Woburn school officials report expanded multilingual services, new data tools and grant awards

The Woburn School Committee heard a comprehensive update Wednesday from Rania Caldwell, the district’s multilingual (ML) program director, who detailed student demographics, staffing, new monitoring tools and multiple recent grant awards.

Caldwell said the district has about 704 students identified as current English learners and roughly 150 former English learners (monitored for four years after exit), representing roughly 850 students who factor into accountability and compliance reporting. She noted 37 languages are represented among ML students and 62 languages districtwide; Portuguese is the largest language group, followed by Spanish, Haitian Creole and Arabic.

To speed language services, Caldwell said the district piloted summer screening for newly enrolled students and assessed more than 150 students in three weeks so teachers could begin services sooner in the school year. She also announced the district added two ML coaches (elementary and secondary) to build teacher capacity and a progress‑monitoring tool (LastLinks) aligned to the ACCESS testing platform to track reading and writing growth.

Caldwell described the rollout of Elevation, a data and professional learning platform for ML instruction: student data is now synced; 95% of staff had activated Elevation by mid‑September; and the district added over 100 strategies and 35 professional development modules teachers can use during choice days.

On family engagement, Caldwell said the district will convene two Language Program Advisory Committee (LPAC) meetings (Feb. 12 and May 14) and is planning adult ESL classes in January with multiple instructors providing eight‑week sessions.

Caldwell outlined several grant awards and their uses: an ESL certification grant that funded ESL licensure for 10 elementary educators; an immigrant children and youth grant that supported Elevation Strategies and summer PD; a LOTE/Seal of Biliteracy competitive grant used to expand access at the high school and increase biliteracy awards among ML and former‑ML students; a multilingual newcomer and homeless support grant (anticipated) to expand interpretation/translation staffing and basic needs supplies; an interpreter in education training grant to credential internal interpreters (17 staff signed up); and a $184,000 English Learner Education Support grant to purchase K‑12 ESL curriculum.

Caldwell highlighted results from the LOTE/Seal of Biliteracy work: in recent years the number of seals awarded to ML or former ML students rose substantially (in one recent year MLs/FELs accounted for about 33% of seals), and many ML students met high‑level proficiency benchmarks in native language assessments. She said the grant funds paid for testing at the high school and enabled outreach that tripled/several‑fold increased ML participation in the seal assessment.

Committee members asked about how they could support LPAC outreach; Caldwell urged help spreading information and connecting families to the district’s family and community engagement staff. Members also asked about timing for curriculum selection funded by the ESL HQIM (high‑quality instructional materials) grant; Caldwell said vendor demos are scheduled and the district will use DESE’s rubric to evaluate options and phase purchases.

Caldwell said progress reports required under DESE Tiered Focused Monitoring (TFM) have been approved and that upcoming monitoring deadlines are less comprehensive as the district demonstrates corrective progress. She closed by noting continuations of several professional development offerings and the district’s aim to link data, materials and coaching to accelerate ML student language development.

The committee did not vote on any action during the ML update; Caldwell said administration will return with vendor/cost recommendations when curriculum selection work is complete.