“Right up front, I want to name the fact, and own it, that we haven’t seen the bump that we need to see,” said Reiman, the district’s executive director of bilingual programs, referring to the . A school board document refers to “the persistent and unacceptable gap in achievement” between those students and native English speakers.
Last school year, only 33 percent of 2,394 English language learners in Hillsboro progressed by a level of English proficiency, as measured by a state assessment. That’s well below the 61 percent that the federal government expected.
But Reiman urged the board to keep the faith in the programs the district has invested in, and he predicted that English language learners’ scores will rise if they stay the course.
He told the story of a current Witch Hazel Elementary second-grader, a native Spanish speaker who last year was rated as much more proficient in Spanish than English. This year, his English performance has caught up to grade level, which Reiman credited to Witch Hazel’s dual language program and an emphasis beginning in 2011 on using professional development to implement new strategies.
“This student hasn’t yet changed our narrative here as a district,” Reiman said, because he hasn’t yet taken state assessments, which begin in third grade. The new approach focuses on increased English language development in the main classroom rather than in private sessions with specialists that cause students to miss regular instruction.
Board member Adriana Cañas said she thinks the district has “moved light-years” in English language development since she was elected in 2009.
“I know we’re going to see that bump,” she said.
While Witch Hazel has been involved with dual language for years, other schools, like Eastwood Elementary, just began recently. Eastwood is in its third year of dual language, and school officials say it’s made a real difference for both students who come from Spanish-speaking homes and native English speakers who are learning to speak Spanish.
Kona Williams, the principal at Eastwood, said that learning how to conjugate verbs and learning grammar in another language improves students’ reading and writing skills in their native languages.
“They’re getting a better understanding of the forms and functions of language,” Williams said at Eastwood last month.
Reiman added that dual language allows students who don’t know any English to access the math curriculum right away – in the past, they’d have to know at least a little English. And Gustavo Olvera, a dual language instructional coach with the district, said it’s allowed Spanish-speaking parents to engage more directly with their children’s schools.
“I’ve definitely seen more active involvement,” Olvera said of the parents.
At Eastwood – where students in kindergarten, first and second grades take dual language (it will begin in third grade next year, and so on) – half the day is all-Spanish instruction, and the other half is all-English.
In Zach Keenan’s second-grade classroom, students were broken up into groups according to level of Spanish proficiency, as teaching assistants led certain groups. Kennan was using magnets to change the tenses of verbs in Spanish, and the students had to fill in blanks so that the sentences made sense.
For native English speakers who won’t likely hear any Spanish over the weekend, there are after-school opportunities and recommended websites and smartphone apps for reinforcement.
“If all weekend long, you’re only immersed in English, it’s going to be harder on Monday,” Reiman said.
Dual language has now made its way to Hillsboro High School. The sophomore class there will be the first in the district to graduate having spent their entire academic careers in dual language.
Reiman said the district is currently working with the Oregon Department of Education and university system to come up with a “dual-language diploma” that would officially signal to colleges and employers that the students have mastered two languages.
He envisioned a day in the not-too-distant future when the district, needing Spanish-speaking teachers as its dual-language program continues to expand, hires back the current dual language students when they graduate from college.
– Luke Hammill