Dese to Conduct English Learner Education Review of Revere Public Schools

Next week the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE’s) Office of Language Acquisition will conduct a Tiered Focused Monitoring Review of Revere Public School’s (RPS) ELE (English Lerner Education) program.

According to RPS Superintendent Dr. Dianne Kelly the Office of Language Acquisition reviews each district’s and charter school’s ELE program every six years to monitor compliance with federal and state English learner education laws and regulations.

“We know that there’s some areas that we need to improve in, and we look forward to DESE highlighting those for  us and really focusing our work around what they see as areas of need,” said Kelly.

RPS has been proactive ahead of this upcoming review and recently hired a new Director of ELE, Jennifer LaBollitawho has focused on ELE students with interrupted formal education.

“She’s really been working to make sure we have full programming for ELE students with limited or interrupted formal education. These are our students that came here from other countries where they were not in a formal education setting on a regular basis–particularly kids who came from countries where there were civil wars going on or places where they weren’t able to access education easily.”

At RPS, 24.6% of students are English language learners compared to the public school statewide average of only 11%.

“So if we go back to 2016 only 16% of our students were English language learners,” said Kelly. “So that’s just six years ago and it has increased almost 33%.”

Kelly added that LaBollita has done a great job preparing for this upcoming review by DESE.

“She had to send a bunch of information to them already so the process really started last summer and they will review our program of studies, our students reports, they will look at our programs and how they set up, the level of inclusion or exclusion that students have for their learning and our staffing levels as well as communication with families. Basically they will rate us on all of those areas and identify where we need to improve our practices.”

In addition to the onsite visit, parent outreach is an important part of the review process. The review chairperson from the Office of Language Acquisition will send a survey to the parents of students whose records the review team examines. The survey focuses on key areas of their child’s English learner education program. Survey results will contribute to the monitoring report. Parents and other individuals may call Samantha Kodak, Office of Language Acquisition Review Chairperson, at (781) 338-3561 to request a telephone interview.

If an individual requires an accommodation, such as translation, to participate in an interview, DESE will make the necessary arrangements.

Within approximately 60 business days of the onsite visit, the review chairperson will provide RPS with a report with information about areas in which the schools meet or exceed regulatory requirements and areas in which it requires assistance to correct or improve practices.

The report will be available to the public at https://www.doe.mass.edu/ele/cpr/.