This year has been filled with excitement and a deep commitment to supporting the needs of all English learners. We feel so grateful and inspired for your support and all of what we’ve accomplished and have had amazing opportunities in continuing our mission of championing the success of all English learners throughout California in 2022. Here are some of our accomplishments:
- We partnered with 20 County Offices of Education across the state and served over 76% of California’s English learners. In total, EL RISE! served 547 Districts and organizations with 10,211 attendees from September 2021 through June 2022 and a total of 216 sessions were offered to administrators, teachers, counselors, school board members, parents, and community members through EL RISE!.
- We published five volumes of the English Learner Roadmap Implementation Guide and Toolkit for Administrators, authored by Dr. Laurie Olsen, which is designed to support administrators as they take up the challenge of leading and supporting the implementation of the EL Roadmap.
- We released an English Learners in the Central Valley policy brief and held three listening sessions in the Central Valley to launch the development of a policy agenda to centralize the research, policy, and practice resources, and influence and shape the public narrative to reflect the diversity and assets of English learners in K-12 through higher education, and diversify the representation of English learner advocates across the Central Valley and statewide.
- We continued to build our advocacy network by convening our third English Learner Advocacy Institute as part of our ever-growing English Learner Leadership and Legacy Initiative (ELLLI) network. Sixty teachers, parents, professors, county office and district staff, and allied organization representatives spent 4 days learning the history and lessons from the English learner movement, about current issues, and how to be an effective advocate.
- With the Center for Equity for English Learners at Loyola Marymount University, we published a fourth review of the Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs), Search for Equity for English Learners: A Review of 2021-24 Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs), documenting the lack of goals, actions and services to address the needs of English learners.
These accomplishments would not be possible without you and the support and collaboration of our coalition members and donors. On behalf of Californians Together we want to express our sincere appreciation for helping us focus our common efforts in seeking to overcome and transform the harms of systemic racial, language, and cultural inequity in education and closing opportunity gaps from early childhood through post-secondary education. As you celebrate these special times with the people you love, we wish to thank you for all of your continued support this past year and in years past. We look forward to building momentum from this year’s efforts in supporting all English learners in 2023!