Question: how exactly does it work at Whittier re bilingual experience? That's great if true.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wells Middle School is fully co-teaching for core content areas. It's two full teachers, and usually one of the two has ML or SpEd certification. One of our teachers recently testified to the SBOE about how much better the educator experience is in a co-teaching model. At its most basic, she can go to the bathroom when she needs to. They also feel more supported and more likely to stay at the school.

From my kid's perspective, it works great because sometimes he clicks with one teacher and not with another. If it was just the latter teacher in the room, the class could be a wash for the whole year.

A Wells teacher was on one of committee hears a month or so ago and talked about how much she loved it and how it helped avoid burnout.

Whittier has assistant teachers but they are very hands on and can take the lead if a teacher is out. All the second teachers we've had have been great and a couple have been bilingual.

Agree that Whittier has done a great job of intentionally hiring bilingual aides/support teachers both for the multilingual students as well as for the English-dominant ones whose families want more of a bilingual experience.

Anonymous wrote:how do schools afford this? are class sizes huge?

As a Wells LSAT member...our school is about 1/3 multilingual so we get budgeted for a lot of ML teachers. You can look up our budget on dcpsbudget.com to see how it's allocated. Those teachers are in the classroom all day, with 1-2 resource teachers who do push-in, pull-out. Where kids are in Gen Ed but have an IEP/504 and need dedicated hours, some of that is covered by the certified teacher and some is via a resource teacher. We also have a full suite of staff for our self-contained classrooms.

Classes for core content are 30-35 kids; since there are two teachers in the room they can split them up as needed. For ELA and Math, Wells also has a second course for intervention/enrichment for math and reading, which are taught by a single teacher but the kids are grouped by ability. For example, on A days you're in ELA and Math classes with 30-35 kids and two teachers, and on B days you're in Reading and Math with 15-17 kids and one teacher, focused on skills at your level. One exception is Algebra, which meets every day, with two teachers.

how do schools afford this? are class sizes huge?

Shepherd has this starting in first grade

Anonymous wrote:Wells Middle School is fully co-teaching for core content areas. It's two full teachers, and usually one of the two has ML or SpEd certification. One of our teachers recently testified to the SBOE about how much better the educator experience is in a co-teaching model. At its most basic, she can go to the bathroom when she needs to. They also feel more supported and more likely to stay at the school.

From my kid's perspective, it works great because sometimes he clicks with one teacher and not with another. If it was just the latter teacher in the room, the class could be a wash for the whole year.

A Wells teacher was on one of committee hears a month or so ago and talked about how much she loved it and how it helped avoid burnout.

Whittier has assistant teachers but they are very hands on and can take the lead if a teacher is out. All the second teachers we've had have been great and a couple have been bilingual.

Brightwood Elementary has two teachers in every class: one ESL teacher and one general education teacher.

DC Bilingual has co-teachers for prek-2nd.

Awesome to hear about Wells.

Mann

Wells Middle School is fully co-teaching for core content areas. It's two full teachers, and usually one of the two has ML or SpEd certification. One of our teachers recently testified to the SBOE about how much better the educator experience is in a co-teaching model. At its most basic, she can go to the bathroom when she needs to. They also feel more supported and more likely to stay at the school.

From my kid's perspective, it works great because sometimes he clicks with one teacher and not with another. If it was just the latter teacher in the room, the class could be a wash for the whole year.

Inspired Teaching

Ohh I mean two full teachers or one assistant - this is for 1st grade by the way. Not referring to a dedicated or classroom aide.

What do you mean? One lead teacher and one assistant teacher? Two teachers who switch classes halfway through the day?

What schools and charter elementaries have a co teaching model? Is there an easy way to research this? We are located in Ward 4 so ideally schools in upper nw/ne are of interest