[0:00] To call to order the Township High School District 113 Education Committee meeting.

[0:04] Today is Tuesday, September 22nd, 2026, and it is

[0:09] 5:09 PM. We'll begin with a roll call. Mr. Brunck?

[0:14] Here.

[0:15] Ms. Newman?

[0:15] Here.

[0:16] Dr. Elliott? Here. I'd like everyone else who's present to identify themselves.

[0:21] Mira Antie, executive director of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

[0:26] Will Dwyer, principal, Deerfield High School.

[0:28] Holly Fleischer, principal, Highland Park High School.

[0:31] Karina Jankowski, executive secretary.

[0:33] Shayla Holland, superintendent.

[0:35] Karen Ritter, assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

[0:39] Tanya Connor, assistant superintendent of student services.

[0:43] Okay. So we're going to begin with a presentation from Dr.

[0:47] Ritter on the District 113 English Learner and Multilingual Learning Report.

[0:52] Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone.

[0:54] I'm proud to share our fall 2026 English Learner and Multilingual Learning

[1:00] Report to give you a clear, comprehensive idea of what the multilingual student

[1:06] experience looks like across our district.

[1:10] So the presentation tonight is structured around four core areas: our District 113

[1:15] program models, a look inside our EL classrooms, key

[1:20] District 113 multilingual data, and our ongoing strategies for supporting ML

[1:26] students and upcoming state guidance.

[1:30] Before we dive in, I want to clarify some terminology.

[1:33] You may hear me use EL, ESL, ML interchangeably throughout the

[1:38] presentation. EL and ESL usually refers to programming or courses,

[1:44] and I may use EL or ML when referring to our English learners or multilingual

[1:49] learners.

[1:52] So Illinois defines three distinct instructional frameworks for multilingual

[1:56] learners. Across our district, we serve a diverse community of learners, and

[2:01] because our high schools have different student demographics and populations, we

[2:05] implement distinct multilingual program models to best serve each site.

[2:10] At Deerfield High School, where we have just under 40 total ML students

[2:15] representing 15 different native languages, ranging from Swahili, Ukrainian,

[2:21] Hebrew, Polish, Chinese, Spanish, we utilize the Transitional Program

[2:27] of Instruction, which is also known as TPI.

[2:31] The primary goal of TPI is rapid English acquisition through English as a second

[2:36] language coursework, combined with push-in support in core content areas.

[2:42] At Highland Park High School, where we have a larger multilingual population with

[2:46] one dominant language, Spanish, we implement bilingual services in the form of

[2:52] Transitional Bilingual Education courses, or TBE, or dual-language bilingual

[2:57] education. TBE focuses on providing grade-level content

[3:03] access in Spanish while transitioning students to English.

[3:06] And our dual-language program is an additive

[3:10] bilingual model, where the goal is to develop high-level biliteracy,

[3:17] bilingualism, and academic achievement while affirming our students' cultural

[3:21] assets.

[3:23] We offer balanced two-way dual language classes that bring together native English

[3:28] speakers and native Spanish speakers, as well as one-way dual language courses

[3:33] where multilingual students are served from the same language background.

[3:39] This builds directly on the foundation laid by our center district, Lake 112, where

[3:44] they have a dual language program where students experience a 50/50 model through

[3:49] middle school.

[3:56] So the English language support in both of the schools looks like this.

[4:01] This is structural support that we implemented last year, which is explicit English

[4:07] language instruction and support aligned directly with ACCESS proficiency levels.

[4:12] So this framework operates at both DHS and HPHS.

[4:17] As students progress from year one to year four, moving through entering, emerging,

[4:24] and developing to expanding language proficiency, they are paired with a language

[4:29] acquisition class that further develops their English language

[4:34] in the areas of speaking, reading, writing, and listening in different content

[4:40] areas. So this series of classes provides a strong standardized core

[4:46] curriculum that also accelerates academic language development.

[4:53] So I want to give you a sample of what the classrooms look like in both of the

[4:57] schools. So I got the opportunity to visit two classrooms, both very different in

[5:01] the program, in the population, and in practice.

[5:05] At Deerfield, I visited an English class taught by Ms. Roth.

[5:09] This class brings together students from diverse backgrounds, and in the class of

[5:13] about eight students, there were students representing Israel, Mexico,

[5:19] China, Turkey, and Ukraine. So five different languages, five different countries

[5:24] among the eight students. Ms. Roth implemented a highly effective multimodal lesson

[5:29] that actively engaged all four language domains of reading, writing, speaking, and

[5:33] listening. So she began with a culturally responsive question of the day: What is

[5:39] your favorite fall activity? So students began sharing that, "In my country, we

[5:44] don't have different seasons. So what I like about this country is I can celebrate

[5:49] Halloween. We don't have Halloween in our country." So it was a really interesting

[5:55] discussion that they were able to share and compare what happens in their countries

[5:59] versus what they experience here in America.

[6:04] And students shared what they like to do here, and most of it was candy and

[6:07] Halloween for their fall activities. And Ms.

