Welcome to Cultural Connections Lab. I'm your host, Kelly Forbes. We are here to talk with
educational professionals around the world to impact and influence the education system as we
focus on cultural connections and the education of multilingual diverse students. We're excited
to have you join us today and we sincerely hope you enjoy the show. Hello listeners. My name is
Kelly Forbes and I am excited to be here with our producer Mike Overholt as well as Dr. Jeffrey
Taylor Tribble on another episode of Cultural Connections Lab. I am here with Mr. Dr. David
Holbrook. He's a nationally renowned expert in the administration of EL programs. He earned his PhD
in linguistics at the University of the West Indies in the Republic of Trinidad in Tobago
and has over 25 years of experience working with speakers of other languages. He has lived in five
countries and worked in more than 15. He spent nearly six years at the Wyoming Department of
Education where he held positions as federal programs division director, title one director,
title three director, and for six months was director of both the federal programs and
assessment divisions. Dr. Holbrook also served as the state's Native American education consultant
working with the northern Arapaho and eastern Shoshone tribes on the Wind River Indian reservation.
As federal programs division director, he was responsible for oversight of federal education
programs including McKinney-Vento programs for students experiencing homelessness. He trained
with the U.S. Department of Education and participated in federal monitoring of title three
in five states. He has served 13 years with the National Association of English Learner Program
Administrators, NAELPA, two years as president and is now NAELPA's executive director. He also works
for TransAct Communications and is TransAct's executive director of federal programs and state
relationships. In relation to NAELPA, AEILPA is an organization, it's a professional organization that
serves members and stakeholders at the local, state, and national levels. Their mission is to
provide professional learning communication and advocacy for multilingual learners and their
families and communities. They aim to be an expert voice on behalf of the state and local
education agencies in supporting the success of multilinguals across the U.S.
NAELPA facilitates intercommunication among members to promote effective English language development,
dual language, bilingual, and similar programs to achieve educational goals. They disseminate
information on research-based instructional strategies, news, tools, and resources for
multilingual program administrators. NAELPA also provides professional learning opportunities
to local and state education agencies, disseminating best practices and equips educators with the
skills and knowledge to meet the needs of multilingual learners. Additionally, NAELPA advocates
for multilingual learners at the national level by collaborating with organizations supporting
fair and equitable policies and leading actions to develop effective policies that support
multilingual learners and their families. With all of that, a big welcome to the renowned
Dr. David Holbrook. That was a lot. How are you doing today?
I'm doing good. Thanks. I'm going to tell NAELPA they need to hire you to start introducing
NAELPA. He's awesome, isn't he?
Yeah, that was one heck of an introduction. That's really cool.
Well, you're one heck of a gentleman to have on here with us. And we are truly just enthusiastic
about having you here and also all the work that's being done through NAELPA. And I am
sporting the t-shirt today, listeners. Just so you know, I am wearing the National Association
of English Language Program Administrators t-shirt. Where can I go buy that, David?
Just give Jenna a shout. She's got them. She can sell you one and mail it to you.
Yes, I will do a little plug here also for the website for now. If you are interested
listeners, the website is naelpa.org. Again, naelpa.org and encourage all of you to go
on and visit. But going right into our conversation today, we just are excited to have you here,
Dr. Holbrook. Thank you so much for everything that you do in the field of education. And
we'd like to start off with just trying to get to know and have our listeners get to
know you a little bit more personally and professionally.
Well, thanks. It's my pleasure to be here. I'll follow up. I should have been a little
more specific. If anyone is interested in a NAELPA t-shirt, they can email Jenna Webb,
jenna.webb@naelpa.org. So that email address will get you right to her and ask her about
the t-shirts if you're interested. But anyway, thank you.
Yeah. And in that regard, I know we'll be talking a fair amount about NAELPA, but is
there any other swag, cool stuff that can be purchased to support the organization?
We just a t-shirt.
That's the only thing that we have that you can and it's a suggested donation. It's not
really a sale. So we have a suggested donation. I think it's $30 for the t-shirt, something
like that. Is that right?
That's correct. That is correct. I bought one and I'm just trying to remember. Yeah.
So yeah. Anyway, go ahead. Back to you.
Now, if you don't mind, could you just share a little bit for our listeners just about
who is Dr. David Holbrook personally and professionally? Just a little bit about you.
