Dr. Bruce Law Pamela Bylsma Tammy Prentiss Domenico ... 26 15 Regular Action Meeting... · Dr. Bruce Law Pamela Bylsma Tammy Prentiss Domenico Maniscalco Bill ... support and even

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Administrative Center | 5500 S. Grant Street | Hinsdale, IL 60521 | Phone: (630) 655-6100 | Fax: (630) 325-9153

Dr. Bruce Law Pamela Bylsma Tammy Prentiss Domenico Maniscalco Bill Eagan

Superintendent Assistant Superintendent Assistant Superintendent Director of Chief Financial

of Schools for Academics for Special Education Human Resources Officer

Action

1. Proposed Changes to the English Language Learner Program’s Location, Structure and Offerings

TO: Board of Education

FROM: Dr. Bruce Law Superintendent of Schools

DATE: January 22, 2015

RE: Proposed Changes to the English Language Learner Program’s Location, Structure and Offerings

At the January 12, 2015 Committee of the Whole Meeting, Assistant Superintendent Pam Bylsma presented the Board with a report on the District’s English Language Learners Program and proposed changes to the location, structure and FTE to achieve compliance and improve services to these students. An estimate of the financial impact of the proposed changes Bylsma’s original report is enclosed.

It is important to note that cost savings may be achieved over time as more teachers with ESL certification become available to teach sheltered English courses. Until all teachers of sheltered English courses are ESL certificated, the District must rely on ESL certificated aides to co-teach these classes, which increases our cost because we must pay them as teachers for those classes in which their ESL certification makes the general education class an ESL class. The proposed program outline and cost estimate reflect current certifications of staff.

Suggested Motion: Approve relocating the District English Language Learner’s Program to Hinsdale Central High School beginning with the 2015 – 2016 school year

Recommended Action: Approval

Suggested Motion: Approve additional certificated FTE for the District English Language Learner’s Program

Recommended Action: Approval

2014-15 2015-16 Variance F/(U) 2015-16 Year Comments:

COORDINATOR 66,781$ 57,525$ 9,256$ .8 FTE; savings are the result of hiring a new coordinator at MA, Step 5, which is less than the pay rate of the current coordinators

Central 40,974$ 57,525$ (16,551)$ .2 FTE; addressing compliance issues, providing services to private school

South 25,807$ 25,807$ All testing and monitoring of ELL students will be transferred to Central staff

ESL TEACHER 66,754$ 81,948$ (15,194)$

Central 40,947$ 81,948$ (41,001)$ ESL 1 will be doubled-blocked as suggested by the state to help prepare students for the new CCSS-aligned ACCESS test

South 25,807$ 25,807$ All ESL courses will be housed at Central

RESOURCE 46,294$ 60,676$ (14,382)$

Central 20,487$ 34,869$ (14,382)$ The number of resource periods has not been sufficient to support the number of students

South 25,807$ 25,807$ -$ South will offer resource one more year to support the 3-5 students still in need of ELL services

SHELTERED CLASSES 15,196$ 50,268$ (35,072)$

Central 15,196$ 50,268$ (35,072)$ The program would expand to add a sheltered science and a Consumer Education class (0.3 content teacher + 0.3 ESL teacher)

South -$

TOTAL CERTIFIED 195,025$ 250,417$ (55,392)$

RESOURCE 87,925$ 80,784$ 7,141$ A paraprofessional will be reduced by 0.3 in order to be paid as an ESL English teacher to push into the two new sheltered classes

Central 40,321$ 80,784$ (40,463)$

South 47,604$ 47,604$

TOTAL SUPPORT 87,925$ 80,784$ 7,141$

NET DOLLAR CHANGE (48,251)$ FY15 $26,518 in state funding to offset ELL costs; federal dollars anticipated to offset cost of new sheltered courses

ELL PROGRAM ENHANCEMENT BUDGET IMPLICATIONS

Certified Staff

Support Staff

NOTE: These numbers reflect salary only without benefits.

