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Plainview ISD seeks contract to develop fourth‑grade dual‑language curriculum
Summary
The Plainview ISD administration asked the board to approve a contract over $50,000 to develop fourth‑grade dual‑language curriculum aligned to TEKS, funded from the state's bilingual allotment; the board approved the contract 5‑0.
Plainview Independent School District administrators asked the board Thursday to approve a contract to develop a fourth‑grade dual‑language curriculum at North Elementary and the board approved the measure by a 5‑0 vote.
District staff said the planned curriculum will extend the district's existing dual‑language materials for kindergarten through third grade into fourth grade and will follow the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). "We're requesting this curriculum or the development of this curriculum for fourth grade," a district staff member said during the presentation.
Administrators described the curriculum as emphasizing cross‑linguistic connections — for example, use of cognates, phonological links and prefixes and suffixes — so students can apply knowledge from one language to learning in the other. The staff member said lesson plans will incorporate components tied to the science of reading, including comprehension, fluency and phonics, with a five‑day structure that ends with explicit cross‑linguistic work.
The district noted existing data showing higher reading performance for students in dual‑language classes: "We did see a 15 to 20% separation between our kids that are in our dual language classes and in our English only classes," a board speaker noted, summarizing past results presented by staff.
Officials said the contract will be paid from the state's bilingual allotment — the funding the state provides districts for bilingual and ESL instruction — and recommended approval of a contract valued at over $50,000. The motion to approve was made and seconded; the board voted 5‑0 to adopt the contract.
Board members and staff said the district intends to use the fourth‑grade curriculum as a basis to train administrators and to share successful strategies with ESL and general‑education teachers so practices that benefit emergent bilingual students can be used more broadly.
The board approved the contract at the meeting's motion phase.
