District shows how it’s done

Michael Miller

Four Newport-Mesa elementary schools received a visit Tuesday from

state Department of Education officials, who came to observe the

schools’ English Language Development programs in action.

A team of three state administrators visited Wilson, Whittier,

Sonora and Davis Elementary schools, all of which have a lot of

English-learner students. The state has visited Newport-Mesa schools

in the past to run compliance reviews on the English language

programs, but Tuesday’s trip was an honor more than an evaluation.

“The reason we went to Newport-Mesa is that the Department of

Education administrative staff had expressed interest in seeing ELD

effectively done, and Newport-Mesa is one of the districts we’ve been

working with,” said Lauri Burnham, manager of the state English

Learner Accountability Unit. “I knew from my staff’s knowledge that

that’s one of the places where they were doing a really good job.”

Burnham, along with school and district accountability division

director Camille Maben and general counsel Marsha Bedwell, visited

the four campuses and observed teachers conducting English lessons

with students in different grade levels. At Sonora, the team watched

Susie Farnsworth lead a science lesson on animal habitats in her

combined second- and third-grade class.

“It was a wonderful feeling to see them so pleased at what we’re

doing,” said Sonora Principal Christine Anderson.

English Language Development programs in California service

non-English speaking students on five different levels, from

beginning to advanced. The earliest units involve basic exercises

such as greetings and days of the week. By the end of the program,

students do sophisticated reading, writing and paper comprehension

exercises.

Each English-learner student takes the California English Language

Development test every year to determine his or her progress. When

students score high enough, the school graduates or “reclassifies”

them out of the program. This year, according to English-learner

programs director Karen Kendall, Newport-Mesa reclassified 369

students, 60% more than the previous year.

“This was an opportunity for everyone to shine, so we were happy

to have them here,” Kendall said of the state visit.

She noted that while 88% of Newport-Mesa’s English-learner

students were Latino, the district also served natives of Turkey,

Russia, Vietnam, Korea, China, the Philippines and other countries.

“We’re getting more and more language groups as the world becomes

smaller,” she said.