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Board committee reviews proposal to award high‑school credit for Spanish proficiency
Summary
District staff presented a proposed policy allowing students to earn high‑school credit for demonstrated Spanish proficiency via ACTFL assessment or portfolio, intended to level credits for students from dual‑language immersion (DLI) programs and newcomers.
The Teaching, Learning, Equity and Pupil Services committee reviewed a proposed policy on June 17 that would allow Beloit School District high‑school credits to be awarded for demonstrated Spanish proficiency, using the ACTFL assessment or a portfolio already aligned to the district's seal of biliteracy process.
Teresa Moritek, presenting alongside Dr. Anthony Bosco, said the policy aims to address an equity gap for students who complete dual‑language immersion (DLI) programming through eighth grade and enter high school with higher Spanish proficiency but without the standard Spanish I/II credit pathway. "We're really trying to bridge an equity gap that we see, for our DLI students coming out of our K‑8 program," Bosco said, explaining that middle‑school DLI students may have higher proficiency but not the formal credits.
Proposal details: under the drafted criteria, a student who earns a course grade of B or higher and demonstrates the required proficiency level on the ACTFL assessment would be awarded credit for Spanish courses, including retroactive credit for prior course levels. Moritek said the district is leaning toward using the standardized ACTFL assessment — the same instrument used in the district’s seal of biliteracy process — because it avoids extra requirements for teachers.
Board discussion touched on implementation questions, including whether retroactive credits would affect GPA and how awarded credits would appear on transcripts. Staff said the retroactive credits would likely be non‑GPA‑bearing while the credit for the course the student actually takes would count toward GPA, and that transcript labeling could be clarified in policy language. The committee also discussed whether the policy could be extended to other languages in the future and noted ACTFL assessments exist for languages beyond Spanish but course offerings would limit feasibility for some languages.
Next steps: staff asked for committee feedback; the policy was presented for reaction and is expected to be revised and routed to the policy committee for placement on a future agenda. No final board vote took place at the committee meeting.