[6:12] Roth also shared sentence frames for providing some complex

[6:17] sentence structure to keep the language development using academic

[6:23] vocabulary.

[6:26] Then the class prepared to read a scene from the play "Almost, Maine," which

[6:32] happens to be Deerfield's fall play.

[6:34] So the students are also, after reading the script and the play, they're going to

[6:39] go see the actual production of "Almost, Maine" that their peers are going to be

[6:43] performing in. So I thought that was very clever to

[6:47] capitalize on that opportunity. But she did a lot of front-loading of concepts in

[6:53] the class. So first, students did a think-pair-share activity around the concept of

[6:58] getting something back, which was also the next title of the chapter that they were

[7:02] about to read in the script, Getting Something Back.

[7:05] She activated their prior knowledge of: What does that mean to you?

[7:09] What could that mean?

[7:11] She then showed the students a video clip of a high school production of "Almost,

[7:17] Maine," acting out that scene in that chapter with closed captioning, so that

[7:22] students are able to read along as they watch it.

[7:25] And then they filled out a notice and wonder graphic organizer during the video

[7:30] clip to draw inferences from the visual clues.

[7:33] What did they notice about the conversation?

[7:35] What did they notice what was happening?

[7:37] Where were possible misconceptions of what the students were talking about?

[7:42] And then after that, they finally read the script in pairs with a partner out loud.

[7:47] And by unpacking the meaning prior to the reading, Ms.

[7:50] Roth primed their brains and started to build their schema around what was going to

[7:54] be happening in the script, which is a very popular EL strategy to do.

[8:00] And this allowed the students to engage more deeply and more rigorously with the

[8:04] grade-level content. And a few of the students even acted out the words in

[8:10] the script as if they were on stage themselves, so it was really, really cute.

[8:16] Then I went to a dual language class at Highland Park, and it was

[8:22] amazing to see the difference in services provided, but equally

[8:29] focused on language development and rigorous instruction.

[8:33] So this was

[8:35] a dual language US history class taught by Mr.

[8:38] Garza for the dual language program at Highland Park.

[8:42] The classroom setting is Spanish dominance, so all students in the

[8:48] class were speaking English and Spanish.

[8:52] And instruction went far beyond just foundational language acquisition and

[8:57] vocabulary development, but really how to synthesize ideas,

[9:03] complex abstract concepts in both languages, because the goal, remember, is

[9:08] biliteracy and bilingualism. So prior to this day that I went to visit,

[9:14] the students collaboratively drafted a classroom constitution

[9:20] and bill of rights in both languages.

[9:22] They did a lot of group work interpreting the different parts of the constitution

[9:27] and bill of rights, and they had to develop their own bill of rights for their

[9:31] classroom and what they were going to

[9:35] develop as norms for behavior and privileges in the classroom.

[9:40] So they integrated core concepts from our American constitutional democracy,

[9:46] and they also brought in themes of indigenous community governments represented by

[9:52] this book that they were reading, "The Hombres de Maíz,"

[9:56] which was really, really cool to see because the indigenous governance centered a

[10:02] lot around human dignity and respect for nature and

[10:08] concepts like that, whereas our bill of rights was more governance and

[10:16] democracy structures. So it was really cool to see the overlapping of where those

[10:23] governance structures are similar, and also how different they are.

[10:27] And just really bringing students back to some of their roots in

[10:33] indigenous culture.

[10:35] This approach that Mr. Garza so cleverly introduced to them requires

[10:41] students to have a high level of cognitive flexibility to be able to think and

[10:47] produce outcomes in both languages, to use the academic vocabulary in both

[10:52] languages, to take

[10:55] high-level concepts and synthesize them,

[10:59] and use critical thinking skills.

[11:01] They also were observed doing intentional translanguaging, which means

[11:07] using both languages at the same time to communicate ideas and concepts, and

[11:13] language bridging, which is an intentional instructional move where students

[11:17] compare and contrast their two languages.

[11:19] So I do have one picture there where he was talking about just vocabulary and

[11:25] cognates in both languages and where they really stem from, and asking

[11:30] kids to understand the origin of both of those languages and their roots.

[11:37] So, so much happening in one classroom session.

[11:40] I was really, truly amazed at how much planning is involved in developing language

[11:46] and high-level rigorous instruction at the same time.

[11:51] So students use those connections and the cognates to build their academic

[11:54] vocabulary while developing literacy skills, and this reflects the intellectual

[11:59] rigor and profound sense of belonging that our dual language program offers.

[12:06] Okay, next. So now we're going to jump into some data.

[12:11] When we turn to our district data, this is a

[12:15] screenshot of the data that's represented in our ECRA system, our ECRA platform.

[12:21] We can see, if you look at the all that's highlighted there in red,

[12:26] what you'll see is we're looking at last year's data.

[12:29] Spring ACCESS is when the ACCESS test comes out.

[12:33] ACCESS is the test that assesses students' language proficiency.

[12:39] We had 201 students test last year across the district.