1/22/2015, 4:39 PM

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Administrative Center | 5500 S. Grant Street | Hinsdale, IL 60521 | Phone: (630) 655-6100 | Fax: (630) 325-9153

Dr. Bruce Law Pamela Bylsma Tammy Prentiss Domenico Maniscalco Bill Eagan

Superintendent Assistant Superintendent Assistant Superintendent Director of Chief Financial

of Schools for Academics for Special Education Human Resources Officer

TO: Dr. Bruce Law, Superintendent

FROM: Pam Bylsma Assistant Superintendent for Academics

DATE: December 29, 2014

RE: Proposed Changes to the English Language Learner Program’s Location, Structure and Offerings

The purpose of this memo is to recommend enhancements to the English Language Learner (ELL) program by consolidating the two school-based programs into one building, by reconfiguring service delivery to improve efficiency, and by expanding program offerings for ELL students in District 86. The rationale for these recommendations is provided below. Compliance Issues: As a result of an onsite visit in January of 2014 from the Illinois Department of English Language Learners (DELL), District 86 was cited for being out of compliance in twenty-one distinct areas mandated by state or federal legislation. One major area of concern was how we provide instructional services to students. The report noted, “ELLs are placed in classes with students of differing grade levels, and students are grouped for instruction according to English language proficiency level, but not enough instructional time is allocated to adequately instruct each proficiency level at one attendance center, as indicated by file review, interviews and observat ion.” The required remedy was that the District needed to “submit evidence that instruction is appropriate to serve the ELLs enrolled at each attendance center at their English language proficiency level for the 2014-15 school year, particularly at the South campus.” In addition, the report noted, “As evidenced by interviews, file review and observation, course offerings for ELLs are not consistent or necessarily adequate. At one campus, only one ESL (English as a Second Language) class period is provided daily to support all levels of English proficiency, while the other campus offers multiple levels of support and even sheltered instruction in social studies.”

Part of the Corrective Action Plan was to study the equity of class scheduling and curricular offerings during the 2014-15 school year to see how to resolve the compliance issue at South, which resulted from extremely low census numbers. Their six students who needed ESL 1, 2, and 3 were stacked in one period; however, it should be noted that they also received a significant number of other academic supports throughout their day that provided additional, targeted instructional time for their language needs, including access to a certified reading specialist and support from two full-time instructional aides, who are both certified ESL teachers. Nonetheless, these interventions are below the ELL standards set by the state and federal government for this protected subgroup of learners. Therefore, it has become clear that our current program configuration in District 86 is inadequate to provide the services that these English Language Learners are entitled to.

Redundancy and Inefficiency of Roles: Currently, we have a Transitional Program of Studies (TPI) Director at each building. In addition to teaching classes and consulting with students, both individuals are also responsible for the following duties:

Managing the ELL department budget,

Participating in the creation of ELL state and federal grants and distribution of monies,

Attending DuPage Regional Office of Education and state DELL meetings, and off-site state trainings,

Supervising the ELL program’s instructional aides,

Creating schedules for ESL teachers and ELL aides who support ELL students in regular education classes

Articulating with feeder schools to ensure the smooth transition of incoming freshmen ELL students,

Coordinating and conducting the W-APT (WIDA-ACCESS Placement Test), an English language proficiency and

placement "screener" test given to incoming and transfer students who may be designated as ELLs,

Coordinating and administering the state-mandated ACCESS test (Assessing Comprehension & Communication in English State-to-State), a large-scale English language proficiency assessment given annually to all 9-12 grade ELLs to monitor students' progress in acquiring academic English,

Maintaining the state certification required to be able to administer the W-APT and ACCESS assessments,

Collaborating with guidance counselors on student schedules for all ELL students,

Working with Special Education case managers of ELL students who qualify for both ELL and Special Education services,

