2110: Multilingual Education Program

The Board of Directors is highly committed to ensuring an equitable educational opportunity for every student. The district will provide a Multilingual Education Program for children whose primary language is not English, and who qualify for English Language Learner (ELL) services. This policy amplifies and honors the importance of home languages. Multilingual learners’(MLL) languages and cultures are valuable resources to be leveraged for schooling and classroom life. Leveraging these assets and challenging biases help develop multilingual learner’s independence and encourage their agency in learning. Multilingual learner’s language development and learning occur over time through meaningful engagement in activities that are valued in their homes, school, and communities. Multilingual learners use and develop language to interpret and present different perspectives, build awareness of relationships, and affirm their identities. The District is committed to high quality, rigorous instructional materials and pedagogy that are aligned, engage MLLs, and accelerate access to grade-level content and language development for MLLs, regardless of program enrollment.

This Language policy supports additive bilingualism and a strength-based approach,by focusing on what language learners can do. Students from diverse linguistic, cultural, and experiential backgrounds contribute to the vibrancy of all school programs. Annually, the superintendent will present to the board a review of the program’s performance, and the Board will approve the district’s Multilingual Education Program.

The district and its staff will:

A. Provide interpretation and/or translation services, when needed, to communicate, with all MLL students and parents/guardians/caretakers.

B. Partner with families on building culturally responsive relationships with the multilingual families to bring their voices and perspectives for decision making about their students’ school program. This will be elevated by supporting family rights to engage meaningfully in their children’s academic and social-cultural development.

C. Assess and determine, by means of a state approved placement test, student eligibility within 10 days of enrollment and attendance.

D. Annually assess, by means of the state approved test, improvement in English language proficiency for each eligible English language learner.

E. Provide professional development training for administrators, teachers, counselors and other staff on the district’s bilingual instruction program, appropriate use of culturally responsive and equitable instructional strategies and assessment results, and curriculum and instructional materials for use with culturally and linguistically diverse students.

F. Provide for continuous improvement and evaluation of the district’s program to determine its effectiveness for English Language Learner and Dual Language Programs; and

G. Provide opportunities for MLLs to use and develop language to interpret and present different perspectives, build awareness of relationships, and affirm their identities.

This will include:

A. Additive bilingualism in which students are provided the opportunity to acquire an additional language while respecting the students’ native language repertoire

B. Provide a variety of language development models, MLL learners use their full linguistic repertoire to enrich their language development and learning.

For purposes of providing such services, the superintendent will establish procedures for implementing the district’s Multilingual Education Program, in compliance with regulatory requirements.

Additional support for English language learners and families can be found in the Policy 4218 - Language Access Plan

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Cross References

• Board Policy 4218 Language Access

Legal References

• Chapter 28A.180 RCW Transitional Bilingual Instruction Program
• WAC 162-28-040 English language limitations and national origin discrimination
• Chapter 392-160 WAC Special Service Program --Transitional Bilingual