special education and how collaboration between the ESOL and Special Education programs promotes academic success for all.
Austin Independent School District is the 22nd largest school district in the country. It has a student population of approximately 80,000 and 7900 are identified as eligible for special education services. Approximately 1800 are classified as Limited English Proficient (LEP) and receive services from both the Bilingual and Special Education departments.
Austin ISD discussed several programs and initiatives available to serve our ELL population with disabilities, which included:
- "Saint Paul Public Schools' Model for the Special Education Evaluation of English Language Learners" Saint Paul Public Schools (MN):
- "Diverse Strategies for a Diverse City" Los Angeles Unified School District (CA):
- "Making Response to Intervention Work for Culturally and Linguistic Diverse Students" Orange County, FL:
At the present time, approximately forty percent of students in the St. Paul Public Schools come from homes where languages other than English are spoken. Over the past thirty years, the Special Education Department has developed and implemented a process for determining special education eligibility and instructional needs for students from a wide variety of language and cultural backgrounds. The process involves professionals from all disability areas, collection of academic normative data using Curriculum-Based-Measures and the use of highly trained interpreters for effective communication with families and to assist in gathering assessment information in the home language as required by IDEA.
The presenters shared procedures used to minimize the cultural and linguistic bias inherent in the use of traditional published norm-referenced measures. ELL students academic performance, both rate and present level, is compared to that of other students with similar cultural, linguistic and educational experience. Language acquisition and acculturation factors are considered as part of pre-referral and intervention process, when making a decision to evaluate and in determining eligibility for Special Education services. The Saint Paul District tracks the representation of English Language Learners receiving special services. Using state guidelines, results show satisfactory representation of these students in Special Education. Many of the special education teachers and related service providers in the schools are trained in ELL assessment and consult with the team regularly.
There was also a discussion of ongoing challenges that include: timely collection of comparison data; the provision of ongoing training for district staff, staying current with knowledge of new languages and cultures; locating and training interpreters; and increasing collaboration between departments to meet the instructional needs of students who are both learning English and who have identified Special Education needs.
This session highlighted successful strategies that Los Angeles Unified School District’s Division of Special Education is currently using to meet the needs of English Language Learners. These strategies focus on collaborative professional development between the Speech and Language Program’s Speech and Language Pathologists and classroom teachers, the use of screening and pre-referral interventions for the preschool and elementary age children and innovative Response to Intervention programs. Several of the successful pilot programs will be reviewed and plans for expansion across our 800 school sites were shared. A portion of the presentation specifically targeted preschool-age children and provide a framework for collaboration with Head Start and other community early care and education programs. This collaborative framework includes a plan for recognition of needs through a joint screening process and for a tiered response to those needs with a strong emphasis on family involvement.
Much has been written on Response to Intervention (RtI) with general school populations. This presentation focused on the success achieved at Cheney Elementary School in implementing RtI. By valuing and considering the cultural background, experiences and linguistic proficiency in both English and the native language of the students the school has be able to provide meaningful and appropriate instruction. During the 2007-2008 school year the school met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for its ELL student population. Participants were provided a framework for implementation. In addition to the information about Cheyney Elementary School, the presenters also provided information the make-up of the Orange County Public Schools - the 11th largest in the nation - and how it is addressing the linguistic, cultural and academic needs of its diverse student population.
- "Meeting the Needs of English Language Learners in Washoe County – A Work in Progress" Washoe County (NV):
The Washoe County School District is located in Reno, Nevada. In this session, staff discussed the full range of services provided English Language Learners within the school district. Washoe County has become increasing diverse, which has necessitated new delivery of service models that are more responsive to the changing landscape of need that is emerging in the county. Lessons learned in creating services infused in a Response to Intervention model were provided, as well as next steps the Washoe County School District were engaged in.