Sure. You know, I've one of my passions is has always been, you know, trying to make
sure I'm in some type of role that's helping other people. It's something that motivates
me, you know, keeps a smile on my face when I see that what I've done actually, you know,
make somebody else happy or helps them out in some way. So I'm just trying to remember
somebody else happy or helps them out in some way, shape or form. So that's sort of, you
know, when it comes to everything I do, the internal motivation for me is along those
lines. So I worked for 16 years overseas doing original linguistic research, trying to identify
language groups that were ripe for language development. There's around 7,000 languages
in the world and, you know, about half of them, maybe a little more than half of them
actually have a developed writing system. And so, you know, trying to do the I did linguistic
research to determine what's called language boundaries and ethnolinguistic vitality or
whether a language is living or dying. And so my PhD was a comparison of the grammar
of four languages to try to classify them to see if they could either share literacy
materials or adapt them easily. Do you mind taking this back even further? Like how did
you even become interested in this topic? So when I was like, it's not typical that
everybody somebody's just like, Hey man, you know, I want to study the languages of the
world. I fell into that category too through my travels. But like, how did you become interested
in this topic? Yeah. So when I was in college, I was at a Bible college and I took a course
in ancient Greek and ended up doing three years of ancient Greek and did really well
in those studies. And that sort of got me interested in the whole side of Bible translation
and things like that. And I found this organization called Wycliffe Bible Translators and they have
a sister organization that started off with the name the Summer Institute of Linguistics, but it
eventually merged to just SIL International and they're based out of Dallas. And so I looked into
working with them and ended up working on the SIL side doing this linguistic research. And Wycliffe
Bible Translators would take that and decide where they would send their Bible translators,
but they would use the research that SIL did to make some of those determinations. A lot of other
academics and other linguistic researchers really loved and really loved the linguistic papers and
other things that folks who work with SIL put out because they're putting out a lot of papers and
data that in some of these rural and remote and minority languages that you don't see a lot of
data for unless you can go there yourself. And it's still a very prominent organization, correct?
Oh yeah. Yeah. It's a multinational organization. They've got tons of work all over the world.
I worked in Guyana in South America and with the English-based Creoles in the Caribbean.
That was where the majority of my work was. My comparison, my grammatical comparison for my
PhD was the Creoles in Guyana, Grenada, St. Vincent, and Tobago.
Wow. I'm curious. What were the findings?
Well, the elevator speech version, right? You know, it's a dissertation.
So Creole languages have what's called isolating morphosyntex. What basically that means is
they don't use affixation. So like in English, past tense is ed. In Creole, it's a word that comes
before the verb rather than an affix after the verb. And so there's a different grammatical
structure. The grammatical grammars are more based on some West African languages. So you have this
English vocabulary that's redefined and used differently and the grammar is different.
And so when I started trying to decide how am I going to determine how to classify these languages,
because typical languages over time as they develop and grow apart, like we know that Italian
and Spanish and French are all similar. They're all those romance languages. They all come from
a root language. But with a Creole language, you have a dominant social group that ends up
interacting with a subordinate social group. And you get this language that comes out of it that
isn't really directly connected to either one of them because you have the vocabulary
borrowed from one and the grammar kind of superimposed from another. So how do you group
those? Because there's no way to do it linguistically, genetically in a sense. And so when I started
looking at because of that isolating morphosyntex where you have separate words for the grammar,
I started looking at the words used to mark the grammars of these languages. And when I did that,
I noticed that there was a pattern in terms of the main difference between some of these Creoles,
because the grammars were very similar, but the grammatical markers for like past tense and other
things tended to be either different or slightly different, or they were variations that weren't
the same between the Creoles. And so I looked at a list of a whole bunch of grammatical markers,
everything from personal pronouns to the verbal markers to just a whole host of things
that I was looking at. So when I pulled all of those together and started doing comparisons,
prepositions, all kinds of stuff, I was able to, based on the percentages of similarity,
be able to start grouping these languages and actually proving some of the differences
some of the existing classifications as incorrect, because they were basing them on
people migrations rather than on actual linguistic features.
Wow, this is incredibly interesting to me, actually. But I also love this topic. I love
this conversation. There's research that I'm sure that you're well aware of, and that the way that
we think is different based on the languages that we know, because there are different brain
and cognitive patterns. And so the way, so therefore thinking becomes differentiated based
on the different types of languages that we do know. And just hearing all of that right now
makes me just want to ask the question, did you find any cultural, you know, cultural connections?
But were there cultural connections to what you were learning when it comes to the linguistic
components of these groups of people in their language in the way that their culture is
influenced based on their language or vice versa, versus the English language, for example, you know,
and then even through the translations of the Bible? I mean, that's just really interesting.
Yeah, there's a couple things I'll point out. One of them, there are definitely some, you know,
cultural, when I say cultural schema, some things that are happening within a culture.
And you see that reflected in the vocabulary. So like when I was living in Guyana in South America,
they were, they were former British colony, they gained their independence, and then became
communist and tried to be like, tried to be self-sustaining. So they cut off imports and
did all of this stuff that ended up in situations where there was a lot of, a lot of hunger and
other issues, you know, poverty, hunger, just because of the way the government ran things
and the way that they, they cut off all imports. And, you know, it was, it was strange. So you end
up, you ended up with a lot of innovation and, and how they fed themselves. So there were things that
people would give me to eat that I would go, how did you ever figure out that you could actually
eat this thing? You know, yeah, like there was, there was this, there was this little bush that
grew these yellow pods and, you know, the yellow, when the yellow pods were ready, they were ripe,
and you crack them open. And there are these square black seeds that were covered with this white
pulp, which was a little sweet. And they would like pop these open and get the, put it in their mouth
and spit out the seed and eat the pulp because it, it was sweet and it was a source of, you know,
food. So I was, I always amazed me how they even figured out that that was even edible and that it
actually tasted decent. And there were other similar things with seeds that had pulp and juice
around them. One of them they called Guinnips and it was this, you know, seed, seed pod that was a
little smaller than a golf ball. And you'd crack open the green outside and, you know, pop this
thing in your mouth and choose, you know, scrape off the pulp from the seed itself, which the seed
itself was like a large boulder, you know, like a marble boulder. But I mean, they, they ate this
kind of stuff all the time. And so when you, they had to be creative and the food they could get.
