OCR - Office of Civil Rights
The OCR, or otherwise known as the Office of Civil Rights, aims to serve the people facing discrimination and enforces the civil rights laws. There is a PDF file of the website document here:
Mission: "To ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence through vigorous enforcement of civil rights in our nation’s schools."
The OCR says that all schools must do the following:
"Identifying and Assessing All Potential EL Students, Providing Language Assistance to EL Students, Staffing and Supporting an EL Program, Providing Meaningful Access to All Curricular and Extracurricular Programs, Avoiding Unnecessary Segregation of EL Students, Evaluating EL Students for Special Education and Providing Dual Services, Meeting the Needs of Students Who Opt Out of EL Programs or Particular Services, Monitoring and Exiting EL Students from EL Programs and Services, Evaluating the Effectiveness of a District’s EL Program, and Ensuring Meaningful Communication with Limited English Proficient Parents."
So, what does all of that mean?
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Schools must identify potential students as ELs or Emergent Bilinguals. This happens through a survey, called the home survey. The students will then take a test to evaluate where the student stands as an Emergent Bilingual.
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Schools are entitled to Language Support and Services.
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Students are entitled to highly qualified teachers and instructional resources.
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Emergent Bilinguals are entitled to be able to participated in programs just like the other students. They also have access to each grade curriculum in order to have success in school.
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Schools are expected to not segregate students based on their status, race, or origin.
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Students that are Emergent Bilinguals with disabilities should be provided with language experience and also disability services.
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Parents will opt their children out, but they are still entitled to any services and supports needed.
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Schools must observe, monitor, and keep track of the process of the Emergent Bilingual students in order to make sure that they succeed in their English and content knowledge. Also, school must make sure that students are not exited from the program too early or two late.
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School must evaluate the EL programs to make sure that the programs are creating successful students in their English proficiency.
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Parents are also entitled to speaking in their own language, having a translator, and having materials translated to their language.
Basically, the OCR creates and tries to enforce rights and supports for Emergent Bilinguals in schools. It guides schools with what they need to support Emergent Bilinguals and states everything that is important for Emergent Bilinguals to have. If a school is sued for not having something that the OCR has stated on their document, then the school has no fighting chance. To not be sued or get into a court case, the school must follow the guidelines set up by the Office of Civil Rights.
The Process of Becoming an ELL
The students that are set to becoming Emergent Bilinguals and Designated ELLs have to go through a process in order to determine if they are actual ELLs.
How do schools do this?
In Colorado, schools follow a process called the ELL Classification Process. This process starts by having the parents fill out a home survey, and then the students will take the WIDA-ACCESS Placement test. Once the results come back, the students will be put through an ELL program or will not be considered an ELL. Below, the flowchart shows the rest of the process of identifying as an ELL:
Citations
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Colombo, M. "Teaching English Language Learners." Teaching English Language Learners : Michaela Colombo : 9781412980296. SAGE Publications Inc, 17 May 2011. Web. 31 Jan. 2017. https://www.bookdepository.com/Teaching-English-Language-Learners-Michaela-Colombo/9781412980296
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ELs & OCR The Basics. (2015, June 18). Retrieved February 4, 2019, from https://youtu.be/sw-nFaAMgeI
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Office for Civil Rights | U.S. Department of Education. (2018, December 21). Retrieved February 4, 2019, from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/index.html
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Wright, W. E. (2015). Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, and practice (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Caslon.