Communicating state-required paperwork to classroom teachers, regarding each student’s language skills and academic support needs,

Conducting program needs and professional development assessments,

Leading the ESL teacher, as well as the general education and ELL sheltered teachers, in aligning curriculum to common core and WIDA language standards,

Overseeing curriculum development and technology integration,

Developing and conducting mandated ELL Parent meetings,

Creating and providing all mandated professional development for tenured staff, administrators, and ELL certified and non-certified staff,

Serving on school leadership committees,

Collaborating with the District programmer and registrar on ELL student data entry in the school’s and state’s student management systems,

Maintaining ELL student files/records, as well as monitoring all exited students for the required two years,

Completing all required state paperwork and data to support student growth in programs, and

Assuring that the district is in compliance with ELL state and Federal mandates.

It is inefficient to have two people completing this comprehensive set of time consuming duties when one person could serve in the role. In addition, our current model provides the TPI Director at South one release period and the TPI Director at Central two release periods a day to complete all of these mandated tasks. Simply stated, there has not been enough release time to complete this ever-expanding list of state and federally mandated requirements, which resulted in program deficiencies that led in part to the Corrective Action Plan that District 86 needs to complete. While these administrative program responsibilities grow, there has been a decrease in the TPI Directors’ level of service to the ELL program and time to provide direct linguistic services to their EL students.

Inadequate Programming: Addressing compliance findings gave us an opportunity to benchmark our current and proposed program against other ELL programs that have better academic outcomes than ours. The attached chart compares the District 86 ELL program to other districts in two major areas: English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and sheltered courses. Sheltered courses are non-English classes taught to only ELL students. ESL literacy strategies are embedded in instruction. To run a sheltered course, either the content teacher needs ESL certification, or the course must be co-taught with an ESL certified teacher and a regular education content teacher. Currently, ELL students are supported in their content area classes by pushing in a paraprofessional to assist during the class period. Unfortunately, a paraprofessional does not fulfill the state’s ESL certification criteria, resulting in a lack of compliance in this area. Furthermore, DELL is strongly encouraging double blocking the beginning level ESL 1 course now that the New Illinois Learning Standards (NILS), which are common core based, apply to ELLs, too. The ELL state mandated standardized test, called ACCESS, is being rewritten to include more challenging, common core tasks. ELL students must be ready in 2016-17 to take this more rigorous assessment. Instead of double blocking ESL 1 in our District, we teach it in a single period course that is usually taught simultaneously in the same room with an ESL 2 or an ESL 3 class. Stacking general education 9

th grade English and 10

th grade English would be difficult for even

our English proficient students. Clearly, this arrangement for newcomers to our country with little to no English impedes their language acquisition and, as a result, their academic progress in all other courses. The recommendations proposed at the end of this memo reflect DELL’s guidance and compliance directives as well as the comparison between our program and other programs. Requirement to Provide Services to Hinsdale Adventist Academy: The federal Title III grant program mandates that our District conduct “timely and meaningful consultation . . . with appropriate private school officials in the district during the design and development of the Title III programs.” Therefore, we must annually reach out to all private schools residing within our district boundaries, inviting them to participate with us in our Title III grant and including their ELLs in our grant enrollment summary. If a private school within our attendance boundaries has students who qualify for ELL services and elects to participate with us in the state and federal ELL and immigrant programs, we are obligated by law to provide their students with the same services we provide to District 86 students. Hinsdale Adventist Academy (HAA) is the private school within our boundaries that we reach out to annually. Prior to this year, the leadership at the school has not been interested in participating in our Title III grant. This year, the