[12:44] You can see a proficiency rating of 5.9%.

[12:48] That means that is the percentage of students who met the benchmark of

[12:55] exiting out of ACCESS. They reached a score high enough to not require EL services

[13:01] anymore. And then you see an effect size of a positive 0.39 with a blue circle.

[13:07] So in ECRA data, anything with a blue circle means that students are

[13:12] achieving higher than average growth expectations.

[13:17] So,

[13:18] many of the areas that we will see in our ECRA data are green, meaning students are

[13:24] growing as expected from year to year.

[13:27] But blue is really something special, and they are achieving more than one year's

[13:32] worth of growth in one year's time.

[13:35] So, overall, our students in our multilingual program are growing more than

[13:41] expected.

[13:42] Quick question.

[13:43] Yeah.

[13:45] It's my understanding that ECRA's growth scores partially take into account what

[13:50] past growth was for those students, right? To come up with the expected growth.

[13:53] Mm-hmm.

[13:54] Because we're seeing so much growth in year nine, is that part of why we're seeing

[13:59] less blue in the succeeding years?

[14:01] Because

[14:03] the kids are growing so much in that first year of the program, and maybe they're

[14:05] just not hitting quite as much growth.

[14:07] It depends because the ACCESS test in our EL program is not grade specific, it's

[14:13] language specific.

[14:14] Mm-hmm.

[14:15] So, that ninth grade could have students in year one or year four.

[14:19] Okay.

[14:20] So I think, and I'll talk about this a little bit later, but I think it's the

[14:24] structures that we put in place like that English class with the language

[14:27] acquisition class. Last year was our first year of our implementation with that

[14:31] across the district. So I think that had a strong impact on how all

[14:37] of our grade levels are performing, but especially our freshmen, since that's their

[14:40] entry year for that.

[14:42] Great.

[14:44] But thank you, that's a great question.

[14:47] So if we look at our grade nine, you can click and it'll highlight the grade nine.

[14:51] So just what Mr. Funk was saying, our freshmen have a very high level of growth,

[14:57] as compared to the other grade levels.

[15:00] So we can see that they had not as high as a proficiency as some of the other grade

[15:05] levels, so 9% of our students out of the 54 exiting the program.

[15:09] But the growth rate is-- I've never seen growth like this in any data.

[15:15] So a positive .8 means that across the board, they are

[15:21] growing higher than expected in

[15:25] that grade level specifically.

[15:29] Click again. Yep. So then if we dig down into that grade nine data, this is

[15:35] just something that you're able to do in ECRA to get a better picture of what's

[15:39] happening. So looking specifically at the ninth grade data,

[15:44] and remember, these are students now that are in 10th grade.

[15:46] They entered high school with intermediate skills, so probably scoring in the three

[15:51] to four range on ACCESS, and 4.8 is

[15:57] the score that they need to exit. So they have an exit rate of 8%.

[16:04] That's the proficiency rating at the top.

[16:07] And

[16:09] that is a small percentage of how many students met the benchmark.

[16:12] However, if we look at the growth score, it's a .8 effect size.

[16:18] So this tells a much more powerful story.

[16:21] The vast majority of the students in this grade level with last year's

[16:27] testing achieved higher than expected growth in

[16:32] their ACCESS test. So,

[16:37] there's a couple things in the diagram here.

[16:39] So you have a dotted line across the middle, that's the benchmark.

[16:44] So anyone above that is exiting the program.

[16:49] They met the benchmark. Anyone below that

[16:52] in the green strip there, all of those students in the green strip are meeting

[16:57] expected growth. Anyone above that green strip is higher than expected growth.

[17:02] So you see a good portion of the students having more growth, even if they didn't

[17:07] meet the proficiency dotted line, they still had higher than expected growth.

[17:12] There's just one dot there with a student that had lower than expected growth.

[17:17] So overall, our EL program and our EL students are very successful in terms of

[17:22] growth.

[17:24] Next slide.

[17:27] Can I just ask you to explain something?

[17:29] Sure.

[17:29] Just so they have this information.

[17:31] Yes.

[17:31] Each dot represents a student.

[17:33] Yes.

[17:34] And so when an educator or a leader

[17:39] goes in and hovers over a student, what can they do with this

[17:45] information?

[17:47] So they can dig deeper. And I'll show you on the next slide

[17:53] some of the data that you can see. I took off all the students' names, but this is

[17:58] actual data that you can look at. You can see a roster of all those students and

[18:04] where they are. So I did that, and I sorted it by high to low

[18:09] growth. And just in the first page of data, you can see they're all blue, with

[18:15] an arrow pointing upwards. More than one point

[18:20] growth effect size, meaning that they grew

[18:24] More than one year of growth. So the top student there with a 3.0,

[18:30] he or she grew three years, basically within one year.

[18:35] And we've got two students. And then I started thinking, is it the dual language

[18:40] program? Is it something that we're doing at Deerfield?

[18:42] It's represented at both schools.

[18:44] So, you could even dig deeper in there and see the students' subscores on the

[18:50] access to see exactly

[18:54] how they performed on each section.

