Garcia explains program closure protocols and revitalization
Brenda Garcia says bilingual revitalization was created to prevent a revolving door of opening and closing programs. She says NYCPS has tight protocols before closure and has achieved net increases in bilingual programs.
Yeah, you bring up a really, really important point.
So one of the things, one of the reasons we called our efforts for over the past few years bilingual revitalization was because we needed to
take stock of what existed, how they were being supported, and making sure that we didn't have like a revolving door of programs opening and closing.
And so we invested in that.
Programs close for various reasons.
We have tight protocols in the K-12 space in which if a program is going to close, if a principal either says we don't have the certified teacher or our parents aren't interested or we don't have enough students.
They complete a protocol that's then submitted to superintendent and L director for review and sign off.
And ultimately, it comes to the Office of Multilingual Learners.
We do everything to try to save a program before closing it.
Like, really.
Do you have a sense of how many you've had to close?
We have annual data.
I don't have it right now, but we can get it for you.
What I can say is that over the past few years, because of bilingual revitalization, we've been able to have net increases in programs.
Because there was a time where we were opening up new programs, but programs were maybe closing as well.
But now we're at a place where we're...
having a net increase.
So programs are being sustained, the existing ones, because we've been able to amp up the professional learning.
We've been able to ensure that if a teacher resigns, retires, that we have a pipeline and we're connecting principals with the right resources to get the teacher.
And at the Office of Multilingual Learners, we've been really
ramping up our efforts to increase access to home language arts materials, which is really critical to be able to develop, to deliver high quality instructional instruction.
And so now I can say that we're moving from
bilingual revitalization efforts to boldly reimagining multilingual education because we're at a place where we are increasing programs and we have the mechanisms in place to really support schools and being able to sustain.