Creative Approach Schools Proposal Seattle World School 2012 October 3, 2011

The Seattle World School combines a newcomer center for students aged 11-20 who test as non-English speakers upon entrance to the district with a credit-bearing high school for English Language Learners (ELLs). The students at the school enter with very limited or absolutely no English vocabulary. Currently, 12 percent of the students read at pre-K level, 27 percent read at first grade level, 42 percent read at second grade level, 5 percent read at a third or fourth grade level, and one percent reads at an eighth grade level in English. In mathematics, approximately eight percent of the students perform at K to third grade level, 40 percent perform at third to sixth grade level, 31percent perform at fifth to seventh grade level, 40 percent are in pre-algebra, and 20 percent take algebra and geometry. Students who exit from the newcomer center with limited content understanding and limited English often struggle in their secondary school and many drop out. Annual dropout rate by county, public schools (percent) 2010-2011
Data Provided by Washington Kids Count. This is a joint effort of the Children's Alliance and Washington State Budget & Policy Center. King English Language Learners (ELL) Special Education Free and Reduced Price Lunch (Low Income) Total 7.3% 4.5% 4.8% 3.3%

http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/bystate/Rankings.aspx?state=WA&ind=4510 Many SWS students come from severely interrupted educational backgrounds and also have very limited content knowledge. Others have special needs but wont be identified until being in the U.S. for at least one year. Courses taken in the newcomer program generally count as elective credit for high school age students. Seattle World School has a core credit-granting high school to help students get credits as they work on English proficiency. The school year 2011-2012 was the first year students could study core ninth grade classes at SWS. These classes are designed to be comprehensible to English Language Learners (ELLs) yet are academically rigorous while supporting English fluency through scaffolded instruction. This year,

2012-2013, a tenth grade was added. Eleventh and twelfth grades will be added over the next two years (2013-2015). We are proposing that the school be granted creative flexibility to meet the needs of students with limited English from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. Research supports students receiving scaffolded instruction until they have sufficient academic language to understand grade-level texts. The Seattle World School provides instruction that focuses on language acquisition while teaching content aligned to district standards. Language Acquisition Research Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) CALP refers to formal academic learning. This includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material. This level of language learning is essential for students to succeed in school. Students need time and support to become proficient in academic areas. This usually takes from five to seven years. Recent research (Thomas & Collier, 1995) has shown that if a child has had no prior schooling or has had no support in native language development, it may take seven to ten years for ELLs to catch up to their peers. Academic language acquisition isn't just the understanding of content area vocabulary. It includes skills such as comparing, classifying, synthesizing, evaluating, and inferring. Academic language tasks are context reduced. Information is read from a textbook or presented by the teacher. As a student gets older the context of academic tasks becomes more and more reduced. The language also becomes more cognitively demanding. New ideas, concepts and language are presented to the students at the same time. Jim Cummins, professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, also advances the theory that there is a common underlying proficiency (CUP) between two languages. Skills, ideas and concepts students learn in their first language will be transferred to the second language. http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/bics_calp.php Based on research and experience with immigrant students new to Seattle Schools, we are proposing flexibility in the following areas:

Standards-Based Assessment for English Language Learners District Assessment

Grading Policy

Extended School Year

 Control of Personnel

CTE credits

Standards-Based Assessment for English Language Learners

REQUEST: Extend the allowable time newcomer students may continue in the newcomer program. Rather than time being the determiner, the school proposes English proficiency be the determiner. BACKGROUND: Currently the students in the newcomer portion of the school are generally required to leave after two semesters. Some may transfer to schools with excellent ELL support, while others may transfer to schools with limited or no support. Historically many students who have transferred too early have not done well in mainstream schools. The Seattle World School newcomer center uses ELL standards adapted for beginning speakers for instruction. While our students make faster progress at this school than ELLs make at any school in Seattle, the level of language acquired after one year rarely supports academic excellence in the next school. We propose that rather than keeping students a certain number of weeks, we assess their reading, writing, speaking and aural comprehension before they are required to transition to their neighborhood secondary school or to the Seattle World School High School. Middle school students should be able to read at a 3.5 grade level in reading and high school students should be able to read at a 5.5 grade level before transitioning to their neighborhood high schools that may lack adequate ELD support. Eighth grade students interested in attending SWS high school should be able to stay at the school second semester instead of being forced to transfer to a middle school in the middle of the academic year. BENEFIT TO STUDENTS: Students will be more prepared to complete challenging work and will have the background concepts and English vocabulary necessary to be successful.. We make this request with support from the following research findings: ELLs need to be included in standards-based educational reform. According to Hakuta (2001), clear academic standards must be in place to confirm that ELLs should be held to the same expectations as mainstream students. Hakuta cautions, however:

