Mon Oct 13 2008, 7:00pm
District Meeting Room
Regular Meeting

REPORTS TO THE BOARD

Special Services Report

To:  Michael Green

Special Services Report-2008

Each month I plan to provide you with information on each of the different support service programs we currently provide in the district.

ELL News

Submitted by:  Deb Kernen 

*      WPS ELL staff include Alisha Robison-1/2 time ELL teacher, Alex Smith (formally Vargas), Linda Sprague, Jody McLendon & Dale Hillman-ELL Instructional Assistants.  They have spent this month assessing all new ELL students with the Washington Language Placement Test to determine if they qualify for services.  We had 4 students move and 14 new kindergarten students that we administered the WLPT Placement Test.   We currently have 62 students at WPS that qualify for ELL services. We had 6 students pass the spring WLPT II state wide assessment that were released from the program.  This years program will provide small group language instruction, reading block instruction, as well as in class support. The greatest challenge the program is facing is scheduling around all the other specials, reading blocks, etc.  Both Alex & Alisha will be taking maternity leave this January welcoming little girls into their families.

*      WIS ELL- Linda Sprague-spends 3 hours each day serving the 7 ELL students at WIS under the direction of Alex & Alisha.   We had 2 students move and 3 students pass the WLPT II state wide assessment.  We are doing small group instruction, as well as going into the classrooms to assist teachers during content instruction like science and social studies, as well as providing support during reading and math instruction block.  We are facing the same challenge of scheduling around all the specials, reading blocks, etc.

*      WMS/WHS-Lauren Cockrell provides Reading, Writing, Math, Contemporary World Problems and Speech/Pronunciation classes to 25 students that have been scheduled according to their English language proficiency scores.  This year Lauren has teamed up with our new Speech/Language Therapist, Lisa McDermeit co-teaching an oral expression/grammar class to selected ELL students.  This class is an idea that came from Hillsboro School District. They were recognized last year in the state of Oregon as having an Exemplary ELL Program" that had exceeded state standards by a mile!!   The greatest challenge the program is facing is having students that have very low language acquisition skills that are trying to grasp content material.  Many of our ELL students who transfer into our district in middle and high school have very little English.

 

Our ELL program has made a significant difference for our students, teachers and families.  We are able to provide research based curriculum instruction, while supporting/providing teachers with modified materials, in class support and information about each students Language Proficiency level yielded from the Washington Language Proficiency Test administered last February.  Our ELL staff will continue their efforts with teacher professional development activities that help provide classroom teachers with the skills and strategies that help these students be successful in the general education setting.  We are also going to be able to train 4 first grade teachers this year in Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) strategies. Our ELL teachers were trained last year with this very successful, research based approach for ELL instruction.