And so when you start looking at the terminology that they have for, you know, if someone is like
a glutton or, you know, greedy for food or things like that, they had multiple terms that described
people who wouldn't share food, who were gluttonous and greedy and all this kind of stuff. But it was
like all of this different terminology just related to bad behaviors toward food.
Wow, that is interesting. Those are things I can't, you know, I love these conversations
because these are things that you can't Google translate. No, no, no. So, so you, when you go
into a language group, you see those kinds of things. So what, go ahead, sorry. No, what were
you gonna say? Oh, I think I want to ask it after you complete your thought, because I have a
question that I think will divert your thoughts. So I want you to finish it. I was gonna, I was
gonna go to the Bible translation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm curious. Because, you know, I did a
little bit of piloting with, you know, with some, with a couple of verses in scripture, you know,
to try to see how people would respond to it, things like that. And it was really interesting.
You know, I was able to get in front of a group of pastors and I had this young man who I was
working with stand up and, you know, in these countries, the national language is English.
It's the language of business. It's the language of banking. It's the language of school. But at
home, you know, the language of the heart, the language they use to talk, the language they
yell at their kids in is Creole. You know, so it's the language of passion, in a sense, the
language of their heart. So I got this young man and I stood up and I read this passage of scripture
that he had worked with me to translate in English. And then I asked him to come up and he read it in
Creole. And we had probably, you know, 70 pastors in the room and they just sat there quietly while
I read it. And we're like, why is this guy reading a scripture to us? We're all pastors. I know this
kind of thing. You know, it was like, I was boring them to tears. And this, this, this young man got
up and started reading the same passage in Creole and their, their eyes lit up and they were like,
yeah, you know, and when he finished, you know, everybody cheered. One guy stood up and raised
his hands like, yeah, all of this stuff. And it was, it was the same passage of scripture, but it was
in their language and it made such a huge difference for them in terms of how they responded.
And, and so, and for me, um, that, that whole concept you were talking about of understanding
things differently when you, when you understand a second language and you can read scripture in a
second language, there are nuances of meeting and other things that come out of that because the
cult, because of the cultural differences. And I actually love reading and listening to,
to scripture and Creole because of that for me. Um, so that, that, that's one of the things that
I really like, cause it was like, I kind of, you know, English is my first language and, you know,
but having worked and studied Creole, I just, it just, I don't know, I just get a joy out of
hearing scripture and Creole. Definitely though. I mean, that connection to that, that emotional
side, that, that passion side is so real. I think important for us to recognize that something that's
very valuable, um, in our delivery of anything that we're giving based on the audience with,
to whom we're speaking. Yeah. I guess that does lead into the question that I was going to ask is
how have these really intriguing experiences, life experiences that you have, have had
internationally, how, how have they changed you and led to the work and passion you have for helping
minority communities here in the United States? Well, most of the people groups I've worked with,
you know, they're, they are in a big way minority groups and they don't have a lot of, you know,
influence in the world. They're not like living in a major world powers, things like that. And,
you know, like I mentioned, my, my, a lot of my motivation internally is always what can I do to
help people? So, you know, trying to bring literacy and the scriptures to people was,
was really important to me. So, uh, when I got to the point where I, I left there, uh, I struggled
for a little bit trying to figure out how, what do I do now? Where am I going to go? And, um,
I started, uh, looking for work. I, I, I'm a handyman. So I was, you know, I helped a friend
build a pole barn. I, you know, refinished the bathroom. I did all kinds of stuff, uh, just to
try to make a little money. The organization SIL knew that I could write academically really well.
And they had some linguists who weren't good writers. So they hired me on a contract basis to
basically work with some other linguists to help write up, um, academic reports on language, uh,
that, that those linguists were studying so that they could be published, things like that. Um,
so I was doing that. And then I started teaching, um, in Colorado State University's intensive
English program. Are you from Colorado originally? No, I was born in Michigan. Okay. And how did you
land up in Colorado? Um, my older brother was here and, and I had a, a job offer at Colorado
State University. Uh, so that's how I ended up over here. Uh, but adjuncts in Colorado State,
they don't make a lot of money. I was working three jobs. Yeah. I was working three jobs to
make ends meet. So I was looking for something else and, uh, working, you know, teaching ESL,
basically to students from overseas who needed to improve their English in order to be able to,
they'd been accepted at the university, but in order to be able to take classes, they had to
improve their English skills. So I was working in that type of a program. Um, and, uh, I applied
for the title three director position, uh, at the Wyoming department of education thinking,
okay, I know and understand English learner issues, but I know nothing about federal education law.
