Tools & Resources

CELE provides specific resources and tools for taking action, organized according to responsibilities and spheres of influence of key stakeholders within the educational system. We invite you to visit this page often as links to new tools and resources will be added weekly throughout the coming year, and to join our mailing list to be notified of updates.‍

Key Guiding Questions

These questions to be asked at every level of the system are based on the Castañeda standards, which established the mandated criteria used for education programs that serve language-minority students:  

  • Are instructional programs for ELs designed based on current research and sound educational theory?
  • Is the instructional program effectively implemented with sufficient funding, qualified teachers, high-quality curriculum, and appropriate assessments?
  • Are instructional programs evaluated and found to be effective or restructured after periodic review, to ensure the academic success of ELs?

STUDENTS

Curriculum & Instruction

  • Believe that you are smart, intelligent, thoughtful, and creative. Trust that you have power, wisdom, and knowledge to share with others.
  • Collaborate with classmates during lessons and take responsibility of your role in group work.
  • Be courageous and don’t be afraid to use your home language and practice English in school.
  • Help other classmates to learn how to use technology to engage in virtual learning.
  • Ask teachers and peers for feedback on your work. Revise your work using their advice.
  • Ask your teacher or someone you trust at your school to help you if you need resources or assistance. Tell your teachers when you are confused or when you have questions about school.
  • Pursue opportunities that help you to develop your interests and aspirations.

Partnerships with Families & Caregivers

  • Read, write and tell stories at home with your family and community in your home language and in English.
  • Communicate with your parents and caregivers about what is happening at school. Elevate any problems to your parents and caregivers.
  • Be proud of and learn to be an effective translator for your parents and for people in your community.

School Culture & Socioemotional Learning

  • Be proud of your culture, language, and the strengths you bring to your classroom.
  • Mentor and welcome other students who are new to learning English or new to the country.
  • Share stories of your life in your home country and share traditions from your culture with others in school.
  • Be self-aware of your thoughts and feelings. Communicate and connect with peers, school staff, and caregivers that you trust about challenges you are facing.

Continuous Improvement

  • Speak out when you see a problem in your school. Tell a teacher or counselor that you trust.
  • Meet with other students and teachers to learn about anti-racist actions you can take as a student.
  • Participate in youth activism and community activities to improve your school and community.

System Policies & Governance

  • Know your educational rights as a student, your civil rights as a young person, and share this knowledge with your peers.
  • Be a leader in your community and participate in school-wide decisions with your principal.

Resources

CLASSROOM

This includes direct support that students receive in school.

Curriculum & Instruction

  • Implement high-quality instruction that includes scaffolding, language and content-integrated objectives, learning activities that provide students with opportunities to use and practice the language of the discipline, and that build on each other over time.
  • Use instructional strategies that are grounded in evidence-based practices to meet the needs of linguistically and culturally diverse students.
  • Use instructional practices that integrate language and content to provide coherent and asset-based learning experiences that support student agency and independence for thinking and learning.
  • Ensure ELs have equal access to meaningful learning experiences through remote and virtual instruction during school closure.
  • Create equitable opportunities for students to learn, participate, and engage in language and content-integrated learning activities that integrate reading, writing, and oral language.
  • Utilize well-designed formative assessment processes and assessments that simultaneously provide actionable information about both content knowledge and language development and informs instruction day to day and in the moment.
  • Provide effective feedback to students on both  language and content mastery.

Partnerships with Families & Caregivers

  • Collaborate with families and caregivers as equal partners; Value and honor families’ participation in the education of their children.
  • Use consistent and effective practices for translation  to communicate with families in their preferred language and mode of communication.
  • Communicate and partner with caregivers to support socioemotional well-being of students.

School Culture & Socioemotional Learning

  • Support identity formation and sense of belonging in the classroom community that embraces linguistic and cultural diversity.
  • Develop understanding of students’ identities, motivations, culture, language, and prior experiences.
  • Acknowledge the socioemotional challenges that linguistically and culturally diverse students may face as a result of their language-minority status, educational history, family and community context, or immigration status.
  • Advocate for students to receive support that addresses well-being, trauma, and a variety of stressors related to language-minority status, racial, and socio-economic status.

