October 28, 2010

Important TWI Update and How You Can Help

Dear TWI Supporters,

Last week we met with Superintendent Huyett and other District officials (Neil Smith,
Cristina Faulkner and Heather Tugwell.) A lot came from that meeting, and from other
work these past few months, and we are hoping to tap into all that parent energy for
supporting the TWI program. This is a long email but if you want to know how you can
help keep TWI strong in Berkeley, please read to the end!

Meeting with the Superintendent

Our goals for the meeting were to begin building a good working relationship with BUSD
administrators and obtain district level support for the TWI program. Specifically, we
asked the Superintendent to designate a point person for TWI issues and create a district
committee to address TWI issues. These are relatively small goals, but we felt that with
these things in place, we would begin to work with the district to solve the many
challenges that are facing the TWI program.

Overall, the meeting was productive. The Superintendent is genuinely supportive of the
TWI program, and he and his team are interested in collaborating with parents to keep
TWI strong. It is also clear that resources at the district level are thin. Therefore, we
were less successful in terms of clearly getting a dedicated point person and a District-
wide TWI committee.

Point Person
We learned that there is a point person for TWI issues, Heather Tugwell. What was
clear, however, was that she, as the sole English Learner (EL) District Coach K-12,
already has an overfull plate. (There is much to be done district-wide to improve English
Language Development, and Heather just started in this job.) So while Heather is clearly
supportive of TWI, it’s hard to imagine that she will be able to address the myriad of
issues brought up at the June 14 TWI meeting at Rosa Parks. We are still left wondering
who at the District level could solve everyday problems with TWI programmatic
implementation and to whom parents could direct questions and concerns.

District TWI Committee

Instead of forming a new District-wide TWI committee, the Superintendent suggested
the formation of a new subcommittee of the District English Learner Advisory
Committee (DELAC), which is a formal committee mandated by the state of California,
meant to address the needs of students whose native language is other than English. It
was acknowledged at the meeting that DELAC was not a perfect match for TWI issues,
but the District officials felt that DELAC could appropriately work with TWI needs, and
were unenthusiastic about creating a separate stand-alone committee, due to time
commitments. We agreed to start with DELAC, as it was an existing District-sanctioned
committee, although we believe DELAC already has a full plate of EL issues, which we
do not wish to dilute. So although there are many issues in common between TWI and
DELAC, this may not be the best fit.

So, where does that leave us? We believe our best bet is to step up and support the
district, so the district can better support the bilingualism of our kids. BUSD wants to
work with parents to build support for the TWI program and to educate parents about the
benefits of TWI.

Spanish-Speaking or English-Speaking: We’re all in this Together

As parents have recognized, and as we stressed during our meeting with the
Superintendent and his team last week, there is very little information about TWI that the
district provides families. Most English speaking parents hear about TWI through word-
of-mouth, and it has become wildly popular in the English speaking community. It’s not
a hard sell in English-speaking communities, and many native English speaking parents
feel their kids have little to lose. Native Spanish-speaking families have more on the line.
For their kids to get a piece of the American dream, they have to learn English well. And
the common wisdom is “the more English the better.” (This is widespread common
wisdom, and part of the impetus for the passing of Prop 229, the anti-bilingualism bill
from the 90s, which effectively got rid of most bilingual programs in California.) It is a
common myth, then, that English Only programs are more successful at teaching English
to Native Spanish-speaking students than bilingual programs like TWI. There is also a
concern among some in the Latino community that TWI benefits English-speaking kids
but not Spanish-speaking kids. TWI was started in BUSD, however, specifically as a
means to improve the achievement and drop-out rate for Latino students, because of its
proven record nationwide raising achievement levels for Spanish-speaking students,
including literacy in English. This narrative has not been passed on, and it needs to be, if
we are to keep the TWI program going strong in BUSD.

Where You Come In

There are five key areas that we need energetic parent (and teacher!) support for in the
immediate short term. For more information, please see the flyer “Five Areas Where
We Need Support for TWI” and contact BerkeleyTWI@gmail.com

Paz Meléndez-Canales, Le Conte Parent, paz@haas.berkeley.edu

Vylma Ortiz, Cragmont Parent
Colleen Broderick, Rosa Parks Parent
Ty Alper, Rosa Parks Parent, talper@law.berkeley.edu
 Five Areas Where We Need
Help for TWI
  There are five key areas that we need
energetic parent (and teacher!) support for in
the immediate short term.

1. Plan for and attend the November 9

DELAC meeting. They have put TWI on the
agenda for 20 minutes. This is an opportunity
to present to DELAC on the challenges facing
the TWI program, and to implement the
creation of a DELAC subcommittee (as the
Superintendent suggested) that can work to address these challenges. The DELAC
meetings are conducted in Spanish, and it is very important to get a few Latino
parents to plan for and attend this meeting.

2. Plan the Next TWI "Town Hall" Meeting.

Let’s build on the enthusiasm and energy generated at June 14 Rosa Parks meeting.
There are many issues to discuss and explore in more depth, including planning for
longer-term development of the TWI program. Wanted: a group of parents to
organize and plan the next “Town Hall” meeting.

3. Plan and implement a TWI booth at the Kindergarten Fair. The fair will be
held at Le Conte, on Saturday, December 4, from 10 – 1. The idea is to design a
booth focused on sharing information about the program with Spanish-speaking
families. While information should be available in both English and Spanish, we
are hoping that the booth can be staffed primarily by Latino parents, who will be
available to share their experiences with the TWI program with Spanish-speaking
families attending the fair. Wanted: parents to take charge of planning this booth.

4. Plan an informational forum about TWI for parents of incoming students.

One idea we have that came out of the June meeting at Rosa Parks was to have a
panel of native Spanish-speaking TWI graduates - kids at Longfellow and BHS -
who can talk about their experiences in the program. We think this could be a
powerful way for Latino parents to hear directly from native Spanish-speaking kids
about how well the program has worked for them. Possible time frame: December
or January. Wanted: parents to organize and implement this forum.

5. Attend Berkeley School Board Meetings.

We think it would be helpful to keep TWI issues on the District’s radar screen,
including at School Board meetings. We’d like to have 1 or 2 people at each
Board meeting, to bring up TWI issues during the “Public Comment” portion of
the meetings. Wanted: a volunteer to organize our presence at school board
meetings.

HOW YOU CAN HELP: Please email berkeleytwi@gmail.com TODAY and

indicate your willingness to assist in one or more of these five areas listed above.
If you are willing to help take the lead (you don't have to do it by yourself) on any
of these projects, please indicate that as well. If we don't get enough volunteers,
we just can't do these things. In these tough budget times, only those programs that
are effective in serving students AND have strong parental support will survive
and thrive. So please volunteer and do what you can to ensure that the TWI
program in Berkeley continues to flourish!