school is under new management and has committed to participating next year. That has considerable ramifications for our personnel. The new HAA Principal has indicated that HAA has six Chinese immigrant students this year he wants ELL services for in the 2015-16 year. Our TPI Directors will need to administer the intake W-APT test individually to each student in order to identify that student’s eligibility and proficiency level. If they qualify for ESL services, these students will need to take the ACCESS test later in the year, as well. Both tests are time-intensive to give, requiring personalized attention for each learner. Additionally, the HAA students will be eligible next year to come to our schools to receive their mandated ESL English classes and any sheltered courses we offer to our students. We are not required to provide them transportation should they wish to participate in our program. It is important to consider this new development for District 86, for it will increase our overall ELL student census, put additional strain on our limited staff in terms of instructional and administrative duties, and potentially make our District a bilingual setting. The threshold a school must reach before it must offer a full bilingual program is twenty students of the same language. Unless there is a shift in our current ELL population, these six HAA Chinese students, added to our current D86 Chinese students at Central, will put us at a total of twenty. Should this occur next year, we will be required to hire a Chinese-speaking ESL teacher to deliver bilingual instruction the following school year in the home language while working to increase the students’ English acquisition. Therefore, in response to the aforementioned issues, we are requesting the following changes to our ELL program:

1. Consolidate ELL Programming into One Building to Provide Equity of ESL Instruction within the District Since the majority of ELL students are in Hinsdale Central’s boundaries, it is logical to house the program at Central. Central’s program currently serves thirty-three ELL students who take ESL and/or Tutorial classes, with a total census of sixty-five students when the additional students who receive consultative services for two years after they exit the program are included. In contrast, South’s program currently serves thirteen ELL students who take ESL and/or Tutorial classes, with a total census of twenty-two students when the additional students who receive consultative services are included. Furthermore, South’s TPI Director anticipates that a large number of the students will do well enough on the upcoming state ACCESS test to be moved into mainstreamed classes next year, which will reduce South’s number of students needing intensive services even further. The following is proposed as a transition plan over one to two years to avoid disrupting current South students:

a. Move all incoming Hinsdale South freshman and new transfer students for 2015-2016 who need ELL services to Central, with one Central Guidance Counselor being selected to register them all.

b. Arrange the bus routes to take students in South’s boundaries to Central. c. Provide the Tutorial class at South for the five ELL students who still need support. d. Staff Richard Sasso as 0.2 ESL teacher to cover their needs during this one year until the five

students graduate or test out of the program. Richard will also teach 0.8 in the English Department. e. Give the remaining South students who require ELL resources an ELL resource hour, a supported

Excel study hall, or the choice to transfer to Central. f. Transfer the two paraprofessionals at South to Central.

The program at South would gradually end due to attrition. The transition plan will be personally explained to families who would be impacted to help them understand the rationale and academic benefits for their children.

2. Create a Full-Time Coordinator for English Language Learners to Reduce Role Redundancies/Inefficiencies

As explained earlier in this memo, the responsibilities of our TPI Directors are extensive. We recommend eliminating the building-level director role now that the program will be a District program housed in one building and replace the two positions with one person in charge of all compliance regulations and other duties. In addition to what the TPI Directors did, the ELL Coordinator would:

Travel to South to administer the W-APT intake assessment to all transfer students who indicate that a language other than English is spoken in the home,

Articulate with all seven District feeder schools to ensure consistency of services,

Collaborate with the private school on ELL assessments and placement,

Supervise all aides and ESL teachers,

Oversee the expansion of sheltered course offerings,

Develop the Chinese Bilingual program, should the census require it,

Spearhead curriculum revisions to reflect rigorous new state standards and testing,

Evaluate the success of the ELL program with input from stakeholders, including parents, students, teachers and school administrators, and

Work to bring to District 86 the State of Illinois Seal of Biliteracy, a certificate that recognizes a high level of proficiency in one or more languages, in addition to English, which would be noted on a student’s academic transcript and diploma.

Staffing and budget implications of this proposal are in the attached chart.

