Reply to ESOL in MCPS ( Elementary level)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]ESOL teacher in another district in MD. There is no way I would test a student who doesn't appear on my To Be Tested. When any other language other than English is inputted by the secretary from the home language survey, that student's name appears on the list. If they didn't put any other language other than English, I would never see their name on the list. My own child has a Hispanic last name but his name would never appear on our district's To Be Tested list because I only marked English on the home language survey.[/quote]

Unfortunately, at least at some MCPS schools, there is no safeguard like that.  I have received ESOL students who transferred to my school and spoken with parents who didn't know why they were getting ESOL.  When we backtracked through paperwork, we found that even with English listed, the student was still tested, and some other issue (even just shyness) caused them to "qualify" based on the assessment.  It's been a very rare occurrence, but it has happened, which is why I brought it up to OP.  Like I said, it would never happen in my school, or most others so long as teachers are ethical, but it does happen.  People make assumptions and think they're just saving time.[/quote]

I’m an MCPS ESOL teacher and have never experienced this. We go through files very carefully and make copies of the home language survey (it used to be a separate document and now it’s included on the student information sheet every family fills out for enrollment). Then we print out class lists and mark each student who needs to be entry tested based solely on the HLS responses. We check and recheck. I can’t imagine what other corners are being cut in schools that “test first and apologize later”. They should be penalized for doing so.

We always have the document signed by the parent to back up why we tested their child. We have had some parents who get mad when they receive the Parent Notification Letter (PNL) and raise hell and cry profiling but their tune changes when we produce the document that they completed with languages other than English written and signed by the parent. It states directly on the Home Language Survey that two or more responses with languages other than English means that their child will be assessed to see if they qualify for ESOL services. Unfortunately a lot of people don’t actually read documents that they sign. I can’t even imagine testing a child based on anything other than the responses on the HLS. [/quote]

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