Riley asks about bilingual early childhood educator workforce

Chair, may I ask a few more?

Thank you.

I just wanted to go into workforce, if that's possible.

So we all know that educators are needed within these specific departments so they can help educate our children.

How many early childhood educators in the DOE and contracted programs are qualified to teach in or support each language used by enrolled children?

Okay, so in terms of just multilingual learners, again, in the Division of Early Childhood Education, all of our teachers are equipped to support multilingual learners because all of our kids are emerging language learners.

But specifically for dual language, we have 108.

Teachers who are certified, right?

And they are lead teachers in classrooms across our city.

So 108 3K and pre-K dual language licensed teachers.

with the birth to two certificate or they're on a pathway and very close to receiving the birth to two certification.

Okay.

And lastly, you said everyone's equipped.

So can you just explain that a little bit more?

Is there professional development?

Is there compensation for educators if they want to get a little bit more training?

Can you just explain that a little bit more?

Absolutely.

So in early childhood education, we have a robust ecosystem of support, specifically in learning and partnerships.

That's one of the verticals, as well as capacity building and family engagement.

We have what we call instructional coordinators, and they're actual coaches that go into programs, and they work with teachers side by side.

So they're able to provide them specific feedback on the spot that they can utilize today, not next week, but actually today.

And they're providing supports around literacy, but also around, you know, really utilizing the home language and how to have that come alive in the classroom on a day-to-day basis.

We also have social workers who go into programs.

Again, our staff, they are field-based.

And they support the social-emotional learning aspect and help teachers to ensure that they're tapping into, you know, culturally and linguistic approaches each and every day in the classroom.

We even have what we call inclusion specialists.

And their job is on top of the layers of support that I just named.

If we have programs where individuals are saying, I need a little bit more support, they are certified teachers who are certified

in special education or bilingual education, and they go in to ensure that there are inclusive practices so that everyone, when we say all, we mean all, will have access to the curriculum, have access to a learning environment.

Across our programs.

And of course we have PL, we offer ongoing professional learning in person, we offer some sessions hybrid,

some sessions online, but what I'm most proud of is really that job embedded, that on the ground support where you can get feedback automatically and improve your practice the very next day.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Sorry, I was just going to add another piece to the requirement of professional learning specific to multilingual learners.

So New York State Ed requires 15% of all the continuing teacher and leader professional learning to be focused on multilingual learners for any teacher or leader to maintain their certification.

So that's one way in which we ensure every person who is certified to teach in the system has at least 15% of their PL going to that.

And then any teacher who's either English as a new language or bilingual certified, they're required 50% of that CTLE to be specific to multilingual learners.

So that's.

just another way for us to ensure that teachers are supported to support our really diverse, linguistically and culturally diverse populations.

Thank you.

Thank you.