[18:56] So ECRA, and the data that we receive from it is very informative in terms

[19:02] of what we can do to make instructional shifts after looking at data.

[19:08] So, something here that I just want to point out.

[19:13] Let's see here. So, I only screenshot the first page of the students there on the

[19:19] roster. So we had, I think it was 54 freshman students.

[19:25] I think it was

[19:27] 20 out of the 51 had those blue growth scores, higher

[19:33] than a 1.0. So,

[19:37] that speaks to the program, really, of what we're offering to students.

[19:43] You don't see those kinds of levels of growth in a lot of schools, even with the EL

[19:49] program. So,

[19:52] we had students grow as high as a positive 3.1, which represents three to

[19:58] four years worth of language growth accomplished in a single academic year.

[20:03] And if we can sustain that kind of growth, or similar growth, a

[20:09] significant portion of this cohort will be able to hit the 4.8 benchmark before

[20:15] they graduate high school.

[20:19] Okay, so then I sorted the roster by low growth to high, just so you can

[20:25] see

[20:27] where they are there. So there are areas where students are shown to grow.

[20:33] So they're represented by a green circle, but it still is negative.

[20:38] So, the way that ECRA represents the data is you have your

[20:43] average growth, and then there's a standard deviation on either side where the

[20:49] growth window occurs. Right? So,

[20:53] it's still expected growth, but it could be a little more or less than the average.

[20:59] So you see that we only have one student from last year that actually took a step

[21:04] backwards and didn't grow as much as they were expected to grow, but everyone else

[21:09] was either on target or exceeded that.

[21:13] And that doesn't mean they didn't grow, they didn't grow-

[21:15] As expected

[21:16] ... as expected.

[21:17] Correct. And this is a one-day test, the data?

[21:22] Yeah, this is like their status- Yes, snapshot.

[21:25] Mm-hmm.

[21:26] Mm-hmm. So, right. So we can celebrate the growth, but we also need to

[21:31] evaluate where our system needs strengthening.

[21:34] So obviously we want really great growth for all of our students.

[21:39] And so some of the things that we've thought about is why all students can't

[21:45] expect that growth. Transitioning from eighth grade to high school,

[21:51] there's a tremendous amount of academic vocabulary demand in all of their classes

[21:57] that is presented to them. So this is why we want to focus on growing academic

[22:02] vocabulary, because it is much more rigorous in high school.

[22:07] So that's something that we're looking at and planning for.

[22:09] Other factors could be involved that are non-academic factors, such as attendance,

[22:14] and our multilingual population does have a higher chronic

[22:19] absentee rate than our students at our schools.

[22:24] Another factor that could be impacting the lower than expected growth is we

[22:30] have a significant number of students who are dually identified, which means they

[22:34] are in need of language services through our EL program, and they also have an IEP.

[22:42] So we have about a quarter of our students at Deerfield that are dually identified,

[22:47] and about 45% at Highland Park.

[22:51] So in some cases, these students are showing slower growth.

[22:56] So to ensure that they receive full support, our EL department chairs will attend

[23:01] IEP meetings for students who are dually identified, so that we can ensure that

[23:06] they have the language support as well as accommodations according to their IEP.

[23:15] Okay, here's some report card data from, this is actually from '24, '25.

[23:20] This is currently on our website for our Illinois report card.

[23:25] The new report card data for last year is coming out at the end of October, so it's

[23:30] just not ready yet. But this is from '24, '25.

[23:34] So we still see some persistent gaps when we look at other areas of

[23:40] data, not just access growth. So compared to their peers, our multilingual learners

[23:45] show a lower proficiency in both ELA and math, as represented on the right-hand

[23:51] side. So it's hard to see there, and I can't even see very well.

[23:56] Here, let me look at your computer.

[24:00] Under ELA proficiency, the top line is our overall students.

[24:04] So overall,

[24:06] 75% of our students are meeting proficiency in ELA, while

[24:12] 24.7% are not. For our English learners, which is the darker green line underneath,

[24:18] we have 9.6% of our students meeting ELA, and

[24:24] 90.4% not meeting. And remember, ELA is part of the ACT

[24:30] test. So we're testing students who are not proficient in English on an English

[24:35] proficiency test. So I would say it's expected that we're not going to see the same

[24:41] level of proficiency there, but it's just something to keep in mind.

[24:45] And then for math, our overall students' proficiency on math, as represented on the

[24:51] ACT, is 75.2 with

[24:56] 24.8 not meeting math overall. And then with our English learners, it's

[25:02] 3.8

[25:04] meeting math proficiency and 96.2 not meeting math proficiency.

[25:09] So it's also very low.

[25:13] But it is growth from previous years, because I think we were at zero before

[25:17] meeting proficiency, right?

[25:20] Yeah. Just trying to match up data.

[25:22] Yeah.

[25:22] So this is ACT

[25:25] of juniors of '24, '25.

[25:29] Yes.

[25:29] So '25, '26, they'd be seniors.

