AugLM2022

Harvard ... cont’d.

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No question. You really have to build a culture of understanding. We emphasize that our Spanish speaking students are not coming to us with a deficit. Let’s look at this as a strength model. Didyouhave to change themindset of your staff to implement aprogramof this scale? Doyouhaveanyadvice for your peers onattractingenoughbilingual teachers tosupport English learners? That’s the money question. In this environment, it’s tough enough to find teachers of any form. We have designed and found some tricks over time. We are associated with the Embassy of Spain. They’ve had a continuation of a visiting teacher program that we’ve been involved with for many years. We also have started a program where we do our own recruiting in Puerto Rico. We are also starting to build more associations with the universities down there because the educators come with American citizenship. There’s not really a visa issue, so it’s not as complicated other than the licensing. We also are working with Greenheart, which typically you think of as an exchange student program, but they also have a teacher placement program.

One of the ways we track this is our Seal of Biliteracy recipients. This last school year, over 30 of our graduates earned that Seal of Biliteracy. The year before it was 15, so we nearly doubled the amount of students. We really are seeing the fruits of the labor at those lower grades, where they’re developing those strong literacy skills. Doyouhavedata to calculate the impact theprogramishaving? Any final thoughtsabout advice for your peers interested in implementinga programlike this? We really have to grow our own. We’ll have our one teacher this fall that was actually a graduate of our district and part of our dual language program. You are always on your toes looking out for candidates. Just making sure you understand how this fits within your community because everyone’s demographics and everyone’s situation looks a little different. We have a saying here that we use a lot—when we know better, we should do better.

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Monthly e-magazine of LeadershipMatters

6 LM August 2022