Bilingual Community Council 1/30/12 Meeting Minutes
BCC Members Present: Darlene Anaya, Cindy Choy, Erika Delacorte, Kim Garcia-Meza, Lisa
Gutierrez-Guzman, Leonor Jackson-Flores, Maria Teresa Ponce, Flor Ramos, Edwin Yuen
Members Absent: Tina Alejo, Gladys Soto
SFUSD: Kevin Chavez (ELSS Supervisor for Dual Language Immersion and Special Education), Jen
Fong (ELSS Supervisor and BCC liaison), Christina Wong (Special Assistant to the Superintendent),
Jeremy Hilinski (Fairmount principal)
Members of the Public: Anabel Ibanez (parent liaison, Buena Vista), Melissa Paredes (ELAC
president, Flynn), Bethica Quinn (Alvarado ELAC) Lilian Fong (SSC Chair, AFY), Nancy Yee
(ELAC member, AFY), Arienne Adamcikova (Fairmount parent), Karla Cuevas (West Portal Chinese
Immersion Parent), Karen Rogers and Caesar Tijerino (Pre-K Spanish Immersion parents), Olive
Huang, Claudio Ochoa, Laura Quan
1. Approval of 11/28/11 Meeting Minutes
Minutes approved as submitted.
2. New Business None
3. Report Kevin Chavez
Kevin addresses questions raised by BCC and members of the community about the District’s dual
immersion program, specifically:
a) how student assignment policies and procedures are ensuring access to ELS
b) what the differences are in the models the District has adopted for Spanish, Cantonese and
Mandarin dual immersion programs
c) how much language modeling exists for ELs at each grade level
d) what the District guidelines are for home work
e) what data the District (with Stanford) has collected on EL achievement.
Kevin’s handouts address the above questions. Additional handouts present theoretical foundation for
two-way immersion; results of research comparing effectiveness of 90:10 vs. 50:50 models (LindholmLeary, 2000); and results of research comparing effectiveness if seven EL programs (Thomas &
Collier, 2000).
In discussion of home work , Kevin clarifies that ELSS is in the process of gathering data about current
practices – how much time teachers are allocating to each language in home work assignments. Next
step will be help principals adopt (and share with their parent communities) clear home work policies
and recommendations for home resources (e.g. bilingual dictionaries).
4. Public Comment
Public comment was devoted to questions, concerns and comments regarding children’s mastery of
language and academic content in two-way immersion.

Question: Do children struggle with bilingual transfer in fourth and fifth grades, when social
studies is taught entirely in Spanish (and there is no dedicated SEBT time)? Answer: ELSS
provides some coaching to teachers in strategies for integrating material from social studies
into ELD/ALD.

Question: What happens when a child enters a two-way immersion program as Englishproficient, but in reality is not? Answer: The teacher can request language assessment, and the
child’s CELDT score will determine whether the child will be re-designated an EL.

Question: Why is the Spanish of children who have received some schooling in Spanishspeaking countries so much better than the Spanish of children schooled in SFUSD two-way
immersion programs? Answer: One reason is that the instructional materials are not authentic;
they are translations from the English materials.

Concern: The English spoken by teachers in Chinese two-way immersion programs is not
always a good model for ELs. Response: It’s a challenge for the District to find teachers fully
bilingual and biliterate in English and Chinese. Schools try to schedule around the problem of
teachers whose spoken English is not native-like by having them do only primary language
instruction.

Comment: SFUSD needs its own data to support the relative success of various models for twoway immersion. For example, one recent study shows that the achievement of ELs in schools
that have a pull-out program for ELA is not as high as in schools where ELA has a mix of ELS
and EP students.

Comment: A pull-out program by grade level (rather than proficiency level) makes sense.
Alvarado, for example, has a pull-out period for ELs in which they are pre-taught key
vocabulary, which allows them to participate more in classes with EPs.

Question: Are there any schools with good models for language tutoring in after-school
programs at immersion schools? Answer: The District has thought about the importance of a
model for after-school help, but at present there’s no funding for this.

Comment: The handbook for California immersion schools recommends that individual schools
organize such after-school programs.

Comment: There was a request for more data on FLES (Foreign Language in Elementary
School) program, such as at Sanchez.
5. Board Report
None
6. Internal Oversight Committee Report
Christina reports that the Committee is preparing for school visits during February and March. The
visits will be random as usual; their purpose is to identify what the needs are for professional
development and coaching. At next BCC meeting, Christina will share IOC’s new guidelines for
reclassification.
7. Planning for Site Visits
Interim meeting to be scheduled for a subcommittee to work on BCC site visits – choosing focus and
schools.
8. Agenda for Next Meeting
Next meeting will be on 2/27 at Alice Fong Yu. Agenda to include 15 minutes for Board report, 20
minutes for discussion of Biliteracy and FLES pathways (Christina), 20 minutes for discussion of site
visits.