[25:32] Yes.

[25:33] So they would be the 12th graders on the access.

[25:37] Correct.

[25:38] Okay.

[25:38] Correct. Yes.

[25:41] And on the left-hand side is just our graduation rates.

[25:43] I have graduation rates of our EL students, of our students

[25:49] overall in red, the state's EL population, and the state's

[25:55] overall. So our EL graduation rates are lower than the state,

[26:02] for ELs in the same population group, and they're lower than

[26:08] our overall population as well. So that's a persistent gap that we

[26:13] need to address.

[26:17] Thank you, Jayla. I should have brought my reading glasses.

[26:21] Next is our exit data. So I've

[26:25] tracked the last three years of exit criteria and the data.

[26:29] So last year, out of 194 students that took the access test, we had

[26:34] 20 that received the 4.8 or above to exit out of EL.

[26:40] So that's at a rate of 10.3.

[26:43] And something also that's listed here that I'm tracking is the number of students

[26:49] who are considered long-term ELs.

[26:52] These are students that are in an EL program for more than seven years.

[26:56] So if you look at our total access participation, 194, 132 of those students are

[27:02] long-term ELs. So, this is a persistence issue that

[27:09] many schools face, but for whatever reason, the students are not able to

[27:16] reach a score that will allow them to exit the program.

[27:21] I have a question.

[27:22] Quick question on that too. Yeah. So this when you get information from 9 and 112

[27:26] on this, right? In terms of who's-

[27:29] Which students were previous? How long have they been EL before?

[27:33] Well, this is not from their schools, this data, this is from our report card.

[27:37] But how long they've been in the program obviously carries from when they were in-

[27:42] Okay

[27:42] ... yeah, elementary school.

[27:43] Do we also get

[27:45] which students are former ELs that may have already exited the designation before

[27:50] they get to high school?

[27:51] That's a great question. So we just asked for that data this year for the first

[27:56] time. Yeah. Because I'd like to know what is

[28:01] successful that they're doing, and what can we learn from that too, and then-

[28:06] Yeah. What's the trajectory?

[28:07] Yes. Why are some students not able to do that?

[28:10] Mm-hmm.

[28:10] That's correct. Yeah. So that's definitely something that we are looking

[28:16] at. But in terms of our EL exit counts,

[28:21] the rate is increasing year to year.

[28:23] So

[28:25] that's good to see.

[28:28] So some of the things that we've done to look at ways to improve this

[28:34] is looking at the system as a whole and monitoring in progress.

[28:39] So,

[28:42] when we talk about our EL population, we talk about EL supports, and we have to

[28:48] create more of a sense of urgency because we only have four years with them.

[28:52] So it's more about accelerating their outcomes rather than supporting them with

[28:56] where they are. We really need to have those students gain more than one years

[29:02] of learning in one year. So,

[29:07] that's something that we've shifted.

[29:08] So to address that, we're more frequently monitoring the access growth, and there's

[29:15] an assessment that we're implementing this year.

[29:17] It's a check-in assessment where it's formatted the same way as the access test.

[29:23] It's through VITA, which is the organization that does the access test, and we're

[29:28] able to do some more formative assessments on the students.

[29:32] So then we don't have to wait until the access test comes out to see if they've

[29:36] improved. We can do some checkpoints along the way.

[29:39] Also, all of our students in grade 9, 10, 11 take the STAR assessments in both

[29:44] English and math

[29:47] three times a year, so we can assess their growth that way as well.

[29:52] And we also are reviewing SEL indicators and attendance indicators.

[29:58] We're using formative assessments such as Rosetta Stone for

[30:03] language learning and IXL to continuously evaluate classroom learning and implement

[30:09] immediate targeted instructional interventions in the language acquisition classes.

[30:17] Can I ask another question?

[30:18] Yeah.

[30:18] What I can't get out of my mind is the original slide with the green-

[30:23] Yeah

[30:24] ... going up, and the one dot underneath.

[30:25] Yeah.

[30:26] And then the dots also that are so close to the benchmark.

[30:29] Yes. Yes.

[30:30] What roles within our buildings are responsible for those two?

[30:35] I'm not asking for the people, but who are the staff members that are responsible

[30:40] for helping?

[30:41] So we have an EL department chair in each building.

[30:44] And the nice thing about this population, with it being so small, when I talked to

[30:50] both of them, they knew exactly who the kids were and what the situation was.

[30:54] Like, "That one student, I know exactly why he didn't score so well." So, we

[31:00] have our EL directors, and then layered on top of that is our APs of CIA.

[31:05] Mm-hmm.

[31:06] Then also they have that. And then with our dual language program at Highland Park,

[31:11] we have a group of teachers and department chairs who are really

[31:17] focusing on that program and

[31:21] the performance of students around dual language.

[31:23] So there's lots of different layers of accountability and responsibility.

[31:30] But really it's all of us that really need to focus in on that and see what we're

[31:35] doing and what we're making sure we're implementing so that they can improve.

[31:42] And we have more things planned for next year, too.

