Information for School Leads

• (Optional) Attend or watch recording of the School Lead Information Session, or carefully review procedures and responsibilities in the Overvide document

• Complete the Google Form naming a school Lead Point-person and any other staff who would support the Seal of Biliteracy

Click here for the School Sign Up Form Link

• Central Office staff will communicate if your school has students who applied in 2022 and have earned the award with Spring test scores

• Please respond to communication to arrange any pick-up or drop-off of certificates and medals.

• There is no Fall Awards Ceremony; students who earn the Fall 2023 awards will be invited to attend the May 2024 Ceremony, where their names will be recognized.

• Materials for advertising the Seal of Biliteracy can be found in the linked folder below. This includes:

  • A Slide-Deck for an (optional) school-based student information session

  • A printable PDF Brochure

  • Fliers in B/W and Color

  • Information sheet for families in 12 languages

• Information for Students can be found on the Student Tab of this Site (navigate with the left-hand sidebar menu)

• Students and staff are reminded that: 

  • any student who wishes to be considered must apply in the current year to be considered for the Seal of Biliteracy. This includes students who may be using partial scores from last year, and those who have or will test by other means (like AP or IB Testing).

  • students must apply for each language with a separate submission of the application form. They may choose to change or to copy their open-ended statements, but a unique entry is required for record-keeping.

• Central Office staff will communicate the status your students' applications in a separately shared Google Sheet. Please email sealofbiliteracy@philasd.org if you need that link re-sent. 

  • *NOTE* This will update regularly, but not automatically, so if you need real-time confirmation, please refer students to the confirmation emails sent upon the submission of the Google Form.

Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English*, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish

These languages have a test called the ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages® (AAPPL). The test is taken online and has four components. The test has to be proctored, but can be taken whenever the student and proctor are available, because it is entirely online. 

• OCI will directly register students for their first administration of this test.

*English AAPPL is available to 12th graders who have not already met the English criteria by other means

Albanian, Amharic, Bangla, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Croatian, Dari, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Malayalam, Pashto, Polish, Swahili, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, and Yoruba.

These languages are tested with a combination of the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) and the Writing Proficiency Test (WPT). 

• OCI will create a specific spreadsheet that contains all information besides scheduling for uploading to the LTI website.

• Lead Point-Persons will communicate directly with students to enter the scheduling information into the spreadsheet and will upload the completed sheet to the LTI website.

Afrikaans, Apache,  Arabic (Iraqi, Lebanese, Levantine, Yemeni, Moroccan, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian, Jordanian, Sudanese, Syrian), Armenian (Eastern),  Azerbaijani, Bambara, Baluchi, Burmese, Cambodian, Cape Verdean (Balavento or Sotavento), Chuukese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Ewe, Fante (Akan), Farsi, Finnish, Fulani* (Puula language from Senegal), Ga, Georgian, Greek, Hausa, Hmong, Hopi, Hungarian, Igbo, Ilocano, Indonesian, Kannada, Karenni, Kazakh, Kinyarwanda, Kurmanji, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Mongolian, Navajo, Nepali, Norwegian, Oromo, Punjabi, Romanian, Samoan, Serbian, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorani, Swedish, Taiwanese, Tajik, Tamil (India), Telugu, Tibetan, Tigrinya, Turkmen, Twi, Uzbek, and Wolof

These languages are tested with a combination of a Speaking and Listening test and a Writing Test from ALTA. 

• OCI will create profiles for students and order tests that can be ordered in advance. If applicable, OCI will provide a document with a list of students and tests that would need to be ordered by email, along with scripts for sending those emails to the testing company

• School Lead Point-persons will communicate directly with students about scheduling and send ordering emails as necessary

School Lead Point-Persons can coordinate the scheduling and proctoring of tests according to their schedules, the schedules of their students, and those of any rater-interviewers (if applicable). 

• Any staff member who can comply with the test's proctoring guidelines may proctor a test; it does not need to be the school's lead point-person. 

• Certain tests require or benefit from different testing conditions or equipment. School Lead Point-persons are asked to familiarize themselves with the test(s) that will be administered so that they can provide optimal testing conditions for students.

School Lead Point-Persons are expected to check and read email regularly.  OCI will download and update school spreadsheets at least twice during the testing window, and will send emails accordingly. There will also be one final score check in mid-April to finalize awards. 

School Lead Point-Persons can check available scores at any time using the guide below:

Click here for the guide to AAPPL and OPI/WPT Score Checks

Are retakes available? Students may retake one module during the testing cycle, if their original score was in the intermediate range, but below the score threshold for the District. IL, I1, I2

Click here for the guide to register students for module retakes