Hello DL advocates! This school year we kick off with a new elected executive board. Beatrix Preusse-Burr will serve as President, Lucy Montalvo as President Elect, Katherine Barko-Alva as Treasurer/Secretary and Jeremy Aldrich will remain on the executive board as Past President. To learn more about the executive board click here. If you are interested in being part of our Board, please contact us at [email protected]. You can find a list of those who are on the board and vacancies here. We hope to reinstate our board meeting via google docs soon, more information will be forthcoming. It has been quiet for some time, but it has been for a great cause. The Virginia Department of Education is developing a DLI Guidance document. A group of DLI educators across Virginia has completed a working draft. This process took over 6 months to complete. The document will now be edited and sent to field readers for further input. When a final draft is ready, it will be presented to the Board of Supervisors for approval. We will keep you informed as we learn more information about this final process. We have also been busy coordinating the sessions for FLAVA. We hope to see you there. If you'd like to see the schedule please click here. Future Plans: Join us for our first Virginia Dual Language Immersion Day! VDOE, VADLEN, and Chesterfield County Public Schools are inviting everyone interested in Dual Language Immersion Education to attend. Additional information will be forthcoming, including a call for proposals from current DL/I administrators, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders. This will be held January 25, 2020 @ 10:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. at Chesterfield County Career and Technical Center (CTC Hull), 13900 Hull Street Rd., Midlothian, VA 23112. We are looking for writers to contribute to our blog to keep us informed on the great DLI initiatives around Virginia. You can write about your district initiatives, your classroom teaching strategies, or just share some thoughts about Dual Language. If you are interested in contributing, please email [email protected]. We hope to continue sending out newsletters with information that best serves you! What would you like to see? Email us and let us know! We look forward to hearing from you. Connect with us on Social Media!
Greetings to all our current and new dual language educators! Thank you for your patience as we transition to new executive board members. If you remember, executive board members serve two years. As a member, you are able to vote for those placed in VADLEN's executive board. If you would like information about the current executive board, please click on "exec. board" on the menu above. Before we tell you our plans for the upcoming years (next blog), we would like to take a moment to recognize the previous executive board and all the hard work to get us up and going. The previous board was composed of Jeremy Aldrich (President), Hunter Rush (treasurer/secretary) and Lorena Wornom (President Elect). This team went to amazing leaps and bounds and we are so grateful for their efforts. We want to especially recognize the efforts of VADLEN's founder, Jeremy Aldrich. Jeremy's leadership has been a guiding force moving the field of Dual Language Education in VA forward. His ongoing efforts promoting DLI have created meaningful learning spaces for schools and communities to embrace and foster multilingualism within the context of equitable and inclusive instructional opportunities for all students. Jeremy's vision for the network’s long-term goal is that every public school student in Virginia has the opportunity to be educated in English and another language. Jeremy also believes that while institutions of higher education are often home to many philosophical allies, it is necessary that they too do the work of revising their teacher education policies to support multilingual options.
During his term as president of VADLEN, he was able to create and promote the HB1156 and HB507 bills. The HB1156 bill adds a pre-k and k-6 dual-language endorsement option for licensure for teachers who meet a designated set of criteria. The HB507 bill recognizes DLI as an effective model of ESL instruction in the state's Standards of Quality. Both bills passed through the Virginia Senate, February, 2018. Thank you Jeremy for all of your efforts to expand dual language education in Virginia! Jeremy continues to serve on VADLEN's executive board as the Former President. |