[31:47] So where we need to improve. We've identified some areas here.

[31:52] So

[31:54] as I mentioned before, academic vocabulary is a huge area and something that we

[31:58] noticed improves outcomes for EL students and

[32:05] can show up on the access test. So not only with their reading levels and

[32:11] literacy levels, but making sure that they have the academic vocabulary in

[32:17] content areas to be able to

[32:21] effectively learn in those other areas.

[32:23] So we have to make sure that we're increasing the intentional instruction around

[32:28] building that academic vocabulary, disciplinary literacy, and student discourse.

[32:32] Student discourse is another huge one where we want to see the speaking portion of

[32:38] the access test improve. And that includes not just students talking to each other,

[32:43] but using that academic vocabulary in a classroom setting

[32:49] with each other to build their vocabulary. Another area is integrated instruction.

[32:55] So we need to make sure that explicit language objectives are expected of students

[33:00] alongside their content area learning objectives.

[33:03] So not only do they have learning outcomes that need to be aligned to the

[33:09] content that they're learning, but also what language outcomes and expectations do

[33:14] we need to have for them. So for an example, in a science class, and this might be

[33:19] too elementary

[33:21] of an example, but if

[33:25] students are learning about states of matter,

[33:28] so solids, liquids, and gases, not only do they need to know that content, but how

[33:33] to maybe explain it to a friend or a peer in the classroom using that vocabulary

[33:39] that's around that. So having a language objective and a content objective I think

[33:44] would be really important.

[33:47] Targeted intervention. So right now, with the English and language

[33:52] acquisition courses, we've developed a strong core curriculum for our ESL program,

[33:57] but we also need to think about what the interventions look like for our students,

[34:02] specifically in EL. We have MTSS for

[34:07] students

[34:09] in gen ed classes. We need to further build those out for our EL students.

[34:14] A lot of it happens in the language acquisition class.

[34:18] We also have some tutoring that's available to them.

[34:21] But I think we need to think about how we can design more interventions

[34:25] specifically for our EL students.

[34:29] Center district articulation. So

[34:33] we had a lot of learning to do from our district partners about where their

[34:38] multilingual programs are and what they are doing to strengthen the curriculum.

[34:42] And we're trying to

[34:45] talk about alignments with our center districts.

[34:48] We just met with them last week, as a matter of fact, and we talked a little bit

[34:53] about the growing population of multilingual students in all of our districts and

[34:58] how

[35:01] it's just so different in each of our schools.

[35:04] Just as I gave examples of Deerfield and Highland Park's programs, they're

[35:08] experiencing similar things in the elementary and middle schools, too.

[35:11] So,

[35:13] we will have more meetings with them to articulate about what makes students

[35:18] successful in high school.

[35:21] And then finally, supporting our dually identified multilingual students.

[35:25] As I mentioned earlier, the EL department chairs will be invited to

[35:31] IEP meetings of students who are also

[35:35] developing English language.

[35:40] As far as staff development, this is an area that we also are making improvements

[35:45] in. So I would say that at both schools,

[35:51] I would think that every teacher in District 113 has either a current or former

[35:57] multilingual student in their classroom.

[35:59] So, professional learning is required for everybody.

[36:05] For all teacher professional learning, we're providing some general ed staff

[36:11] with research-backed multilingual instructional strategies.

[36:14] We did this last year with our EL department chairs, and this year we're also

[36:20] doing some more staff development in January.

[36:25] So they'll learn not only instructional strategies that work for multilingual

[36:29] learners, but

[36:31] We know that best practices work for all students. They benefit all students.

[36:35] So what's good for our MLs are good for everybody.

[36:38] So just increasing their capacity and building supports there.

[36:45] Universal design for learning and high-leverage practices is an area that

[36:51] all of us are focused on, and it applies really, really well for

[36:56] students who need multilingual support.

[36:59] We also have other tier one strategies in our strategic plan, such as restorative

[37:03] practices, high-leverage

[37:06] practices, and UDL, as I mentioned.

[37:10] For bilingual teacher support, so this is specifically for Highland Park, as part

[37:16] of being a bilingual teacher in a bilingual program, we need to offer professional

[37:21] development in Spanish language arts.

[37:23] So all of the teachers who teach in the dual language program do receive that.

[37:30] And then leadership development.

[37:31] So how do we, to your question, Anne, about who kind of oversees all

[37:37] this? Not only should our department chairs of multilingual learners

[37:44] build their capacity for leading, but all department chairs, because we all have

[37:48] these students in our departments.

[37:51] Also, with ECRA, they started an EL consortium that I

[37:56] began attending meetings for. So I think there's 168 districts

[38:02] that are part of this consortium, so they're really kind of gathering data and

[38:08] best practices from all of these districts and sharing what's working across

[38:13] different districts. So that'll be exciting to be part of.

[38:18] So what do we expect to improve after implementing these various things?

