English Learner Programs
District 15 welcomes and supports families from 85+ diverse language backgrounds. As required by the State of Illinois, District 15 provides programs to meet the linguistic and academic needs of students who meet the State’s criteria for ESL and/or bilingual services. These services are designed to accelerate English language acquisition and to leverage each child’s native language skills and home culture to help access grade level content and ensure academic growth.
Qualifying for EL Services
The Home Language Survey is required as part of the school registration process. If a language other than English is spoken by a child or is spoken in the home and is indicated by parents/guardians on the Home Language Survey, District 15 is obligated to screen the child for English language proficiency.
The Illinois School Board of Education (ISBE) prescribes the assessment instrument and the qualifying scores for eligibility for services. For students entering kindergarten and the first semester of first grade, the WIDA (Measure of Developing English Language) Screener for Kindergarten assessment is administered. For students entering the second semester of Grades 1-8, the WIDA Screener is given.
Currently, the District’s top languages are Spanish, Polish, Ukrainian, Japanese, Telugu, and Russian. Per state regulations, if an attendance center has 20 or more students who qualify for EL services and speak the same language, a district is mandated to establish a Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) program for those students. Further assessment determines what those services may look like in a district. Currently, D15 offers bilingual programs in accordance with state mandates in Spanish, Ukrainian, Japanese, Russian, Telugu, Tamil, Bulgarian, and Korean.
District 15 services include Transitional Bilingual Education, Spanish Two-Way Dual Language, and Transitional Program of Instruction.
Spanish Dual Language (One-Way)
For our Spanish speaking ELs, we use the dual language one-way model following the Literacy Squared (Escamilla et al., 2014) framework. Dual language one-way serves ELs from the same language background with the goal of bilingualism and biliteracy. Within this framework, English Language Development (ELD):
- begins in Kindergarten with 45 minutes of ELD daily (80/20),
- increases to 60 minutes for Grades 1 and 2,
- 90 minutes of ELD in Grade 3, and
- 2 hours of English Language Arts (ELA) in Grades 4-6 with Science and Social Studies taught in Spanish.
- Students from the dual language one-way dual program enter our Spanish for Native Speakers class for Grades 7 and 8.
Because the enrollment for the other mandated bilingual programs is limited at each grade level, the district implements a TBE program using the collaboration model and uses co-teaching or small group pull-out instruction with native language support as needed.
Transitional Program of Instruction
When there are less than 20 students who qualify for the EL program who speak the same language in one attendance center, the district implements a Transitional Program of Instruction (TPI) in English using the collaboration model in accordance with ISBE regulations. Core academic subjects are taught in English with non-EL students. Services are provided using specific strategies for ELs in a co-teaching or pull-out model.
Spanish Dual Language (Two-Way)
District 15’s Spanish Dual Language program is a two-way language immersion where students are taught literacy and curriculum in both Spanish and English beginning in kindergarten. The two-way dual program consists of native speaking Spanish students and students who speak English or another language in the home. The two-way dual program begins in kindergarten with 80% of instruction in Spanish and 20% in English. Each year, Spanish instruction decreases by 10% and English instruction increases by 10% until Grade 3 when each language is taught 50% of the day. This model continues until Grade 6. The program is available to incoming Kindergarten students and is housed at Jane Addams and Winston Campus Elementary Schools.
The goal of the Dual Language program is to develop bilingualism, biliteracy, academic achievement, and cross-cultural competencies for students.
Students whose home school is Jane Addams or Winston Campus Elementary School (Spanish Dual Language host sites) will be given preference into the program.
For more information, please visit Second Language Services / Two-Way (Spanish) Dual Language Program (www.ccsd15.net/SDL).
The Multilingual Department is focused on districtwide efforts to accelerate and celebrate academic language acquisition for our English learners and share the impact of their efforts on student growth.
