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Former EL teacher urges reinstatement of credentialed English-learner department
Summary
At the May 14 board meeting Jane Hatchett, a retired district English-learner teacher, urged the Ketchikan district to place a credentialed EL teacher in charge of the EL program and to resume monthly training and formal screening practices for paras and students.
Jane Hatchett, a retired English-learner (EL) teacher, told the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District Board of Education on May 14 that the district’s EL services need a credentialed department leader and regular training for paraprofessionals who support English learners.
Hatchett said the district must ensure timely screening of new students for EL services. “We badly need a department approach so the aids can be trained and adequately know how to screen students, which is a requirement of the state in the first two weeks of school,” she said, adding that some students who arrived in September were not screened until nearly Christmas last year.
Hatchett described the program as understaffed and reorganized over the past five to six years. She said the district used to have one EL teacher at the high school and one overseeing elementary schools, with coverage for the middle school determined by student load. “Now there’s nobody at the middle school or the high school, but there are still kids that need help and need to learn the language to do well,” she said.
Hatchett said she has participated on a district task force for almost a year and has seen some progress but not enough. She recommended restoring an endorsed EL teacher to manage the program, hold monthly meetings for paras and implement screening and training so that instruction moves beyond simplifying classroom lessons and toward structured language instruction in speaking, reading and writing.
Her request included both staffing (a credentialed EL teacher overseeing the department) and procedural changes (regular parasite training and adherence to state screening timelines). Hatchett identified the student populations served as immigrant children and children who speak another language at home and said the district’s recent reorganization makes it more important to know which students are at which school so appropriate EL services can be provided.
Hatchett identified herself as a retired, endorsed EL teacher and said she retired in 2019.