Resources

SCHOOL & COMMUNITY

This includes school staff and leadership, families, and community resources.

Curriculum & Instruction

  • Communicate expectations and create systems and structures to ensure ELs have access to high-quality curriculum and a coherent learning experience that is intellectually engaging, culturally sustaining, linguistically responsive, and integrated with support for learning and linguistic difference.
  • Create structures for teachers to develop or learn how to use high-quality culturally-responsive curriculum that integrates language and content.
  • Develop shared practices for remote learning that support linguistically and culturally diverse students.
  • Ensure that ELs have access to a broad curriculum that includes academic, enrichment, advanced coursework and work-based learning opportunities.
  • Ensure equitable access to technology and Internet.
  • Ensure that teachers are implementing curriculum by focusing on acceleration, not remediation.
  • Facilitate effective collaboration between educators to ensure access to content learning, especially in ICT or Integrated ELD settings (para-professionals, ELD and content teacher, Special Education teachers, and school staff).

Partnerships with Families & Caregivers

  • Develop clear structures and mechanisms for meaningful connections between families and teachers, school leaders, parent associations, and school governance bodies.
  • School staff work with caregivers to leverage the family’s funds of knowledge to support students with learning at home.
  • Create clear structures and common practices  for communication with caregivers.
  • Invite families to participate in the life and governance of the school.
  • Outline protocols for outreach to caregivers about attendance or absenteeism.

School Culture & Socioemotional Learning

  • Create opportunities to learn for all learners, particularly  linguistically and culturally diverse students.
  • Hold all stakeholders in the school accountable to supporting linguistically and culturally diverse students.
  • School leaders and school staff develop shared community practices, norms, and rituals that create inclusion and a sense of belonging for all students, including linguistically and culturally diverse students.
  • Develop a shared understanding of anti-racist pedagogy and strategies in schools.
  • Create practices and rituals that elevate the importance of multilingualism and the cultures/histories of  linguistically and culturally diverse communities.
  • Use restorative practices for harm done in a school community.
  • Develop shared practices and responsibility for responding to students’ experience of trauma.
  • Acknowledge and provide support needed due to stressors such as taking care of younger siblings, parent unemployment, or family separation.

Continuous Improvement

  • Lead instructional initiatives that use continuous improvement principles with a focus on equity.
  • Create contexts and provide resources to support teachers in communities of practice, professional learning communities, instructional coaching, and planning teams, to engage in systematic continuous improvement.
  • Develop a language development framework which guides school-wide approaches to teaching and  learning.
  • Ensure that policies and decisions take into account students’ identities, motivations, culture, language, and prior experiences.

System Policies & Governance

  • Ensure that mandated assessments for ELs are administered appropriately.
  • Ensure that enrollment and EL identification procedures are followed and adjusted for school closure.
  • Ensure that Special Education referrals of ELs do not need to over or under-identification of ELs for disabilities Ensure that students are receiving services appropriately based on language development growth and data, including students who are reclassified.
  • Ensure continuity and coherence in instructional program for ELs.
  • Monitor attendance with transparent data systems that quickly elevate information to key stakeholders when outreach is needed.

Resources

DISTRICT

This includes school districts, local policy makers, and stakeholders who provide access to local resources.

Curriculum & Instruction

  • Ensure equitable access to technology and Internet.
  • Ensure that schools provide ELs access to a broad curriculum that includes academic, enrichment, advanced coursework and work-based learning opportunities.
  • Provide a coherent plan and guidelines for  EL services during school closure that is clear to all stakeholders  for implementing remote learning in different contexts (asynchronous/synchronous; in-person, remote, hybrid).
  • Delineate clear responsibilities of specific stakeholders to ensure access to and quality of curriculum:
  • School boards and districts
  • District curriculum leaders
  • Principals
  • Content developers
  • Develop a district language development framework which guides system-wide approaches to teaching and learning and ensures alignment of content instruction in and across grade levels.
  • Support school leaders to design asset-based and coherent learning experiences that focus on the interconnection between language and content.
  • Create criteria for effective assessment practices for schools to use with ELs (formative, summative, diagnostic, and interim) including guidelines on the use of home language assessments in instruction and guidelines for formative assessment of language development in the context of learning content.