It is unreasonable to expect ELLs to perform comparably to their native Englishspeaking peers in their initial years of schooling (hence the need for standards specific to ELLs) and holding them to this expectation too early in their educational careers can be detrimental to their academic progress, not to mention their selfesteem. The problem enters when students are not pushed to go beyond this stage over time, are presumed to be at an elementary level, or are misdiagnosed as having educational disabilities by teachers unfamiliar with the needs of ELLs. The gap between learning expectations as described in standards, particularly language arts standards, and the performance of ELLs as tempered by their initial and temporary limited English proficiency is in some cases widened by limited formal schooling. Two prominent efforts to bridge this gap have been undertaken by the California Department of Education (CDE) and the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL), a professional organization. CDE (1999) has produced English Language Development (ELD) Standards to assist teachers in moving ELLs to English fluency and to proficiency on the California EnglishLanguage Arts Content Standards. CDE has delineated five incremental levels of language proficiency (i.e., beginning, earlyintermediate, intermediate, early-advanced, and advanced) and identified the linguistic competencies ELLs must develop to catch up with their monolingual English-speaking peers. TESOLs English as a Second Language (ESL) Standards revolve around three goals for ELLs: (1) to use English to communicate in social settings, (2) to use English to achieve academically in all content areas, and (3) to use English in socially and culturally appropriate ways. Below are sample PreK-12 units that describe how teachers use standards as planning tools, observational aids, assessment guides, and ways of understanding language development and ways to help prospective and practicing teachers implement the ESL Standards. What promise does a shift to SBI hold for ELLs? Figure 1 below highlights key SBI teacher practices and their implications for ELLs. Figure 1 In Standards-Based Instruction, teachers The potential benefits for ELLs are ... that this shift . . . Organize learning around what students need to know and be able to do to reach high levels of performance. Has the potential to reverse the tendency to assign ELLs to unchallenging curricula and presents an opportunity for schools to engage in substantive communication with the parents of ELLs regarding achievement. Sets high learning expectations for ELLs, who have traditionally been provided with instruction focusing on low-level skills. Allows ELLs to build upon their prior

Broaden the focus of their teaching to include higher order thinking processes.

Guide student inquiry by giving students

work related to real-life tasks that require reasoning and problem-solving. Emphasize holistic concepts rather than fragmented units of information.

knowledge and provides for diverse ways of solving problems. Focuses more on how ELLs think and what they understand rather than on whether or not they have the one right answer. Helps teachers understand how ELLs learn, places value on the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of ELLs, and allows ELLs to draft, reflect on, and revise their work. Allows for a variety of learning styles and offers multiple pathways and connections to academic success. Improves communication between regular education and ELL staff and encourages an open dialogue about a schools expectations for ELLs. Complements diverse ways of knowing and learning and reveals productive entry points that build on students strengths and lead to new areas of learning.

Provide a variety of opportunities for students to explore and develop their understanding of concepts and situations over time. Use multiple sources of information rather than a single text. Work in interdisciplinary teams.

Use multiple forms of assessment to gather concrete evidence of student proficiencies and achievement.

In summary, these practices point to significant changes in classroom practices and learning environments that have great potential for improving the educational outcomes of ELLs. Given the challenges they face in learning an unfamiliar curriculum in a second language and in a different culture and school setting, many ELLs have difficulty negotiating the routines and expectations of the classroom. From: Standards-Based
Instruction for English Language Learner By Joseph Laturnau*

http://www.prel.org/products/pc_/standards-based.htm Common Core for ELLS The Common Core State Standards are content-based standards for kindergarten through high school coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The standards, which have been adopted by all except six states, are designed to introduce students to rigorous, consistent material that will prepare them for college and the workforce. The $2 million English Language Learner (ELL) initiative is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation, both supporters of the Common Core. Hakuta and co-chair Maria Santos, deputy superintendent for instruction of Oakland Unified School District, organized a steering committee of local ELL experts to plan and implement the initiative.

