The ESU 10 Title III consortium supports over 350 English learners and the educators that work with them. It is made up of 17 ESU 10 districts and 2 ESU 17 districts. The consortium member districts are Gibbon Public Schools, Broken Bow Public Schools, Cozad Community Schools, Riverside Public Schools, Elm Creek Public Schools, Shelton Public Schools, Ravenna Public Schools, Sargent Public Schools, Overton Public Schools, SEM Public Schools, Central Valley Public Schools, Northwest Public Schools, Wood River Rural Schools, Gothenburg Public Schools, Ord Public Schools, Arnold Public Schools, and Centura Public Schools from the ESU 10 region. Valentine and Ainsworth Community Schools from ESU 17 are also members of the consortium.
There have been a number of changes in the consortium since last year. First, Loup County is no longer a member since they don’t currently have any English learners enrolled. Centura, Arnold and Valentine are new members to the consortium. The enrollment of verified English learners has also increased. Each year in June, the Nebraska Department of Education takes a snapshot of English learner enrollment. In June of 2022, the enrollment was 321. This June, enrollment went up to 358. This number does not include Grand Island Public Schools, Kearney Public Schools, or Lexington Public Schools. The newest districts only had a single student enrollment each so this is an increase that we are seeing across the area. This trend continues as Loup City Public Schools has enrolled it’s first English learner and St. Paul Public Schools has enrolled two English learners this year as well. While these two districts aren’t members of the consortium, they still receive consultation and professional learning opportunities through the Teaching and Learning Department.
Under the Title III grant there are a few required activities:
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Providing effective language instruction educational programs that meet the needs of English learners and demonstrate success in increasing: English proficiency and student academic achievement
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Providing effective professional development to classroom teachers, principals and other school leaders, administrators, and other school or community-based organizational personnel that is designed to improve the instruction and assessment of English Learners
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Providing and implementing other effective activities and strategies that enhance or supplement language instruction educational programs which includes parent, family, and community engagement activities and strategies that serve to coordinate and align related programs
To meet these requirements, the consortium is sponsoring several opportunities and resources during this grant year.
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The consortium is holding two in-person meetings. The first meeting will be on December 8 and will focus on materials that are available. The second meeting will be in the spring. At the spring meeting, teams will have time to work on their program review and written summary reports which is a requirement for Rule 15.
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Virtual and in-person professional development in schools is also being provided when requested.Typically, this includes a small group consultation with teachers that directly work with English learners. The consultation provides an opportunity for teachers to ask questions, look through resources, and collaborate on best practices for supporting the English learners in their classrooms.
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Scaffolding Language for English Learners asynchronous course was a new offering last year that focuses on supporting English learners in content area classes. Teachers from Overton are currently participating and there will be another offering starting in January. The teachers are provided with the book Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning by Pauline Gibbons. They are given tasks over a 3 month period that encourage reflection and implementation of scaffolding strategies that would help English learners connect language and content.
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English Language Development (ELD) teachers also have access to several resources provided by the consortium to supplement the language instruction educational program.
They have access to Ellii. for lesson plans and resources, and several are using the program ELL Foundations
to support the language learning for secondary English learners. Raz-Plus ELL Edition is another popular resource to help encourage reading for elementary English learners.
There are also 3 teachers piloting the resource Equipping ELLs.
As we continue to see changes in the area, ESU 10 will continue to provide assistance for educators that support English learners.