Lewiston Public Schools highlights SIOP training for multilingual students and adult‑education awards

Lewiston Public Schools showcased districtwide efforts on March 19 to support multilingual learners and adult learners, including a multiyear rollout of the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) and recognition for Hub 6 adult education.

Assistant Superintendent Karen Paquette and others described SIOP as a lesson‑planning framework that “supports both content and language growth within each lesson.” Paquette said the district trained all staff in initial SIOP and built ongoing professional development so newly hired teachers receive the training. She noted the district identifies walk‑through tools for administrators to provide feedback on SIOP implementation.

Paquette said the district sees benefits in student interaction and language development, and that roughly 33% of students are identified as multilingual learners with 42 languages represented districtwide. She said local examples include Somali, Portuguese, French, Swahili and Spanish among the most common languages other than English.

The committee also recognized Hub 6 — the regional adult‑education hub that includes Lewiston and Auburn — as a state top performer. Adult education director Jen Tyler said Lewiston adult education saw a roughly 50% increase in enrollment over the prior year, exceeded the state target for post‑test rates (above 70%) and showed measurable skill gains above the state target (about 44% locally). Tyler noted a persistent data‑match benchmark remains difficult because some students lack Social Security numbers, which affects the state’s employment data match.

Committee members acknowledged the district’s multilingual instructional work and the adult‑education recognition; no formal votes were required for the recognitions.