There, there's no way I'm going to get this job. And so they called me up for an interview
and I was like, okay, this will be good practice. You know, I'm thinking I'm not going to get this
job. There's no way, cause I don't know anything about federal education law. And I walked in there
and they started the interview and you know, by the end of the interview, they were asking questions
like, uh, you know, if you have to drive for a long time out in the middle of nowhere with no
cell reception, is that going to bother you? And I'm like, what kind of a, you know, interview
questions is this? What did you answer? You said no, right? I was like, yeah, no worries, you know.
Wait, now, now this, they're talking about cell phones. Makes me wonder this could not have been
that long ago. I mean, we haven't had cell phones that long. Uh, well, or I guess, yeah, I mean,
I didn't start working for Wyoming until like 2008. Okay. Yeah. About right around when the iPhone
came out. So you kind of had my first Wyoming phone was like one of those blackberries with
the actual keyboard on the phone where you have, yeah, it was interesting. Yeah. So, so by the time
I left, I was living in Fort Collins, Colorado at the time and driving, I drove up to Cheyenne. It's
about an hour drive, did the interview. I got halfway home and one of my references called me.
And, uh, what I found out later is the, the Wyoming department of education had had a string of title
three directors. Some of them knew and understood L programs, but were lousy administrators. And some
of them were good administrators, but knew nothing or weren't, weren't functional with L programs.
And so for somebody who, uh, you know, me who could do administration and grant budgeting and
all of that, and knew L programs, they were like, bingo. And so, uh, that's how I ended up getting
hired there. And we are a quick study because you know, uh, federal programs policy better than
anybody I know personally. So picked it up. Well, I mean, I, I was able to, you know,
spend the time in title three pretty quickly. And then the, we had our title one director leave.
And so I had to learn title one because they moved me to that position. And then the federal
programs division director left and they asked me to move up into that position. So then I had to
cover all federal programs. And when I moved to transact and they changed the law, I had to read
the entire law to, you know, because the product I worked with there is parent notices. And so
the parent notices that the law requires are, is, are helpful to implement the law or what I work
with. And so I had to read the entire law and, uh, you know, try to figure out what notices are
needed to help implement this law. And when I did that, I started seeing the overlap between things
like what are the L requirements in title one versus what's, what's outlined in title three and
how are they working together and what are the collaboration requirements? Cause there's
significant collaboration requirements that most people know nothing about in the law. And so I
started like pulling things together and taking notes and putting, you know, charts together of
information and, uh, was able to start to do presentations that talk about, Hey, what are the
requirements for serving English foreigners in title one, you know, just title one, but forget
title three, what does title one have to do? If you're a district that gets no title three funds,
what do you have to do for English learners? You know, stuff like that, that, you know, people's,
you know, don't know a lot about, and, uh, it was, it's been helpful. I talk about, I do a
presentation on collaboration requirements for, uh, title one and title three with McKinney-Vento,
uh, homeless assistance act. So you've got, you know, of, of the L population in the country,
there's about 10% of our students are English learners, about 17%, maybe a little more of, uh,
the population of students experiencing homelessness is English learners. So it's
close to double what we see in the general population. And I call English learners
experiencing homelessness super at risk students because of just the very nature of the, the
barriers to education, but then the additional barriers, if they're, you know, having to be
worried about where they're sleeping and where the next meal is going to come from and all of
those types of things that students experiencing homelessness have to deal with. So,
well, hey, let's, let me ask this for any superintendent or any educational leader out
there that's listening to this right now, what is some advice that you would want to give them of,
of course, going to NALPA's page and, but what, what it's, what's one big takeaway or one big
piece of advice that you would want to give them right now? Because I know for a fact across the
country, but specifically here, um, where we are located in Oklahoma, that we do have those exact
students that are in that 10% and that 17%. And I know that we have educators that want to do the
best that they can to help serve those students and every single aspect, but they also are not
privy to this information as well. So what is one piece of advice that you could give them to help
them on their journey and supporting all of their students? Yeah. When it comes to like implementing
federal funds, federal programs, one of the big things that I always encourage is, you know,
L directors when I speak with them, but anyone, um, is when you're doing your planning of how you're,
what you're, what are you going to do with these funds include English learners in the upfront
planning side of things. Because what we see happen most of the time is you get groups of people
together and oftentimes the L coordinator isn't even involved and you get the title one director
and the superintendent and they start planning out, how are we going to use all of our federal
money? Yes. And then they get down the road and they get this plan in place and then they go, oh,
we forgot about English learners. And they come back and try to retrofit things in and that never
works well. Um, so I always say, you know, if you're, if you're doing your planning and your
budgeting, be looking at how you can serve English learners and in the, in the whole, from the start
so that they're part of the planning to integrate into everything you do rather than try to retrofit
back in. You know, there, there was a big change in, from NCLB to ESSA. Yeah. And so I think
that's a big change. And that big change is the requirements for accountability for English
learners, for the standards and assessment for English learners, for the parent, parent meetings
and parent communications with English learners. Those requirements moved from title three to title
one. Title three still has the, you know, the required activities of, you know, providing
professional learning and providing programs that help English learners attain English proficiency
and acquire content knowledge. And under ESSA, there's a third parent, family and community
engagement required activity. Those are still there under title three, but there's significant
things that were moved and now are solely in title one. And when you look at that accountability
side of things, that comes with the potential for if your students aren't meeting your English
learners, aren't meeting academic targets and goals and, or English proficiency targets and goals.
