Consultant urges Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD to standardize dual-language program, boost oral-language instruction

Carlene "Carly" Thomas, an independent bilingual education consultant, presented the results of a multilingual program audit to the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Board of Trustees during the district's work-study meeting. The audit reviewed three years of assessment data, interviews with about 20 virtual staff and additional on-site walkthroughs at Stark Elementary, Polk Middle School and Newman Smith High School, and district multilingual procedures.

Thomas told trustees the district shows committed staff and improving communication but suffers from inconsistent program implementation across campuses. "Our district ... has a bit of an identity crisis. We're not fully a dual language program, and we're not fully a transitional late-exit bilingual program," Thomas said, urging the district to choose and implement a single model with fidelity.

The consultant recommended four immediate priorities: (1) improve districtwide communication protocols about program models and expectations for staff and families; (2) ensure consistent program structures and implementation across bilingual and ESL programs, including use of content-based language instruction in every classroom; (3) restructure the dual-language immersion program to comply with state guidance and standardize language-allocation rules, including ensuring partner-language instruction represents at least 50% of classroom time across participating grades; and (4) increase multilingual-department staffing—especially to support secondary campuses—and clarify district and campus role responsibilities.

Thomas reviewed assessment trends for TELPAS (Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System) and STAAR reading. She said receptive domains (listening, reading) tracked more steadily over three years, while expressive domains (speaking, writing) showed dips and particular weakness in speaking. Thomas said some decline in writing is attributable to a change in TELPAS writing administration, and she stressed the need for more frequent oral-language practice in classroom instruction.

On program structure, Thomas advised fully implementing a dual-language immersion model instead of mixing dual-language and transitional bilingual practices. She recommended standardizing the partner-language allocation (the portion of instructional time delivered in Spanish, in this district's programs) so that partner-language instruction averages at least 50% through the duration of elementary program years, referencing the Texas Administrative Code and TEA implementation resources.

Trustees and staff asked about fiscal and timeline implications. Thomas said the state provides additional funding when districts fully implement dual-language programs and code students accordingly, a source of supplemental revenue beginning with the legislative changes she described as occurring several sessions ago. She and district staff agreed that some steps could be taken in 2025–26 while other elements would require multiyear planning, additional staffing and careful grandfathering of currently enrolled students.

Thomas said the district already has begun internal follow-up: the multilingual office has an internal communications platform and parent newsletter, and cross-training of multilingual staff with content-area coaches is under way. She said the district will reconvene a task force, include principals in detailed review and move toward producing a program manual and a phased implementation plan.

The presentation closed with directions to the district multilingual department to continue follow-up and provide the full evaluation report to principals, staff and the board. Thomas provided a link to the full report for staff distribution.