2. Guests/Presentations
a. DESE Coordinated Program Review ReportSally Winslow and Michele Kingsland-Smith
review done every six years with a mid-cycle review every three years
The coordinated review covers three areas:
- Civil Rights (CR)
- Special Education (SE)
- English Learner Education (ELE)
preliminary data submitted before an onsite visit which occurred during the week of 12/8/2009
exit interview upon leaving
draft corrective action plan (CAP) provided, being worked on now
Commendable 3
Implemented 55
Partially 1
Not Impl 0
9 out of 90 areas are partially implemented and are now areas of focus
Handbooks are not readily available in languages other than English
need translation in the five major languages for the Franklin district
ELE findings
- District does not have an ESL curriculum based upon MA English Language Proficiency Benchmarks and Outcomes (ELPBO)
- Amounts of ESL instruction far below ESE recommended hours
- LEP Students do not receive sheltered content instruction; all teachers of LEP students have not completed all levels of SEI professional development
spent time researching K12 curriculum, will be purchasing a copy this June
teacher from Seekonk coming into provide some experience teaching K through high school
478 teachers and administrators, 102 at this time have already received the training, 4 have received all levels of the training
Instructional Grouping
Students do not receive recommended number of hours of English Language Development (ELD) instruction to limitations of current delivery model
need to develop a system of oral and written translations, explored with other districts to see how they handle this
surprised by FHS students were not receiving credit for ELD instruction
Licensure requirements
District does not have a policy for determining the literacy and fluency of teachers
does not need to be a school committee policy but does need to be written, e.g. new hires would be part of an oral interview, as well as a written response (writing sample), incorporate the communications home and the annual reviews to include to cover this requirement
Professional Development Requirements
a multi-year plan is in place to meet the requirements
Program Evaluation
District has not conducted periodic evaluations of the effectiveness of its ELE program in developing students English language skills and meaningful participation in the education program
Records of LEP students
in the random sample taken, there were some records missing
Corrective Action Plan (CAP) due May 18th
have 1 calendar year to be 100% compliant
SE, CR, ELE supervisors are conferring to coordinate all the actions
The DESE recognizes that the 478 teachers/administrators will not be completely trained in the period, the plan needs to be in place and making progress
actually 416 teachers, 36 long term subs counted per DESE, 26 administrators
Cafasso
thanks for the effort and level of detail in this report
the only area where we have been lacking
Kingsland-Smith
we have 23 different languages in the district
The top 5 non-English languages: Spanish, Portugese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tuluga (an Indian dialect)
Rohrbach
we added the 1.5 positions, did DESE have any recommendation on staff?
Kingsland-Smith
no, the program is actually more important than the numbers of staff
the curriculum and environment (i.e. professional development)
Sabolinski
DESE did say we should add a minimum of 2, we couldn't do that
We did add .5 last December, we are adding the other 1.5 now, together these steps have shown DESE that we are heading in the right direction, otherwise we would have been less compliant than we are
Glynn
Can you tell me how a teacher can help a student access the curriculum
Kingsland-Smith
I can try, Category 1 - you need to try to help someone identify strategies to learn, Cagegory 2 - build vocabulary, Category 3 - how to assess students on their English proficiency, Category 4 a great deal of vocabulary development and visual cues to connect the language with what they already know
Glynn
How is this going to work with increases in class size?
Kingsland-Smith
Your concern is the driving force behind the DESE requiring all the teachers to be prepared for all four categories. These kids need to have equal access. This is going to be a challenge.
Category 1 is a two day training, Category 2 and 4 are four day classes with course credit
Glynn
do the guidelines still work for teacher student ratio under these new guidelines? Rhetorical question for now.
Roy
These are statutory requirements? Sound expensive, how much of this is reimbursed by the State and Federal government/
Kingsland-Smith
zero
Sabolinski
When I had asked Sally, Beth and Michelle to put this together, it was a real opportunity, they came together quickly and have done very well
Franklin, MA
