Multilingual team newsletter #8

• March 11: No school- teacher in service
• PLCs: We will not have our scheduled ML PLCs due to PD on Monday and Thursday session. Please use this time to finalize Forward accommodations for your students with your ML team. Let me know if you'd like to meet so we can look at accommodations together. We will meet again in April.
• March 14: Summit K12 training (Board room at CO) 2:30-5:30- Food and fun will be provided :)
• March 18: School board meeting
• March 18-22 Melania out
• March 25-April 1: No school- Spring break

International Children's Day

Save the date for International Children's day! It will take place on April 27 from 12:00pm to 4:00pm. Let's make this day unforgettable for our children! We invite you to join us and be part of the fun. We will have engaging activities, performances, and overall a great time!

Multicultural Heritage Showcase

This is our second year hosting our Multicultural Heritage Showcase, an event celebrating the rich tapestry of cultures within our district. It's a fantastic opportunity for our community to unite, learn, and appreciate the diverse backgrounds that make us unique. This is a reminder to reach out to our students, families, staff, and community members to join us and actively participate in this celebration of diversity. Now more than ever, we can come together to showcase our heritage, learn from one another, and strengthen the bonds that unite us as a community. Reach out to the teachers, students and families to encourage them to participate! Deadline to sign up is coming up!

May 11, Whitewater High School at 4:00pm

Reading Growth

Let's celebrate the remarkable progress of our multilingual students in reading! During our next Elementary PLC, we will dig into our ML reading data and celebrate the growth of our students, identify common strengths and areas of improvement across different groups of students.

Forward accommodations

A couple of changes have been made to our Forward for MLs district guidance. Please review those changes and add the accommodations the multilingual students in your building in the document created by Angel. Check out some of the accommodations in Forward exam practice test. Angel is hoping to have accommodations added soon as some students will begin testing before Spring break. If you work with a student receiving both multilingual and special education services, please collaborate with the special education teacher as well.

All test administrators will need to complete the 2024 Forward Exam test administrator training. You will be completing those with your principals/coaches.

Summer School

Our district's summer school program promises an enriching and exciting experience for all students. From engaging academic courses to fun-filled recreational activities, there's something for everyone to enjoy and learn. Encourage your students to participate in this opportunity to grow and have fun with friends. Course details will be coming out soon. A few changes this year:

- 5 week summer school session with four of the weeks being Mon-Thur and the 4th of July week being Mon-Wed. Session 1 will run June 17-July 3 with session 2 running July 8-18.

-We are going with two separate lunch periods. We'll have the older kids go through first while the younger students are still in class.

-ML program will be embedded in the regular summer school program to follow our inclusive model. This summer we will offer targeted ML courses during the 4 period day along with adding co-taught classes for inclusive classrooms.

-All classes will take place between 8:00-12:15pm.

If you are interested in being part of the Summer school team, please reach out to Justin Crandall or Nate Oshaughnessy.

Summit K12

A huge thanks to Angel and Ashley for their support in setting up Summit K12 for our district. All the students you selected to pilot this online program with are enrolled into their classes and the teachers are set up with all grade levels in their buildings. Please make sure that you arrive on time on to our Summit K12 training on March 14 at CO. This will start at 2:30. Middle school teachers, you are invited to join us in case this is something you want to use in the future. For all other teachers, I have also emailed your principals to inform them about this PD.

From Ashley:

Each class will have a staff member in parenthesis under the class name and grade level. That is the default teacher to that class, but all teachers have access and can assign material inside of that class. So for example, the Lincoln KG class is defaulted to Deanna but all teachers have access. So Natalie Sterling's class list will show Deanna under the grade level but she has full access to the class. To login, staff and students will login to Clever and then click on the Summit K12 app. I would highly suggest favoriting it by clicking the heart (it adds it to the top of your page). It will automatically log you into your account and then you are set!

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.

-Nelson Mandela

Share your story!

It would be great to see your story shared on the district's Facebook page!

Click on this link and share what makes WUSD a special place to work and learn.

English and technology classes

Our Community ESL Program of Whitewater continues to run on the following days and times:

-Monday, Wednesday, Friday 6:30-8:30pm

-Tuesday, Thursday 10:00am-12:00pm

-Fridays: technology classes 6:00-7:00pm

Parent communication through WUSD/Rooms

Let's make is a goal to post in your Rooms class. Families love getting information, pictures and resources. Please send families to the Central Office when they need support using the app. John is working with the app developers to continue to make this process easier for families, and we can support that by posting and making families WANT to have this app for the information we share.

Here are some resources to explore to continue to develop ourselves as a multilingual team:

-I highly recommend watching this panel on the Science of reading and emergent bilinguals. Great reminders!

-Fostering bilingualism when you are monolingual- podcast

-Wisconsin ACT 20 FAQ

-Check out Ellevation's EL community site for free professional development options for Multilingual teachers.

-Interested in self paced workshops to continue to enhance your multilingual teacher skills? Check out the WIDA self paced workshop offerings. For those new to us, WIDA provides language development resources to support the academic success of ML learners.

-When in doubt, the EL Policy Handbook that can be a great tool to inform ourselves about the requirements for identifying, supporting, and reclassifying ML learners.