To: Michael Green
From: Deb Kernen
Date: November 1, 2013
Re: ELL Program Update
Our ELL programs are up and running this year with lot of new students entering through our doors. Currently we have 141 students K-12. As you may recall we have added some new staff at WPS-Carlotta Propersi-teacher and Elayna Bray-Instructional Assistant and Community Outreach are working with Natalia Dittmer & Dale Hillman with the 100+ students. At Woodland Intermediate Melanie Ball is providing small group language acquisition instruction and is also able to provide a lunch time homework club for our ELL students. Joel Hingston is providing ELL instruction to our WMS/WHS ELL students. As you may recall he is fluent in Spanish and is also able to teach a Spanish elective to seventh and eighth graders. He provides English, Writing and Reading instruction to our ELL students and is also pushing in to content classes to offer additional support. He is also enjoying coaching our fabulous football team!!!
Last year you may recall we began implementation of a new web-based program called Imagine Learning English to help provide systematic academic language instruction as well as research-based literacy instruction for ELL students K-12. We saw some dramatic improvements in student performance that translated into some excellent comparison data with the state. We transitioned 29 students out of the program this year!! I have included a letter that was sent home to all of our ELL student families describing those results. The one area we didn’t see adequate progress in was students reaching standard on the MSP in the area of 3rd grade Math, which is an area that a large percentage of all of our students struggled in as well.
This year our ELL department will be conducting many different opportunities for our ELL families to connect with school. The first parent-school connection is this Thursday at the Primary School. Families are invited to meet our ELL staff, learn how they can help their children, learn how we are working with helping their children, and answer any questions they may have about school. Our goal is to increase their participation and connection to our schools. We are very fortunate to have hired Elayna. She has been busy translating tons of documents so our Hispanic families have more opportunities to receive school communication that they are able to read!!