3. Expand Academic Offerings to Reflect Accepted Best Practices in ELL Programming in order to Narrow the

Achievement Gap Between ELL Students and their Non-ELL Peers Currently, only one sheltered Social Studies course is offered in the District, which is inadequate to attend to language acquisition needs of ELLs. As reported in the recently released Illinois State School Report Card, the achievement gap in District 86 between last year’s Limited English Proficiency (LEP) juniors, or ELL students who qualify for services due to their screening test scores, and their non-LEP peers was thirty percent in math, sixty-eight percent in reading, and seventy-five percent in science. Studying the data from the schools in the attached chart strongly suggests that offering more sheltered courses will allow our ELL students to significantly narrow those achievement gaps. Take Biology as an example. In our District students do not take a sheltered Biology class. By the time they are tested as juniors, they are seventy-five percent behind their peers, as noted above. Data pulled from this year’s Illinois State School Report Card show that the ELL/non-ELL differential has been narrowed in districts that offer sheltered science classes. Downers Grove High School District offers sheltered Biology only, and their ELLs were sixty-four percent behind their non-ELL peers. In districts offering sheltered Biology and a second sheltered science course, the differential narrowed even further to sixty-two percent in Glenbard, fifty-five percent in Naperville, and forty percent in New Trier. It is a NCLB federal mandate to narrow these achievement gaps, and providing sheltered classes is the most effective program model across the country that results in higher achievement for these at-risk learners. The following is a proposed three-year plan to expand academic offerings that will narrow the achievement gap of District 86 English Language students: 2014-2015 Request:

Improve the summer school program for ELLs funded by Title III grant dollars 2015-2016 Requests:

Expand ESL 1 into a double-blocked course, as urged by DELL to respond to more rigorous standards

Offer ESL 2 and 3 as separate courses, as mandated

Add Sheltered Biology (taught in alternate years with Earth Science)

Add Sheltered Consumer Education (graduation requirement; taught in alternate years with Health) 2016-2017 Requests:

Add Sheltered Earth Science (taught in alternate years with Biology)

Add Sheltered Health (graduation requirement; taught in alternate years with Consumer Education)

Add Sheltered English Literature and Composition for seniors who are not ready for mainstreamed English

In conclusion, we take raising achievement levels for all students as our moral obligation. English Language Learners are among our most vulnerable students as they struggle to adjust to the cultural, academic, and social demands of their new country and school. The ELL program alterations and enhancements proposed in this memo will provide these at-risk learners with improved opportunities to develop their academic potential within District 86 and to build toward a promising post-secondary career and life. Thank you for your time and consideration. I would be happy to discuss any of these requests further, should you or the Board of Education desire.

High School

District

Program

Location

ELL

Census

ESL

Language,

Life Skills

ESL

Reading

ESL

WritingESL 1

ESL

Language,

Life Skills,

Wtg 2

ESL 2,

Interme-

diate

ESL

Reading 2

ESL 3,

Advanced,

Reading 3

ESL 4,

Comp &

Lit, Life

Skills 3

ELL Bridge

English,

Read Wrtg

4

Beginning

ELL

Tutorial

Intermed

& Adv

Tutorial

ELL

Tutorial,

Resource

(Sem)

Hinsdale Both Schools 80* SC SC SC X

Downers Grove South Only 76 X X X X X X X NC

Lyons TownshipBoth

Campuses102 X X X X X X

New Trier Winnetka

Campus50 DB(1) X X X X X X(2)

GlenbardAll Four

Schools282 X X X X X

Naperville D203 North Only 70 DB(2) X X X X X

KEY: SC = Course is "stacked" with another level during the same period, all students sharing the same teacher DB = Course for newcomers to the country is double blocked, or taught in two back-to-back periods, for optimal instructional outcomes and earns (1) or (2) credits. NC = Course is taken for no credit *Note: In addition to these 80 students in the ELL program, 67 others who qualify for services but refuse them or who exited the program must be monitored by law for two years.