Partnerships with Families & Caregivers

  • Support schools to improve family engagement practices and provide resources to do so.
  • Include community and parent voice in decision-making (parents/guardians, student, teachers, LEAs, SEAs, and organizations).
  • Create clear structures and common practices for communication with caregivers including translation services.
  • Invite families to participate in governance of the school district.

School Culture & Socioemotional Learning

  • Provide training to teachers and counselors to develop knowledge and tools to design instruction that ensures the socioemotional well-being of students.
  • Support school staff to become knowledgeable of common causes for depression and anxiety, particularly among undocumented students or children in mixed status households.
  • Provide resources and training to schools in culturally sustaining pedagogy and community practices.

Continuous Improvement

  • Develop and use needs assessment tools with schools to evaluate the impact of school programs and leadership practice on linguistically and culturally diverse students.
  • Support continuous improvement in schools to ensure that linguistically and culturally diverse students do not only perform better academically but also experience inclusion and socio-emotional well-being.
  • Develop clear metrics and systems for monitoring the progress of student learning and organizational development in relation to serving linguistically and culturally diverse students.
  • Support school leaders in developing leadership capacity to serve linguistically and culturally  diverse students and families.

System Policies & Governance

  • Provide guidance to schools to ensure that mandated assessments for ELLs are administered appropriately.
  • Provide guidance to schools to ensure that enrollment and EL identification procedures are followed appropriately.
  • Provide guidance to schools to ensure that Special Education referrals of ELs do not lead to the over or under-identification of ELs for disabilities.
  • Support schools in effective practices for Identification/Reclassification.
  • Support schools to understand how to meet learning standards and regulations for ELD services set by State policyGraduation and post-secondary opportunities.
  • Provide guidance to schools on how to create coherent instructional programs and schedules to ensure continuity of learning for ELs.
  • Ensure equity in funding and revise budgets to reflect the district’s priorities to support ELs.

Resources

STATE POLICY

This includes stakeholders who set policy at state education departments and collaborate with districts

Curriculum & Instruction

  • Provide guidance on how to ensure continuous growth in learning language and academic content.
  • Provide criteria for schools to  use for selecting high-quality curriculum for linguistically and culturally  diverse students.
  • Ensure that districts select curriculum for ELs that includes age- and grade-appropriate materials and content that are implemented through a teaching and learning cycle that presents high challenge and high support.
  • Articulate a clear vision and mission that communicates high challenge and high support for linguistically and culturally diverse students in the state.

Partnerships with Families & Caregivers

  • Include community and parent voice in decision-making (parents/guardians, student, teachers, LEAs, SEAs, and organizations).
  • Create clear structures and common practices  for communication with caregivers.
  • Invite parent organizations  to participate in crafting state policy.

Continuous Improvement

  • Create structures at all levels of the system for continuous improvement to support learning and the development of leadership capacity with clear guidelines for effective practices and goals and flexibility for local and school contexts.

System Policies & Governance

  • Align system policies with state laws and ensure that the needs of ELs are elevated at every level of the system.
  • Adjust state assessments framework based on impact of school closure to help districts measure language development either through a state standardized assessment or locally designed assessment.
  • Review EL identification guidelines and reclassification criteria and adjust based on impact of school closure.
  • Policy makers craft policies that serve students and families, and equitably allocate funding to states to support effective implementation of key policies.
  • Ensure equity in funding and revise budgets to reflect the state’s priorities to support ELs.

Resources

External Partners

Please review our Content Developer Call to Action.
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