Bay Shore presents science-of-reading guidance for multilingual learners; district says it already applies many recommendations

Speaker 2 presented the district's review of New York State Office of Bilingual Education guidance on the science of reading for English language learners and multilingual learners, saying the state's associate commissioner Alisa Alvarez has "championed the philosophy that we are all educators of multilingual learners." She said the guidance asks educators to view multilingual learners through an asset-based, ontological lens rather than as deficits.

The presenter gave prevalence figures to frame the issue: "nationwide, 10% of all students are now English language learners," she said, "in New York State, that number is around 11%," and Bay Shore has about "22% of students in Bay Shore that are English language learners," while noting that figure excludes bilingual or heritage-language students who do not receive ELL services.

She summarized six concise briefs the district received from the state. Brief 1 urges expanding the scope of reading instruction to include multilingual learners and to recognize differences in learners' realities. Brief 2 recommends using a student biography that captures sociocultural, linguistic and academic context and shifting to holistic, performance-based assessments rather than relying only on standardized tests. Brief 3 focuses on early-childhood and emergent multilingual classrooms and the transfer of decoding and encoding skills from students' first languages to English with adequate vocabulary support. Brief 5 recommends augmenting the "big six" literacy areas (phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and oral language) with listening/speaking skills, cultural context and L1-to-L2 connections. Brief 6 emphasized instructional leadership and careful data use to reduce misidentification of language needs as learning disabilities.

To illustrate local practice, Speaker 2 described Bay Shore's dual-language kindergarten approach: two teachers in the classroom, Spanish literacy in the fall and formal English literacy instruction introduced in January so that students build background knowledge and then transfer literacy skills when English instruction begins. "We're already ahead of the curve," she said, thanking the board for supporting staffing and program recommendations.

Board members asked how the district compares with nearby schools and whether Bay Shore would offer professional development based on the state briefs. Speaker 2 said the district already offers internal PD and that experienced bilingual teachers, including one she named (Katrina Bausch), lead sessions; she recommended expanding teacher-led PD and presenting the district's model at conferences. The presentation concluded with a quote from the Office of Bilingual Education on leveraging linguistic and cultural assets to cultivate inclusive literacy practices.

Next steps noted on the record included continuing internal PD, consideration of sharing the program model with other districts, and monitoring state developments to align local instruction and staffing with the briefs. No formal policy was adopted at the meeting.