Portland Public Schools is pushing to expand multilingual learning in response to a growing number of students who are not native English speakers. At a meeting Tuesday night, the school board passed a resolution calling for all teachers in the district to attain some level of multilingual learning certification over the next several years.
The district has enrolled more than 950 new students since the start of the school year, including those with “intensive language needs”.
Districtwide, 32% of students are multilingual learners, according to the school board.
In an effort to support them, the board’s resolution directs the superintendent to create a plan to help all teachers in the district get some form of certification in the teaching of English for speakers of other languages, or ESOL.
Board vice chair Micky Bondo said it would have a positive impact on students, by "moving teachers, you know, to be leading different structures with all different languages in the classroom. So it’s going to be really a game changer for our English [learners]."
Interim co-superintendent Malea Nalli said gathering input from teachers will be crucial.
"To make sure it's successful and not something that just feels like the board decided to do this, and now it's a burden," she said. "It's ultimately going to be successful if it's felt as a value proposition for our teachers in particular."
The resolution does not set a specific timeline for training all teachers in the district, but calls for achieving “substantial progress within four years."
