Seal of Biliteracy

As some as you may know, we have offered opportunities to obtain the State Seal of Biliteracy to our bilingual/biliterate students here at UTHS since 2016. The Seal of Biliteracy is a way for students to show that they can read and write fluently in another language in addition to English. This designation can help students get scholarships and jobs, and also provides students with foreign language college credit upon enrollment at a college or university. The state code providing for college credit is below:

In addition to the Seal of Biliteracy, we also offer the Commendation toward Biliteracy, which recognizes those students who have not yet met the criteria to be biliterate, but are on their way.

For the first three years of the program, we only offered the Seal and Commendation for Spanish and French through the taking of the AP test for their foreign language component, and the ACCESS test/ACT/SAT for the English portion. This year, I'm excited to share that we are expanding our offerings to include Arabic as well, through a test called the STAMP. By offering the STAMP test, students who are biliterate in French, Spanish, Chinese or Arabic have the opportunity to take the test and qualify to get the Seal or Commendation, even if they're not in AP class. The STAMP test has been approved by the state of Illinois as an acceptable method to receive the Seal or Commendation.

To date, 16 students have received the Seal of Biliteracy for Spanish and three have received it for French. Additionally, five students have received the Commendation toward Biliteracy for Spanish and 11 students have received it for French. I look forward to those numbers increasing a lot this year due to adding Chinese/Arabic and opening it up to students not in AP class.

Over the next couple of weeks, we're going to be putting out a call to biliterate students who are interested in taking the test and trying for the Seal/Commendation. If you have any students in your classes that you know speak two languages, please feel free to send me their name and I will personally follow up with them to see if they are interested. You could also tell them about this opportunity yourself if you feel so inclined!

More information can be found at the following links: historical data document info page linked on uths.net state code

I am very excited to continue expanding our pathways for students to receive the State Seal of Biliteracy/State Commendation toward Biliteracy and all the opportunities that come along with it! I think this is a great program and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out.