And it's the first that you, you have the capability of using school improvement funding.
Yes. Because there's a pot of money set aside for school improvements. School support and
improvement is called in, in ESSA. And it's the first time that we've actually had funding
that can address English language proficiency in school improvement, school support and improvement.
And so that's a huge piece that I'm another piece. I'm always talking about that. If, if you're
have a school that's in support and improvement and you have, you know, one of the reasons is
because your L population isn't meeting targets, you can use your school improvement funds to
address English language proficiency. I'm so thankful that you brought that up as that having
the language learners that we have in our districts, our multilingual learners, our
emerging bilingual students really at the forefront of our thinking and our planning and our processes
and what we're doing. That was also, you're, you're echoing something that I just, I've always
believed and felt, but I was able to just attend the reading league conference in Las Vegas,
Nevada. And it was an incredible one day full of different panelists. And that was, apart from
many different topics though, that was kind of one of the overall themes is that, you know, typically
we always see a little bubble on the bottom of a page and a teacher's handbook about what to do for
your emerging bilingual student. And that's the point whenever they start thinking about what
they're supposed to be doing, whenever what you're saying though, and suggesting and recommending
that I want to echo as well is that you have that in the beginning of your planning process.
We need to make sure that we can understand not just that linguistic component that's going to be
required to help our multilingual students, but also that cultural component, right? That
pillar of sociocultural competence. Can you speak to any part of that? Because I think, of course,
already we have leaders across the country and here in the state of Oklahoma where we are
considering things that we can do to help raise language proficiency levels in English for the
students. I've been fortunate to work with districts where we're having more of a
asset-based pedagogical conversations about the utilization of native language and
not taking away their language, but on that on that sociocultural competence side of things.
What's important for leaders to know as they're doing what you just recommended,
which is considering those students in the forefront of our minds through our planning?
Yeah, there's a couple of things that come to mind when you say that, you know, one of them
is just if you look at the research on dual language and bilingual programs,
students may be a little bit slower to come to full English proficiency in those programs,
but post that they tend to perform even outperform, you know, monolingual English
speakers when it comes to academics on the academic side. So those programs and the
research behind those programs shows that the effectiveness of those. And when in some of the
research I looked at when it comes to like taking assessments and, you know, how language impacts
academics and things like that, there are a few things that are documented that actually, you know,
have been proved to be beneficial for multilingual learners. And one of those like on assessments,
extra time, give them extra time because they don't process things in English as far as
you know, on an English test as fast as your monolingual English speaker might. And that goes
back to the fact that if you're trying to bring a student to proficiency in English and ignoring
their first language, then you're ignoring the language that they have the greatest ability to
become literate in. And there is research that shows that if students become literate in English,
it shows that if students become literate in their first language, those literacy skills transfer to
English very easily. So if they're learning English as a second language and they're already
literate in their first language, they have a much greater ability to learn English and become
literate in English much quicker because it's less cognitively demanding to learn literacy skills in
your first language than it is in your second language. As you guys talk about this, I think
thinking about the educators out there that don't have the expertise that you guys have in supporting
emergent bilingual multilingual students. What are resources and things that educators that want to
learn more to become more involved to help some population of students but don't have experience
with? What can they do? What are some services that NAELPA provides? And what are some other
places that you recommend they might go to get help to help their own students? That's a great
question. Yeah. So, and I mean, Kelly, you can probably answer some of this too. But there are
from the NAELPA side of things, you know, if you listen to Kelly's introduction, we do a lot with
professional learning. We have a professional learning committee. We have quarterly webinars.
We have our annual conference, and we try to provide presentations that actually address
the needs of states and districts. We formed an LEA committee this year, and one of their goals is
to identify issues that are of great concern at the school district, local education agency level,
and then to start working with our professional learning committee and our conference committee
to make sure that some of those topics are addressed in our quarterly webinars, in our
in our in our conference presentations. And then we also do a monthly coffee networking coffee chat.
And so we're going to be helping those helping or trying to influence those coffee chats to be
raising some of these topics that our LEA committee identifies as important issues related to
English learner teachers and administrators at the at the district level. So that's that's a couple
of things. But there's there's lots of other resources out there. You know, if you're in a
state that belongs to an assessment consortium, probably at some point in time, there's probably
some training that's going to be available, maybe maybe on, you know, administering the assessment,
but maybe on other things as well. When Wyoming first joined the WIDA consortium, I put tons of
money in to for professional learning. And it was not just on the WIDA assessment, it was on,
you know, how do you use standards in instruction and, you know, just tons of different things that
you can find from the assessment consortium that your state might belong to. I think it's fantastic.
I think, you know, sometimes I mean, of course, I would always going to recommend going to the
NAPA website and definitely utilizing the the association. But I think another amazing resource
that we often forget to include in school districts specifically, because we're always so busy,
there's always a deadline, there's always something going on. But I think that our biggest
resource is just I would just recommend and encourage everyone to talk to your students
and talk to your parents and to listen, you know, I feel like I have to remind myself often
times what my role is and what I'm doing. And it's not to be speaking for anyone, it's to be able to
help share resources, information, but also to create space. So the students that we are serving
can be in communication with us to let us know what those needs are and what those families
needs are as well, whether they be linguistic needs or cultural needs and things of that matter.