The goal of the initiative is to develop free resources and curriculum for teachers to foster English Language Learners' learning of the English language in conjunction with the Common Core content. In other words, students will learn English while they are taught grade-level subjects such as math, science and grammar. When students learn English in traditional English as a Second Language classes, separately from the other curriculum taught in their grade level, they tend to fall behind in core subjects, Hakuta said, because most students take four to seven years to learn English. "While the kids are learning English you really also need to give them content," Hakuta said. "If you look at things like academic achievement, English Language Learners are tested on state tests, and in most states they are significantly behind the majority of the kids, even kids who are comparable in socioeconomic status. So it's just the language gap [that causes them to underperform]." The committee plans to organize teams of language experts, teachers and other educators at various school districts to help create free, web-based teacher resources such as video clips, examples of different levels of language development and curriculum specific to Common Core subject areas such as math and vocabulary that utilizes language skills. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/september/english-language-learning-091311.html Moving to standards-based instruction and alignment of assessments will require professional development time during the next two school years.

District Assessment
REQUEST: We are proposing the flexibility to give tests that a team of school personnel working with district administrators and university specialists of English language development deem appropriate, and only as often as will inform instruction. BACKGROUND: Standardized assessment is very valuable for helping to place students and guide instruction, but not all district-mandated tests may appropriate for newcomer students. The wrong tests at the wrong time do nothing but increase stress and make students feel hopeless. We are proposing the flexibility to give the tests that will inform instruction. For example, we currently give the MAP test twice a year, and may want to give the test only once a year, or maybe as much as four times a year. We want to maximize instruction time and minimize assessment that doesnt align with what is being taught. We may want to use assessment aligned to core content for ELLs. The staff will need to determine the appropriate assessment for informing instruction while providing data to the district. BENEFIT TO STUDENTS: Students will take tests that correlate with what they have already studied, and will lose less time to tests developed for native English speakers.

Grading Policy
REQUEST: New students should have the flexibility of a pass/ fail grade and checklists that show their proficiency levels. BACKGROUND: Newcomer students often need extra time to adjust to a new culture and learn sufficient English to follow even basic directions. Newcomers also come in throughout the year. We currently use the standard grading policy, which doesnt align to district standards at grade level. Beginning students cant master grade level content. We should give letter grades when students have reached a certain proficiency level and they are ready to understand the meaning of letter grades. New students should have the flexibility of a pass/ fail grade and instead use checklists that show their proficiency levels. BENEFIT TO STUDENTS: Students who may have special needs but are not yet identified for IEPs and students who enter after the term begins will not be penalized by low grades.

Control of Personnel
REQUEST: Able to interview all incoming staff to find the best fit for each position. BACKROUND: The staff at the school has been extensively trained in English Language Development (ELD) strategies and Project Based Learning. We also have many staff members who are bilingual, bicultural and multilingual. We collaborate on team projects. We are expected to move students very rapidly through the curriculum. We therefore ask for a waiver from accepting displaced personnel without them having gone through the regular interview process. We would like to be able to interview all incoming staff to find the best fit for each position. BENEFIT TO STUDENTS: Students will have teachers that are trained to work with newcomers and Project-Based Learning.

Extended School Year: Summer School Credit Acceleration/ Sequencing of Courses

REQUEST: School has the flexibility to bank some allocated teacher FTE for summer classes Background: In addition to the newcomer program summer school funded through REWA, we are requesting that we have the flexibility to use school-year staff and funding resources to provide regular high school credit for summer school classes for example algebra B and Lit/Comp B, so that students can be in sequence for the fall schedule. These would be full credit classes. Teachers could use school-year FTE for summer classes and the summer instruction would be completely voluntary.

BENEFIT TO STUDENTS: Students lacking credits would be able to accumulate credits toward graduation, and overage students will increase their chances of graduating before aging out.

CTE
REQUEST: Allow students who take certain CTE courses, such as Financial Algebra, to earn both core math and CTE credit for graduation purposes (double dipping). BACKGROUND: The state has seriously discussed double dipping to allow students the ability to take one course that serves two graduation (CTE and non-CTE) purposes . At the moment, our school has received mixed messages on this topic. We are seeking clarification. If it is not permitted, we want a waiver for this purpose. In smaller schools with limited resources, it is common sense to allow students this opportunity. BENEFIT TO STUDENTS: Students lacking credits will be able to accumulate credits toward graduation, and overage students will increase their chances of graduating before aging out. References:
Hakuta, K. (2001). The education of language minority students. Testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, April 13, 2001 [Online]. Available: www.stanford.edu/~hakuta/Docs/CivilRightsCommission.htm