From Lee Chamberlain:
An Honest Conversation?
I began speaking to the CUSD School Board about English Language Learner programs and our ELL performance in 2010 after I learned we missed AMAO targets for two years in a row. When Superintendent Adams recently announced we missed AMAOs targets for a third consecutive year, I requested from the Board a more comprehensive presentation on ELL. There was no interest. I then met with the Superintendent, contacted the California Department of Education, ELL advocacy groups and other area schools to better understand ELL issues. I addressed the Board at the next meeting and requested a parent committee. There was no reply. I followed up with an email that included lists of schools with benchmark EL Master Plans, an offer to help find parents to serve on the required parent committee and provided contacts at the California Department of Education and ELL advocacy groups that could help improve our district. There was no reply to the email. Thirty days later, I submitted a Viewpoint article that called for an honest conversation about our ELL program. Finally, there was a reply.
Superintendent Adams might have simply responded to my Viewpoint article on the ELL Program by acknowledging there is always room for improvement and by eagerly creating the legally required parent committee that normally participates in the English Language Master Plan. Instead Adams chose to distort my statements in an attempt to discredit me personally to his staff in staff meetings. Adam’s Viewpoint rebuttal is so cluttered with misstatements that I choose not to respond to it. His wife, not to be outdone, launched a lengthy libelous email to half of Cambria including teachers and staff that disparages parents and cautions against associating with the PTA, Site Council and Boosters. Adam’s email was later published countywide in CalCoastnews.com and the report included new information that alleges Mr. Pedro Garcia’s editorial with a glowing review of the Superintendent and supporting the ELL program may have been faxed from the Adam’s fax machine. This bizarre sequence of events was not the reply I was hoping for when I called for an honest conversation about our ELL program.
Superintendent Adams has speculated that my intent is “to harm our staff, school board and students. Trustee Clegg has speculated that I am attempting “to disparage the good works of this school district’s administration, teachers and the parents of our kids.” Let me be clear on my intent: (1) increased awareness of the ELL student needs, (2) consistent achievement of the target AMAO test scores, (3) advanced proficiency for ELL kids in the prescribed time frame, (4) a ELL parent committee formed that works on a EL Master Plan with the Administration and reports directly to the Board and (5) a Board approved EL Master Plan that is on par with the best ELL programs in the California. These are not unreasonable expectations and they in no way take from any present success in the ELL program or any of the district’s other unrelated initiatives.
We can disagree without being disagreeable so let’s begin with some safe assumptions. Everyone cares about our schools our kids and their success. Everyone agrees there has been significant change in our student ELL population. Everyone can agree there is a continual need for ELL resource assessment. After witnessing the response to a parent who asks a question, perhaps everyone will soon agree that parent committees that report directly to the Board might be a worthwhile addition to the Boardroom. To form DELAC and ELAC committees would not only comply with ed code it would be consistent with every other school district with an ELL population. I may not be as well versed in the fairy tales Mr. Adams tells in The Cambrian but he can believe this much; if we fail to listen to the parents of the community; the sky is not falling on CUSD, it has fallen.
The AMAO and CELDT data sources reference in my recent editorial (included below) are available on the California Department of Education website. Readers are encouraged to fact check ELL related data for themselves using the links to the data has been posted or by doing a Google search.
Lee Chamberlain,
Cambrian Parent
Lee Chamberlain’s letter to the Cambrian newspaper:
Good Fences make Bad Neighborhoods
In the last School Board meeting Trustee Del Clegg postulated, “our (Hispanic) population went down when the fence went up.” Clegg was referring to the border fence that separates the United States from Mexico. Comments like Clegg’s divide our community far more than a border fence ever will and I regret the other Trustees and Administration did not correct him upon hearing it.
Clegg may have observed the aggregate student population decline, but I sincerely doubt border fences are the cause. Declining enrollment comes from the recession and loss of jobs, parents sending their kids to private schools, intra-district transfers and Cayucos parents choosing Morro Bay High School and Mission Prep over Coast Union. According to the District office, the percentage of English Language Learners (ELL) to overall student population in our District has actually grown from 36% to 48% in just the last three years.
The District has just touted the improvements in API test scores, but dig a little deeper and you’ll see the ELL kids English advanced proficiency in the aggregate is only 13% and, in the high school, 85% cannot claim advanced proficiency on the CELDT test. We do not have a migrant population, so many of these ELL students have been part of our school system for far longer than the six years it generally takes to achieve language proficiency. Without English proficiency further educational opportunities area limited.We need an honest conversation about our ELL student subgroup performance. Our district has for three years failed to achieve all AMAO targets required under No Child Left Behind and Title III. These targets assure a student is progressing in achieving English language proficiency. Our Board failed to adopt the 2010 Master Plan for Services to English Learners and it exists as a “draft”. Our Board does not have a standing parent advisory committee required under Ed Code 52176.
ELL parents must question our resource allocation and District focus on this student population. The Master Plan for Services assures the parents are involved in developing the right resources at the right time in the right place. The advisory committees are the vehicle for them to advocate for the rights of their kids. If the ELL parents do not advocate for their kids, who will?
