Week Of October 19th
Upcoming Professional Development
Reminder: ESOL Professional Development Sessions
Our monthly ESOL PDs have been divided so that everyone can leave school buildings in time for COVID 19 cleaning processes and procedures. Our ESOL General Session is the second Tuesday of each month. Our ESOL Instructional Coaches provide PD on the third Tuesday of each month. For the Month of November, our General Session is November 10th and the IC sessions are November 17th. Looking forward to "seeing" all of you soon on Zoom!
Don't Forget! ESOL Open Office Hours
We are here to support you! We are excited to hold open time each week to support you. You do not have to sign-up! You simply enter the Zoom link if you have questions or need assistance. Please note some sessions are specific to New ESOL Teachers. Each of the ICs have an assigned mentor group. If you are a new ESOL Teacher, please see the chart below to know who is your support person.
ALL ESOL Teachers are welcome to attend all other open office hours to receive needed support!
The chart with times and Zoom Links (this is also located in SLIDE #9 and #10 in our September Google Slide Presentation)
Elementary PD Updates
LaToi Gibson
There will be no Zoom sessions on Friday, 10/23/2020. Regular Zoom sessions will resume on the following Friday, 10/30/2020 at 11:00-11:45 and 1:00-1:45.
Toi’s Session (3:00-3:45)
Integrating Content within Focus Groups/Strategy Groups-11/17/2020
The first part of this session will create and define focus groups (or strategy groups) based on Proficiency Levels. The second part of this session will show how to integrate grade level content within domain specific lessons.
Secondary PD Updates
Blanca’s Session (4:00-5:00), November 17, 2020
Reading and Literacy A Lifelong Successful Approach
Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners is for everyone who teaches English language learners to read and write. We will explore important research findings about ELL students into evidence based, effective classroom practice, and applications for reading in L2 (English). This session helps teachers:
learn more about the ELL students in their classroom,
support the emergence and early development of English literacy skills in nonnative speakers,
help English learners reach their full potential as readers and writers,
guide ELL students as they develop academic language and literacy in English
connect reading and writing strongly to promote growth in each
assess the literacy skills of English language learners and use that information to plan responsive instruction using Nat-Geo.
Highlights
Secondary ESOL - National Geographic Curriculum
We had our implementation training this week (October 20th). The video recording is posted below. Once the FAQ document from the chat is complete, we will post it as well.
Current Status of the program is we are working with ETS and National Geographic to address the issues with student accounts and access. We have pinpointed the syncing process. More information will be shared soon! Thank you everyone for starting on classes and students! We are excited and ready to get started as well. The tech issues are fixable and we will be in full swing soon! Thank you for your patience.
VIDEO Link and Password:
Passcode: 5A*V5m3M
Reminders and Clarifications
Do you have something to celebrate? I hope we all do! Please share with the team so we can celebrate together! Teams that celebrate together, accelerate together!
Pleas complete the Google Form with celebrations! This is ongoing throughout the year! I will add them every Thursday in our Newsletter!
Power School Updates Are In!!!
The updated Power School changes as explained in our October General Session have been updated! Our mass upload spreadsheet was entered last night and all changes appeared this morning (October 23, 2020). So ALL of your blanks are now AWs (Awaiting Screener). For now on, we will refer to blanks as AW. When your Power School clerk receives new enrolling students and on the Home Language Survey (HLS) there is a language listed other than English in the first 3 questions, they will now enter AW. THERE IS NO LONGER AN OPTION TO LEAVE IT BLANK! That will produce an error for them when reporting.
Please run a non9 report in GCSource and check all your students and their codes. We have mass uploaded all codes that correlate and changed. You only need to spot check the students that did not have a matching code. (For example, 8s that did not have a Former or Never chosen and only an 8 previously, CM, W, 6P, 7P, X - as these codes no longer exist). ALL code changes were mass uploaded and you do not have to hand enter any codes (YEAH) just the few exceptions!
PLEASE talk with your clerk about the updates and re-enforce the AW! If the Clerk did not enter 9 for the students with ALL English on the Home Language Survey (HLS), then they are all now coded as AWs. So you need to check all AWs. The Power School Office won't be sharing information concerning this until their newsletter. They will not be aware of this yet. They know updates are coming, but they do not know about our process from leaving a blank to now entering an AW code.
All English Proficiency Codes MUST Be Entered!
We cannot have any AWs (used to be BLANKS) in the Power School field for English Proficiency. The students' language proficiency code must be correct and entered. Make sure you share the proficiency codes with your Power School clerks for all AWs. If you already shared with your Power School Clerks, check with them to be sure they were all entered. Bring them "banana bread" (favorite treat) to support them and keep them happy ;) Remember the proficiency fields determine FUNDING and ESOL FTEs (number of teachers). We have 519 AWs in my pull October 23rd!!!! Remind your Clerks to enter a 9 for students that have ALL English on the Home Language Survey (HLS). The drop dead date for funding is the 45th day. That is OCTOBER 27th! NOTE: In your English Proficiency field you should NOT have ANY of the following codes: CM, W, 6P, 7P, or BLANKS.
Principals and District Leadership eManagement Memo
The following information went out in the eManangement Memo on October 22, 2020 from the ESOL Program Office. If you are interested in running a Title III funded Before/After School Program (could be Saturday too), please work with your administration concerning filling out the Google Form as described in the eManagement Memo below.
Title III Grant for the 2020-2021 school year is currently being implemented - One important activity in the Title III Grant is supporting ELs through Before and/or After School language and academic instruction. This instruction must be supplemental and does not replace the current ESOL service during the school day. If you would like to support a targeted group of ELs at your school through research-based language instruction, please complete the interest Google Form by November 2nd. Contact: Tanya Franca, 355-2984, Director of ESOL Services.
All Individual Language Acquisition Plans (ILAPs), previously referred to as the EL Accommodation Plans, are being created directly in the ESOL Program section in Enrich for the 2020-2021 school year. All ILAPs should be in Enrich by October 30th. All administrators, Instructional Coaches, and Content teachers can access the plans through Enrich. Our ESOL Office created a one-page explanation, Accessing EL Documents in Enrich, to assist content teachers with locating the ILAPs. Contact: Kerry Culpepper, Lead ESOL Teacher.
Parent Notification Letter Entry Date
This date will be mass uploaded into Power School next week. We needed to wait until the Power School updates were entered and loaded. The report that will be used is from ENRICH. Tanya Franca, Director of ESOL Services will be sending the report for formatting and then to District Power School for upload. The report pulls all dates concerning the Parent Notification Letter in Enrich (creation, sent from Collaboration Portal, and multiple dates - so it will catch all options). The earliest date will be uploaded from all the dates the report pulls. Once uploaded, an announcement will be placed in the Newsletter next week. If you complete any Parent Notification letters for current students or new students ON or AFTER October 23rd, you MUST give the SENT date to your Power School clerk for manual entry as it won't be included in this upload. Next week directions will be sent on how to run a report to check you Parent Notification Dates for blanks in Power School.