But I think our families and our students can definitely be amazing assets and resources,
and even better whenever it's in conjunction with the information that you were just sharing.
Yeah, I think you're 100% right on with that. And one of the I've done a presentation on,
you know, using culture to engage students and families. And, you know, that's that's part of
this. That's one of the sides of things because, you know, if you are able to find connections
within their culture that you can use in the classroom, that's huge. And a lot of times,
the place you're going to find those, it might be students, but the parents are going to be the ones
who are going to tell you the things that are important to them that their students know about
their culture. And so if you can get engaged with the parents and get them to share, even,
you know, you know, if you can vet it appropriately, get them to come in and talk about,
hey, in our culture at this time of year, we have this going on. And this is important to us for
these reasons. It not only reinforces that with the students of those parents, but it also,
you know, opens the eyes and broadens the, you know, worldview of the other students in the
classroom. Oh, definitely. I think it enriches the whole classroom, right? And even you as an
individual, though, right? And I'm sure like, I'm sure we have very similar experiences, all of us
sitting here at the table that our travels and our our exposure to other types of cultures and
languages have really helped us understand ourselves and our cultures even more enriching our lives.
And so I just think it's exciting to create space for that. I love it. Since you are since you are
so in tune with, you know, one of your areas of expertise being policy, moving forward, is there
anything on the horizon that you feel like educators need to be aware of as far as policy,
what's coming out, things that excite you or things that you might be concerned about either way?
Yeah, I mean, right now where we're at, because of everything that's happening politically at the
national level, you know, the big thing I would be looking at right now is, hey, when is the next
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, you know, coming down the pipe?
We saw NCLB, now we have ESSA. ESSA was written with a five year expiration date, and it was
passed in 2015. And so that puts it to December of 2020. And here we are, you know, two, two years
later, a little more than two years later, two and a half years past the deadline of when Congress
was supposed to take this up and reauthorize it again. And I would be normally going, okay,
we need to be looking at this. But unlike NCLB, there's there's nothing that is egregious,
in the law. NCLB had this thing where you had to gradually move your targets up so that all your
students were proficient in your schools academically, like 100% of your students had to be by like
2013. And when 2013 hit, they started doing these waivers and all kinds of stuff, because they knew
it was unrealistic expectation. And it was supposed to have been reauthorized before then,
but it didn't happen. So here we are in a situation where Congress wrote into the law that it should be
reauthorized, you know, in 2021, and it didn't happen. And here we are in 2023, and it still
isn't even talked about. I'm not as I'm not as concerned about it, because the way the law made
the changes, things seem to be okay with with what we have in place, so that there isn't anything
that's causing huge difficulties for districts and identifying all your schools as being
improvement and things like that. You know, we were identifying our highest performing schools
in Wyoming as, you know, in need of improvement. It was crazy. You know, so if you didn't get those
waivers or whatever, it caused real messes. But you would think on my radar would be, hey, what's
going to happen with this federal education law, because it's two years overdue to be, you know,
reauthorized. Congress has too many other things on its plate. They're not even going to look at
this law for, you know, I mean, maybe they'll look at it if Biden's elected for another term,
you know, after after the midterms in his in his next term, if he's elected and all of that,
they might start looking at it at that point. But I don't expect, you know, within the next
few years, they're going to do anything. And to me, that's the big thing we need to watch,
because that's, you know, when it comes to federal education law and policy,
they might update some regulations, they might, you know, put out some new guidance, but there's
nothing that's going to have a severe impact on what we're doing. You know, one of the big
things to pay attention to is as our funds right now, the elementary and secondary school
emergency relief funds that came through the COVID-19 bills, you know, that funding is like
you had in the course of a year, $190 billion in education funding dumped on school districts
and states. That's like it was more at the time, it was more than 10 times the annual funding
that they got in addition to what they normally get in a year. But the big issue with that funding
is it's one time funding. Once it expires, it's not going to be replaced. So, you know,
ESSER I funds from the CARES Act have already expired. ESSER II funds expire September 30th
this year. If you haven't committed to spend those funds by September 30th, you lose them.
Yeah. And then ESSER III, it's September 30th next year. And there are some things going on
with that. You know, there's a liquidation period of 120 days. So if you commit to spend it by
September 30th, you can actually pay it out up until 120 days afterwards. And there are some
exceptions you can get to extend that liquidation period. But if you don't commit to spend it on
time, you lose it. Congress would have to change the law in order to extend that because the US
Department of Education can't. They can extend the liquidation period under extenuating circumstances,
but they cannot extend the period of availability, which ends on September 30th.
Yeah, there's definitely, I was working in a district over the ESSER funding as well. So yeah,
I'm gonna say definitely be paying attention to those dates and make sure that we have that money
used in the best way possible to support all students. But of course, we're going to promote
our multilingual and margin bilingual students for sure.
