Publication Date: Friday, December 30, 2005
Teachers worried language program is languishing
Teachers worried language program is languishing
(December 30, 2005) Budget cuts have hampered ELD program, supporters say
by Alexandria Rocha
Teachers of English learners in Palo Alto's public schools will head to the Board of Education next month concerned that cutbacks to their program are negatively affecting students.
While the population of elementary children learning English has nearly tripled during the last 10 years, the number of teachers serving them has stayed the same. There are now 70 students for every English Language Development -- or ELD -- teacher.
The group of 10 teachers will air its concerns at a January school board meeting. They say the district's six-year freeze on hiring additional ELD instructors because of budget cuts is starting to hurt the children's progress.
"We would like to be able to meet the needs of our students," said Annette Isaacson, a district ELD teacher since 1991. "We feel we provide a lot of services to families and children and as our numbers rise and our time is cut back, we're not able to be as effective."
The Palo Alto Unified School District operates an ELD pull-out program, in which students whose native language is not English attend regular classrooms, but are pulled out for language instruction during the day. Isaacson said ELD teachers used to see their students three times a week, but now they only see them once.
"It makes a difference in what kind of program you can give to the kids," she said.
Becki Cohn-Vargas, the district's ELD director, said pull out ELD programs are a dying breed. In Santa Clara County, in fact, the Palo Alto school district is the only system that still operates such a program. California's teaching credential students are now required by law to obtain the appropriate certification to teach English learners (EL) for graduation. This has resulted in more classroom teachers taking on the task.
Cohn-Vargas said she doesn't think the district will eliminate the program. But, she said a committee of administrators, teachers and staff members is currently reviewing the entire ELD program. That committee plans to make recommendations to the board this spring.
"We felt we needed to look closely at the program and the model, meaning are we going to continue with the pull-out model," Cohn-Vargas said. "The number of English learners is going up, we can't go back to the past model. How can we maximize the fact that the classroom teachers are now trained."
The ELD teachers say their role is invaluable. Isaacson said most of them do not fear for their jobs, as most are tenured with the district. But, she said they can tell they're helping their students less and less. They want the student-to-teacher ratio returned to 50 to 1.
"The classroom teachers are asked to do more and more and nothing is taken away," said Lee Birdsey, a district ELD teacher of six years who is currently stationed at Juana Briones Elementary School. "We're spreading ourselves thinner."
Students are enrolled in the ELD program if their primary language at home is other than English. Palo Alto's population of English learners has grown significantly in the last 10 years. In the 1995-1996 school year, the district served 325 EL elementary children. Last year, there were about 950.
The top five foreign languages EL students speak over that time has for the most part remained the same, including Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean, with Hebrew and Russian alternating in the fifth spot.
ELD teachers say Palo Alto needs a pull-out program more than other districts. Schools elsewhere have classrooms where half the students are English learners, which makes it easier for teachers to gear the lesson plans toward all students. In Palo Alto, however, each elementary classroom may have just a few, or at the most a quarter of the students, who need additional English-language instruction.
"The pull out benefits the (English learner) students, but it also benefits the whole class because the teacher can spend a majority of time working with students who are moving at a very fast pace. The ELD teachers can work with the students to bring them up to that level," Isaacson said.
The key to a successful pull-out program is strong communication between the ELD and classroom teachers for a variety of reasons. For example, it's important that English learners do not miss crucial regular classroom instruction, and when they do, they need to be given the appropriate assistance to catch up.
Currently, Birdsey said, communication between the two teachers is suffering because ELD instructors are pressed for time and some rotate among two sites.
"When you travel around you don't have any time to talk to the teachers, you're trying to do it all by e-mail. There is not a lot of coordination," she said.
Supporters of the ELD pull out say the program has not received a lot of attention because the parents involved, many who are English learners themselves, are not a vocal group. Some board members are not even aware of the ELD teachers' plight.
The parents are "people who have come over for maybe a year or two, and they're grateful for whatever they can get," Birdsey said.
With the number of English learners expected to continue growing, the ELD teachers want to stay put.
Staff writer Alexandria Rocha can be reached at arocha@paweekly.com
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