Credit for this excellent summary goes to

Javier Barrazza, Kelly Brown, & Vikram Jaswal (students in Ed 388B, Winter 2000)

1. Identification. Any new student in the district should be given a home language survey. This will allow the identification of students whose primary home language is not English.

2. Assessment. Following identification of a potentially LEP student, the district is responsible for providing further assessment of that student*s needs, both in the English language and in content areas.

3. Program. Instruction must be provided in the English language and in the district*s content (or subject) areas. Importantly, the content instruction must be provided in a manner comprehensible to the child. Content instruction may take the form of bilingual education, sheltered instruction, or other theoretically grounded method. The district should provide instruction on any cultural issues which may be likely to be a difficulty for these students. Finally, the district must have in place exit and reclassification criteria.

4. Staffing. The district*s policy should call for the retention of a teacher (or aide where a teacher is not available) in each school who can converse fluently with the LEP children in their native language, if there are at least 20 children speaking the same language. Additionally, teachers who will be primarily teaching English to the LEP students should, of course, be certified to do so. Finally, other teachers who will be coming into contact with the LEP children (e.g., content area teachers) should be trained (and certified) in effective methods of teaching their subject to LEP children. In this regard, if it does not already, the district should provide in-service training.

5. Access. LEP students should have the same access to all available programs as non- LEP students, including enrichment programs, vocational training, counseling services, and so forth.

6. Monitoring. The district must monitor how well the programs are being implemented at particular schools with students and also needs to consider the usual criteria of graduation and retention rates, as well as standardized test scores. If the district finds problems in any area, steps should be taken immediately to rectify the situation. Parents need to be included and educated about the opportunities available to their children. School correspondence needs to be provided to parents in a manner understandable to them, which may require the translation of documents into Serbo-Croatian. The district is further urged to retain individuals fluent in Serbo-Croatian to conduct outreach programs to encourage the active participation of the parents of the LEP students.