I'm curious with, you know, we're all in support of movement to change terminology for a group of
students that we're working with more asset based language. And I'm curious if you're hearing on the
federal ends, like, you know, there's a talk, depending on where what region you're in, you
know, starting to use multilingual learner emergent bilingual. But there hasn't really doesn't seem to
be anybody's really decided on from at a federal level or what Howard we're gonna, what term we're
going to use for this group of students, do you anticipate that federally, they'll change the name
or is it just gonna kind of be up to the region to
Well, right now, the way things sit and Nelpa did our
you know, one of our committees produced a white paper on using asset based terminology, but have
also having an asset based mindset, because the asset based mindset really is the area where
you're going to make a difference in the the way things are done, because you can change the
terminology all you want. But if people still have a negative attitude and, and don't view students,
you know, with value, then you're not going to see a change in the terminology.
You're not going to see a change in those types of things. But back to the terminology question,
Nelpa prefers the terminology multilingual learner, but in the law, it's it's English
learner right now. And so it used to be limited English proficient. So at some point,
Yeah, it was in, you know, used to be English language learner too, but not in the law,
they went right from limited English proficient to English learner, the field was using English
language learner. And then there were some people who were like, well, isn't language redundant here?
Right. But I mean, my favorite t shirt says Department of redundancy department. So I was okay.
I want one of those t shirts to work. And we get so but but I'm fine with English learner, it works.
And it's in the law. But there are some people who still consider that a deficit base because
it focuses on the fact that they're learning English, like they're not proficient in English,
where multilingual learner focuses on an asset side, because they're learning more than one
language. So if you're just not proficient in a language, you're you're such and such a learner,
you're you're not there yet. So that some people consider that a deficit based term. Whereas with
multilingual learners, it highlights and focuses on the fact that, you know, this is someone who
has facility in more than one language, which which is an asset. Yes. And it doesn't focus on
just one language they don't know. And so that's why NELPA prefers that terminology. We struggle
with emergent bilingual. And I'll tell you why I don't mind the term. It's definitely recognition.
If you're talking about just the students. But when you start referring to programs
for those students as emergent bilingual programs, and the vast majority of them,
the vast majority of them's goal is to move them to English proficiency and not provide any support
for the first language. That really isn't a bilingual program. And if you're calling it an
emergent bilingual program, and you're not supporting the first language, then there's
there's some discrepancy in congruence and in saying things like that. So while I like the term
emergent bilingual, the fact that when you use it to refer to programs for these students,
it causes problems from my perspective, where multilingual learner.
It doesn't necessarily cause those problems. Only problem I see multilingual learner pose
it would be the fact that, I mean, I guess in a way I consider myself multilingual learner. So,
you know, how do you differentiate between the group of students that you have to have a term
for for funding purposes, you know, I mean, and I think if we all are in agreement that those that's
we're calling that group of students multilingual, but I also feel the nuance in a nuanced way.
I'm a multilingual learner. A lot of people that are not necessarily that group of students that
are getting funding are also multilingual learners. Yeah, that is one piece to take into
consideration. And to think about it, you know, you have some dual language bilingual education
programs that have monolingual English speakers and monolingual other language speakers.
And those students in that program would be all called multilingual learners.
And if you look at the way things were handled under NCLB when we had limited English proficient,
people stopped using limited English proficient. Even though it was the terminology in the law,
the field generally moved to English language learner because it limited English proficient
was so deficit based that it was just like totally like, hey, you know, thumbs down on this group,
they're limited, you know, kind of thing. So so the field under NCLB, you know, everyone was
talked about English language learners and they avoided the use of limited English proficient.
Although in the law, that defined the group that received those funds was it was labeled
limited English proficient. So currently in the law, we have this label English learner.
So we can talk about in the field and use the terminology that encourages and promotes an
asset based point of view and a mindset of multilingual learner. While still you'll hear
me switch back and forth between English learner and multilingual learner, especially when I'm
talking policy, because that's the term that's used in the law, English learner. So when I'm
talking about that specific subgroup in the ESSA, you know, as defined in ESSA, I typically will
call it the English learner group. The English learner subgroup are, you know, the English
learner students that are served by these, you know, Title I English learner requirements,
because that's the term in the law. But when I'm talking about the students, I like and I prefer
the term multilingual learner when talking about it, because that promotes an asset based view
of those students. And it isn't reflective of the policy. So we've got a term in policy,
English learner, that we can use. So but, you know, by calling students multilingual learners
that are their first language is something other than English, or their first language is
English, it also puts those students on an even ground. They're, they're both both of those
students, the monolingual English speaker and the monolingual Spanish speaker, they're both
multilingual learners, if they're in a dual language or bilingual program. I think that the
number one takeaway that I get from your message, though, is that we really have to be cognizant
about our own mindsets. And if they're asset based or not, regardless of what we're saying,
and if it's in the law or not in the law, etc. But I really appreciate you bringing that point to the
surface is that we need to come in as educators, just as humans and looking at everyone else is
having an asset that they bring to the table, you know, really expanding upon people's backgrounds,
because they have value and they have worth, you have value and you have worth, just the same way
that our students do regardless of the language that they speak, how many languages they speak,
or even language proficiency levels. Yeah, so when you let me point this topic is, you know, Nalpa
has a strong working relationship with the US Department of Education and the Office of English
Language Acquisition, you know, considers us their partner organization a lot of ways. And
we have a Secretary of Education who was an English English learner, multilingual learner.
