Tag Archives: EL

Good-Bye ELPA21

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Standardized testing.

This phrase stirs up a lot of emotions in the world of teaching. If you work in a public school, you probably experienced some sort of instinctual reaction yourself. Did you remember the long, monotonous stretches of time spent monitoring students? Or the pressure from administration for students to perform?

I am not sure how you personally responded, but I am willing to guess the thought of standardized tests failed to put a smile on your face.

When most elementary school teachers think of standardized tests in our state, they think of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). However, I am an English Language (EL) Specialist, so standardized testing makes me think of ELPA21.

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The Struggle Between EL & SPED

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My family moved to the United States almost twenty-three years ago from Ukraine. My younger brother turned six that summer and attended first grade in Washington. Our family moved before his third-grade year, marking the start of his struggle with school.

My brother in fifth grade, age 10.

My parents don’t recall ever being notified of the placement. They say, I brought it to their attention at the end of his fifth-grade year when I asked them why he qualified for the SPED program. My parents first had me explain what SPED meant. Then, they contacted the school to ask the same question: what about my brother qualified him for SPED?

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ESSB 5395: Concerning Comprehensive Sexual Education Part I

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ESSB 5395 first came to my attention this fall. Generally, the Slavic community tends to be apolitical, which stems from generations living in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There you knew the winner of an election before stepping into a voting booth, which bred distrust in the integrity of government processes. My grandmother, a U.S. citizen for over two decades, never cast a vote. Suddenly, people, who debated the trustworthiness of voting over dinner, protested in Olympia. 

Why?

ESSB 5395.

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Every Dot is a Child

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Who could have imagined 2020 as a year of unprecedented change and uncertainty? The closing of schools and statewide quarantine orders requires flexibility on the part of teachers. We’re still working–albeit from home. 

I’ve been participating in staff as well as Specialist and Building Leadership team meetings through Google Hangouts (as a side note, some teachers use this online platform to meet with their classes). In many ways our conversations in these meetings relate to the new challenges we need to overcome in our profession. In other ways, our conversations return to the usual concerns of our field.  

Your students may not be taking the SBA this year, but you will see plenty of other data on their academic performance. The data may come from iReady, DIBELS, MAPS, or another assessment preferred by your district. 

The push in education is toward data informed instructional practices like the work done by John Hattie through Visible Learning. During PLCs, staff meetings, or as part of evaluations, teachers look through data–numbers, graphs, and percentages–to gauge student progress and plan for remediation or instructional changes. Now is the perfect time to analyze data and adjust instruction to accommodate for the needs of our students. 

But please remember: every dot is a child. 

A graph depicting my student’s growth from baseline to summative assessment in vocabulary knowledge.
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Homework is Dead, Long Live Homework

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Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Parent Involvment | , , , , ,

At the beginning of this year I interpreted at a parent-teacher conference for a Ukrainian third grade student. He was a second year English Language (EL) learner.  The teacher praised both his academic and social progress. His mother listened politely and nodded at the appropriate times. At the end of the conference, the teacher asked if she had questions. The mother asked,  “Why is my son getting so little homework?” 


A note written by a Ukrainian parent. Translated it states:
Please give my son more homework in all subject areas.

More than a decade ago, Alfie Kohn wrote, “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing.” Stanford published a study in 2014 showing the pitfalls of homework. Other studies cropped up. All detailing the ineffectiveness and negative impacts of homework. With homework steadily gaining a bad reputation, my district and school decided to encourage teachers to decrease the amount of homework given to our K-5 students. 

Parents noticed. 

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