[38:24] By pairing rigorous classroom pedagogy with targeted interventions and

[38:30] systemic staff training, we can anticipate clear measurable outcomes such as

[38:34] accelerated growth on the district's literacy and math measures on the ACT and

[38:40] also on access, a steady reduction in the academic achievement gap and higher

[38:46] course completion, higher graduation rates, reduced chronic absenteeism,

[38:52] and enhanced college and career readiness across our multilingual population.

[38:58] And then finally, ISBE is providing some guidance on dual language, which is

[39:05] wonderful. They will have their finalized draft at the end of this year in

[39:10] December. They've already sent out a couple of different versions of drafts that

[39:15] I've taken a look at. But this is really to give some comprehensive guidance to

[39:20] districts that have dual language programs and how to expand them or

[39:26] strengthen them in the district.

[39:30] So it includes

[39:32] implementing high-quality implementation benchmarks, strengthening dual language

[39:37] delivery, and synthesizing the standards into our district framework.

[39:42] So I'm looking forward to that guidance.

[39:48] And that's it. Thank you for your time. Do we have any questions?

[39:52] That's all the ones that you guys have already asked. I'd be happy to answer them.

[39:55] Yep.

[39:56] I have a question.

[39:57] Okay. One of the things that stood out to me-- First of all, thank you.

[40:01] That was a wonderfully thorough overview of our EL program.

[40:06] One of the things that I'm still thinking about, though, is the number of long-term

[40:11] EL students in conjunction with the graduation rates.

[40:16] So are we going to do a deep dive into what are some of the circumstances

[40:22] surrounding those students' longevity as an ELL student, but then

[40:27] also not graduating? Why aren't they graduating?

[40:32] For sure. And I know that both schools have already started looking at that,

[40:37] but that's absolutely a priority for us because-- And I'm

[40:43] not saying that it's the long-term ELs that are not graduating.

[40:47] We have to dig a little bit deeper than that.

[40:49] I don't want to make those assumptions, but

[40:53] I think it's more about the chronic absenteeism, like why are they not coming to

[40:57] school?

[40:59] And there are many factors outside of our institution that contribute to that.

[41:05] Sure.

[41:05] So it is digging deeper into that and learning why that's happening

[41:11] and what can we do to bring them to school.

[41:14] Okay.

[41:16] I have another question, but I'll let you go.

[41:20] Can we go to slide three for a second, which has the two different program models?

[41:26] Yes.

[41:32] So when a student arrives in high school, particularly, and

[41:37] isn't EL based on their performance,

[41:43] how does it work in terms of identifying which program that they should be in?

[41:46] Is it up to the families? Up to the school to make a recommendation?

[41:49] How does that work? Whether they should be in the dual language or more traditional

[41:54] bilingual.

[41:54] Yeah. So our dual language program

[42:00] has English native speakers that are learning Spanish, but also

[42:05] Spanish native speakers that are learning English.

[42:09] So

[42:10] while it's in the dual language program, it could be a TBE type of class.

[42:16] Mm-hmm.

[42:16] So for example, we don't have dual language courses in every single subject

[42:22] in our school that are required for graduation. So an example might be geometry.

[42:30] Actually, algebra. Algebra we have as a TBE class, it's not necessarily dual

[42:35] language. So it depends on what services we're offering, but also it

[42:41] depends on the total amount of students speaking that language in the school.

[42:45] That actually is the thing that decides what program they go into.

[42:50] So for Deerfield, they can only offer TKI because they don't have 20

[42:56] students that speak the same language.

[42:58] Sure.

[42:59] So in Highland Park, we do have students that speak languages other than Spanish,

[43:04] so they would have to follow the TKI model because we don't have

[43:09] language-specific classes for students that are not Spanish speaking.

[43:16] So generally speaking, if I hear you correctly, there's a single dual language

[43:21] program that students participate in and that some of the classes they may be in

[43:27] may be traditional bilingual directed as opposed to a split of English learners and

[43:32] Spanish learners in the classroom.

[43:33] Yes.

[43:38] Okay.

[43:38] But they all get the English language class plus the language acquisition.

[43:43] That's the minimum that all-

[43:45] Sure

[43:45] ... all of our ESL students get.

[43:48] Sure.

[43:49] At both schools.

[43:52] My question was also about this slide.

[43:54] So just kind of zooming out, is the program structure, do you feel like it's

[43:59] effective as is? And then are there any elements of this that you would change

[44:04] based off of the data that you've seen?

[44:06] So at Deerfield,

[44:09] with the English language classes and language acquisition, like I said, everyone

[44:15] gets that. However, with the population being so small, we've actually had to

[44:20] combine levels to make one class. So the class that I saw actually had three

[44:25] different levels in it because each level had maybe two students, and we

[44:31] didn't offer a class with just two kids.

[44:34] So not only do they have

[44:38] different language abilities, they are all in the same class learning together.

[44:43] So that is a challenge for sure. But like I said, the teacher did amazing.

[44:48] So what would you change?

[44:51] I don't know.

[44:53] Unless you were going to have all the different levels and have one student in a

[44:58] class,

[45:02] I don't know what else you could change.