And when you hear him talk, when he's talking about students, he's talking about multi, he uses the
term multilingual learners, and you only hear him reference English learner, when it's something
related to the law or policy. So he, as our Secretary of Education has switched to using
terminology that's more asset based when he can. So to me, that's a huge, you know, confirmation
that this we're moving in the right direction. Absolutely. I'm very appreciative of him doing
that as well. It's been noticed for sure. I also appreciate his LGBTQ pen that he wears as an
openly gay man. So thank you so much to our US Secretary of Education for sure, for really being
inclusive in that aspect. With all of this, I really want to make sure to ask this one question,
but what as we're coming to a close here, what advice do you have for listeners who are interested
in fostering cultural connections in their communities and their schools? And what can they
do to take action? What can they really just do to jump in and to make a difference?
Well, I mean, there's a number of things that we've talked about, but definitely engage your
students and especially their parents. One of the principles that I share when you're working with
students and families that are from another culture is just because it's different doesn't
mean it's wrong. When I had friends who worked in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and some of the low
lying swampy areas, and they brought some friends over from the States to try to help build some
kind of building for this village. And they came in there with their shovels and their picks to
this swampy ground. And you pull a shovel out of slop and it slops back in. So the hole that
you want to be six inches around ends up 40 inches around and you're still not that
three feet deep you wanted it to be. And so they were like trying to do this. And so somebody from
the village came over and was like, what are you doing? And they were like, well, we're trying to
dig this hole. And he was like, well, why are you doing it that way? He went over, got a machete,
cut a piece of bamboo down, cut it off at one of the joints, and then split it in four ways at that
joint. So that when you pushed it in the ground, it would expand, collect the dirt, pull it back up.
So you could dig a hole like that in the dirt straight down without having all of this issue.
So this village guy who would have walked into maybe a situation in the US with a stick of bamboo
trying to dig a hole, it didn't work there, but it worked where he's from. So just because he
is different doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong. And so from our perspective, we would think you
need a shovel to do this job or a pick or a post hole digger, but from them it was a piece of bamboo.
And you'll see that a lot in interactions with parents and families that they might see
us doing things differently and wonder why. And helping to explain that to them is huge.
And the other piece is assume goodwill. I think when you're working with parents, especially,
not a lot of parents come to the classroom thinking, I'm going to anger my students teacher.
This is my goal in this meeting. That's not the perspective that they come with. They're coming,
they're scared, they're coming from their own cultural perspective and where things are
different. The educational system is different. We have a Title III immigrant sub-grant to help
parents who come from other cultures where the educational system is different to understand the
US educational system. That's part of the goal of that program. And so helping parents understand
the educational system and how it works and why do we have an immigrant grant? Is that because of
my immigration status? No, it's not. It's totally unrelated to immigration status. But parents don't
know that, so we have to make sure that they know and understand the reasons why we're asking
certain questions. So making sure that you have a really good connection with your parents so that
they can know and understand exactly what you're talking about is really important.
I agree 100%. Thank you for that reminder. Do you have any other questions, Dr. Tribble?
No, that's been a great... I mean, I do have other questions, but I can tell this could go on for...
We could talk all day.
Yeah. And it's been a lot of fun. I wish we had more time to carry on, but we'll have to have you
back to tell us more stories. Sounds like you've got a really lot of interesting adventures.
Internationally, that would be fun to talk about that definitely apply to...
Yeah, I'll have to have you back.
How it's changed your life and on a personal level and allowed you to provide support here
within the United States for the minority communities that we work with. So thank you so much.
I'm incredibly thankful to you, Dr. Tribble, for introducing me to Dr. David Holbrook. And
sincerely, ever since I got to meet you, get to know you over the last few weeks, I've been
a sincerely ever since I got to meet you, get to know you over at La Cosecha Conference in New
Mexico and also at NAELPA Conference this last year in Portland, Oregon. I've really been doing
a lot of more research on NAELPA and I've learned so much. And so from someone who's on the ground
working with school districts, I want to say thank you for sharing all the information that
you have, because it's allowed me to be a better leader and educator and just person overall,
what I try to do. So thank you so much sincerely for that. And I hope that, you know, I just respect
you so much. Thank you.
Well, thanks. And congrats to you all, but conferred Dr. Kelly there.
Thank you very much.
Oh yeah, your last name Forbes, is that it?
Yep. Dr. Kelly Forbes.
Yep. Dr. Kelly Forbes, almost. Yep. All but conferred. You passed your, you know,
the hardest exam.
Yes.
Yeah. You passed your defense. So now it's just the waiting. So congrats on that.
Well, thank you so much. And to all of our listeners, thank you so much for spending
this time with us. And again, we will see you next time on Cultural Connections Lab. And one more big
thank you to our guest today, Dr. David Holbrook. We wish you all the best. And again, thank you.
Thank you.