The Challenge:
According to MCAS data, there has been a clear achievement gap between Latino students and White students. There has also been a wide gap with respect to ELs and Non-EL students. We know that dual language programs are the best way to close the gap. We are looking for ways to strengthen our instruction.

What did your team do about it?:
In order to address the challenge, we identified educators that we believe have been doing an excellent job in their role as DL educators and we create a challenge for them to share their best practices with other educators. We created a space where teachers felt comfortable to share resources and learn from one another. One challenge was involving high school educators and creating a clear steady sharing of materials.

Impact on Students:
As a result, teachers were able to implement what they learned and resources into their practice. In the future, we would like to have more data collection points and check-ins to track specifically the gains and impact for students.

Teacher Leadership and School Community:
As a result, DL have been able to look to one another and strengthen ties across schools. We have noticed that networking has helped educators at particular grade levels feel less isolated in their role, particularly those teaching LOTE (language other than English). We were also able to partner with Telescope network to create a learning site which was a great way to continue our work in sharing best practices.

What’s Next?
We would like to continue this work by holding another event that concentrates on teacher-led workshops as well as bringing students and families to educate on benefits of bilingualism as well as how to best support at home.

Helping Others:
We were able to put together a sample workshop planner that was for presenters to brainstorm how to best present their work. OELL also helped us by partnering to present as well as supplying food. We found the t-shirts were helpful in elevating spirits and teachers continue to where them in their schools to increase solidarity.