The U.S. Department of Education (USED) has released a new Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document that pulls together information regarding the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and how that law relates to school safety. The FERPA FAQ guidance came not long after they released their 2018 Student Privacy Guidance.

The National Council of State Title III Directors (soon re-branding to the National Association of English Learner Program Administrators) held a council meeting and professional development conference in Coronado Springs, Florida on March 6, 2019. NCSTIIID's professional development purposes include ensuring that members are knowledgeable of effective administration of national and state programs for the education of EL students and ensuring that members are knowledgeable of the laws governing the administration of language development programs.

English Learners are an integral population and a large focus of the National ESEA Conference (formerly the National Title I Conference), as they were before the conference was re-branded. While the comprehensive approach boasts content that serves more populations and Title Programs, there are still many presentations that focus on ELs. This includes my presentation, ESSA Title I EL Requirements for All Title I Funded Districts, Wednesday, Jan. 30th at 11:30am.

There are increasingly more resources for administrators who make students experiencing homelessness a priority demographic for their schools and districts. At the National ESEA Conference in January, there were presentations with this focus as well.

The School Support and Improvement ESSA RoadMap is now available.

Proactive schools and school districts are finding and using all means available to communicate with parents, including English learner (EL) students and parents with limited English proficiency (LEP). In an article from District Administration titled “Tech: A language translator allows districts to reach out to ELLs”, a number of creative and innovative solutions are discussed. This includes the use of machine translation (computer-assisted translation) tools, such as Google Translate.

As part of our commitment to provide school district administrators with resources and guidance on federal program compliance and administration, we regularly publish blogs featuring guest writers. We are honored to feature a co-written article between TransACT Executive Director of Federal Compliance and State Relationships, Dr. Holbrook, and his former colleague Keja Nokomis Whiteman, 

an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians discussing the importance of incorporating cultural history to support positive learning outcomes for Native Americans. 

I was motivated to initiate the writing of this blog when I saw a news story via Politico about the return of the remains of four Native American children from the graveyard associated with the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, one of the boarding schools that were part of past attempts to forcibly assimilate Native Americans into the dominant American culture. The mortality rate for Native American students at this school was approximately 2%. The school operated from 1879 through 1918 and over that time period housed about 10,000 students.

This blog was updated on July 25th, 2023. 

The beginning of the school year is a very busy time for school district staff, especially those working in the front office of schools. Enrolling new students can be a time-consuming process.

The multitude of forms to be completed and information to be loaded into student information systems can consume enormous amounts of time. This can take the focus off of other important student-related issues. One such issue is identifying students newly experiencing homelessness who became homeless over the summer. These students may be eligible for services but may not receive them if they are not identified.

Back in February I wrote about the U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos’, proposed reorganization of the U.S. Department of Education (USED) that would eliminate the USED’s Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA). Since then, a group of 18 EL advocacy organizations and members of the U.S. Congress have written letters in opposition to the elimination of OELA.

The February 28th National Council for State Title III Directors (NCSTIIID) 2018 Annual Meeting, held in Albuquerque, NM, included a panel discussion titled “Building Strong Partnerships between Families, Schools, and Communities.” One item that was included in the NCSTIIID meeting program packet and discussed by the panel was the National PTA’s National Standards for Family-School Partnerships. This is an excellent resource for schools and districts looking for a model to implement ESSA’s Parent and Family Engagement requirements and includes a means to measure the success of that implementation.