High School

District

Wld Cultures

Global

Connections

US

History

World

History

Govt &

Politics

Geo-

graphy

Physical

Science,

Intro to Sci

Biology Algebra 1Health

(Sem)

Consumer

Education

(Sem)

Computer

Apps

(Sem)

Foods

(Sem)

Intro to

Art

(Sem)

Intro to

Speech

(Sem)

Drivers

Education

(Sem)

Hinsdale EOY EOY

Downers Grove X X

Lyons Township EOY EOY X

New Trier EOY EOY NC X

Glenbard X X X EOY EOY X X X X X X X

Naperville D203 EOY EOY X X EOY EOY X X X X

KEY: EOY = Course is offered every other year NC = Course is taken for no credit

Note:

That course is listed under the heading of "Physical Science, Intro to Sci," which are introductory courses, as well.

SHELTERED COURSE OFFERINGS

Courses may have slightly different names than listed on the chart. For example, Naperville offers a beginning level science course called "Dynamic Earth Systems."

ELL PROGRAM LOCATION AND ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (ESL) COURSE OFFERINGS

12/10/2014, 4:04 PM

CERTIFIED ROLES SITE FTE TOTAL CERTIFIED ROLES SITE FTE TOTAL CERTIFIED ROLES SITE FTE TOTAL

South 0.2

Central 0.4

South 0.2

Central 0.4

South 0.2

Central 0.2

South 0

Central 0.2

1.8

SUPPORT STAFF SITE STAFF TOTAL

South 2.0

Central 2.0

4.0 2.7 Total FTE 2.7

SUPPORT STAFF SITE FTE TOTAL SUPPORT STAFF SITE FTE TOTAL

4.0 4.0

NOTES: * Indicates that the course is staffed by an ESL certified teacher from that department, such as English or Social Studies

DISTRICT 86 ELL PROGRAM STAFFING PROPOSAL

** Indicates the ESL certified FTE who will, for one year, continue supporting the ELLs finishing their education at South as the program transitions to Central

***Indicates that the content teacher will require ESL certification or the class will need to be co-taught with a content teacher and an ESL teacher in order for the state to

approve it as a sheltered course. Additional content FTE may not need to be hired since all ELLs were taking those required courses anyway. They were simply spread out among

the other sections rather than being grouped together. Their enrollment numbers would already in the class size averages. Since the ELLs will take the class together, if their total

class enrollment is small, the sheltered class will likely drive up the class sizes a bit in the remaining sections.

2016-2017

Paraprofessionals in

Resource & ClassesDistrict 4.0

Total Support Staff

Co-taught Literature and

Composition* District 0.2

PROPOSED ELL PROGRAM STAFFING CURRENT ELL PROGRAM STAFFING

Sheltered Biology/Earth

Sci***District 0.2

Sheltered Consumer

Education/Health***District 0.1

TPI Resource Periods

staffed by ESL TeacherDistrict 0.4

Sheltered World

Cultures/US History*District 0.2

2016-2017

ELL Coordinator (also

covers 0.2 Resource)District 0.8

ESL Teacher ( Double

Blocked ESL 1)*District 0.8

0.2

District 0.2

Sheltered World

Cultures/US History*

2015-2016

Paraprofessionals in

Resource & ClassesDistrict 4.0

Total Support Staff

Total Support Staff

District 0.1

Total FTE

0.4

Sheltered World

Cultures/US History*0.2

2014-2015

Paraprofessionals in

Resource & Classes4.0

Total FTE

Sheltered Consumer

Education/Health***

TPI Resource Period

staffed by ESL TeacherSouth** 0.2

Sheltered Biology/Earth

Sci***

District

ESL Teacher*

TPI Resource Periods

staffed by ESL Teacher

ELL Coordinator (also

covers 0.2 Resource)District

0.6

0.4

0.8

ESL Teacher ( Double

Blocked ESL 1)*District 0.8

TPI Resource Periods

staffed by ESL TeacherDistrict

TPI Director 0.6

2014-2015 2015-2016

12/10/2014, 10:39 PM