[45:03] But what we did add this year was the push-in support for content areas.

[45:08] So we didn't have that before, and we've dedicated staff to be able to push

[45:14] into a science class, a social studies class, and help the students who need

[45:20] that extra support. And that's been great.

[45:22] And next year, we hope to increase that a little bit more with more subject areas.

[45:31] With the dual language program,

[45:35] what I would do differently is ensure that we either have the

[45:41] transitional bilingual courses or dual language courses for every graduation

[45:46] environment.

[45:47] Yeah.

[45:48] That's what really it should be. We're adding a couple more classes to dual

[45:53] language for next year.

[45:56] But just making sure that the students have the support no matter what program

[46:00] they're in.

[46:02] How long would that take to be fully implemented?

[46:06] We could do it next year. The issue is finding the teachers that are bilingually

[46:11] endorsed.

[46:12] Okay. Sure.

[46:13] That's not always easy to do.

[46:15] Which is a subject.

[46:16] Yes.

[46:18] Which is something we're trying, even with the CBA-

[46:21] Mm-hmm.

[46:22] We were working to incentivize that based on our priorities.

[46:26] Yeah.

[46:28] Okay. Thank you.

[46:29] Mm-hmm. Do either of the principals have anything you want to share?

[46:34] I was just going to say similarly that I would increase our dual language bilingual

[46:38] education offerings, because we know that having literacy in both the home language

[46:43] and second language is a huge benefit.

[46:47] And so also bilingual education utilizes the home language as an asset and a

[46:52] scaffold towards proficiency in both areas.

[46:55] So that would be the gold standard that we're looking to continue to build.

[46:59] It's the idea of well-rounded students.

[47:01] Yeah.

[47:02] And I'd say Deerfield is a smaller population with a diversity of languages across

[47:07] as well, and it does create multiple levels in there.

[47:11] But at times even too, looking at maybe having multiple teachers in those spaces so

[47:15] that we can do more grouping or more work with kids who may be in the same year but

[47:19] different levels of their language proficiency.

[47:21] So continuing to be creative with that small population.

[47:23] Mm-hmm. I think one other part that I would add is that at Highland Park, Jesse

[47:28] Villanueva, who's our Department Chair of Multilingual Learners, and Jeff Hanley,

[47:32] Department Chair of World Languages, meets regularly with 112's Director of EL

[47:37] Programming because they're trying to track.

[47:40] Because District 112 is also trying to change their programming regularly to find

[47:44] out what works, what doesn't work, what does it mean for a long-term EL versus a

[47:48] newcomer, and what evidence-based programming is out there that will actually

[47:53] accelerate growth. And so that collaboration has been really important and is a

[47:58] regular foundation towards who's coming in, what's working for you all, and what

[48:04] are you changing, because sometimes we're not controlling our variables very well.

[48:07] Too many things are changing at one time.

[48:09] So 112 might not be able to pinpoint what it is that worked, and we sometimes will

[48:15] do the same thing. So we're also trying to make sure we're controlling our

[48:17] variables as we're trying to intervene on language acquisition and also home

[48:23] language literacy and SEL. So really trying to get at the root and control our

[48:28] variables so that we know this growth was accelerated due to, that way we can

[48:33] replicate it.

[48:34] And this gets to my question before about kids who have exited the EL status versus

[48:39] who are still in it. Because I think that's a big question is,

[48:43] can we look at this holistically for a child's whole journey K to 12 and say what's

[48:47] happening that some kids are coming as ELs, getting up to speed, exiting the

[48:52] status, whether it's in third grade or seventh grade or ninth grade?

[48:54] You know what I mean? What about kids who aren't? What's the story here?

[48:59] What are we doing to peak?

[49:00] Exactly.

[49:03] All right. I want to be mindful of time, so if there aren't any other questions, I

[49:07] think we should move on.

[49:09] All right, we're moving to public comment.

[49:12] Per policy 2-230, at each open school board meeting, the Board of Education has a

[49:17] public comment period for a maximum of 30 minutes.

[49:21] We are ready to listen and appreciate your comments.

[49:23] We recognize it takes time and will interpret your written statement.

[49:26] Do we have anyone? Okay. Waste of reading.

[49:34] All right, moving

[49:37] on to approval of board minutes. So Board of Education committee meeting minutes

[49:42] from April 28th, 2026. It is recommended that the committee approve the meeting

[49:48] minutes as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second?

[49:52] Sure.

[49:53] Any discussion?

[49:57] Okay, all those in favor?

[49:59] Aye.

[50:00] Opposed?

[50:02] Abstention? Motion carries. All right, now we're going to move to adjournment.

[50:07] The time is 5:59 PM. Is there a motion to adjourn?

[50:12] So moved.

[50:13] Sure.

[50:13] Thank you. All those in favor?

[50:17] Aye.

[50:18] Oh, I'm sorry.

[50:20] Opposed? All right, the motion carries. Thank you, everybody, for being here.

Education Committee Meeting 9-22-26

Transcript