Gutiérrez questions timing of kindergarten language identification

Okay.

Is that communicated to the families any sooner?

It's communicated once the orientation happens.

So it's the first 10 days of school generally.

Okay.

That's a little tough.

It's a little, I mean.

The idea that like parents are engaging with like that school leadership team well before orientation is ideal.

But I feel like there are scenarios where parents kind of walk into this and not realize that until once they've already made arrangements for like their kid to go to that school.

Well, what's distinct for the pre-K students is that a school can start the identification process on June 1st of the year before.

So if a parent comes in and they register, they can start that orientation process.

How will they know to do that?

It automatically happens.

Like all K-12 schools are trained to administer the home language identification survey to begin with.

And then if, you know, a home language other than English is reported, then they administer the NICETEL.

And then automatically from there, they get the orientation.

Shannon can choose.

I see.

Okay.

And do you have a way of checking in with individual schools and school districts to make sure that that is happening as early as June?

Yeah, we have many ways.

So we do announce that in our P weekly, which is the weekly email that goes to all principals when that window is open so they can begin identification.

And then we have systems and processes in place.

So every school has a CEP, right, comprehensive education plan.

Within that plan, there's a language allocation policy.

And there we request for schools to have a plan on how they're going to ensure the identification of students, including students who are coming from pre-K and entering kindergarten beginning June 1st.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

I'm going to pass it to Councilmember Brew for her questions.