How Grassroots Reform to Support Young Bilingual Children is Informing State Policy in California

California repealed the state's English-only education laws in 2016 and is now embracing multilingualism. Can you tell us about the work you are doing to make sure teachers and caregivers are prepared?

Sixty percent of California’s children are multilingual learners, which means most of them speak a language other than English in their home. California views multilingualism as an asset. And as a result, much of our investments are pivoting to be able to support the workforce to make sure that they have everything they need to support a child’s home language. The aim is to not only preserve the language, but also to understand that this is tied to the social and emotional foundations of that child's development, which are key building blocks for early learning and beyond.

You spent much of your career in Fresno. What did those experiences teach you about California’s kids and their needs?

The Fresno community is very unique. The families themselves speak multiple languages. In Fresno you may hear Hmong, Spanish, Laotian, Cambodian, as well as many others. And it also serves as a resettlement community for different types of groups. We also have a high concentration of families who work in agriculture, and live in migrant communities.

When I was working in Fresno, our data showed that the majority of the children in the school system are dual language learners. Teachers need specific strategies and support to prepare young multilingual learners. We also saw the importance of being able to have children and their families maintain their language and be in settings that provide linguistically and culturally appropriate approaches to care. We wanted all families to feel comfortable that their home language is supported and be able to see themselves in their child’s classroom.

Like Fresno, young children in California are predominantly children of color and also bring the wealth of multilingualism.

One project that came out of that work was called the Language Learning Project. What was the goal? And how has it grown over time?

The goal of the Language Learning Project was to train teachers and child care providers to support children who are dual language learners. We wanted to give teachers and providers concrete strategies to value and support development of the home language and to support linguistic growth. Whether they're in a school, a family friend and neighbor setting, a licensed family childcare, or a home setting, it is important to make sure that the adult is able to see the child and their whole self that they bring to the table.

The state invested in this project [The Language Learning Project was awarded funding to expand across the state in 2018 along with other sites] and provided additional investment to make sure that the family friend and neighbor caregivers and licensed family childcare homes had particular strategies that worked for them as well.

Fresno built out a train-the-trainer model so communities can see the toolkit on the website and run with it and make it their own. This brings more individuals who can do this work and bring it to their own schools, districts, and communities to make sure it is scalable. We’ve received calls from communities across the state and nationally who are using these resources and want to be able to implement it in their own local communities. It also helps reach the workforce, who are perhaps not able to come into town, and make sure they also have access to professional learning and can strengthen their practice.

How has this informed work you are doing now at the state level?

As part of California’s Master Plan for Early Learning and Care, we are focused on supporting multilingualism across the state. This model is informing state policies in different ways. We’ve been able to pass new legislation that will help us identify dual language learners, train the workforce, and implement strategies across California’s mixed delivery system.

What is the legacy of this work?

The legacy is for communities to feel like they can innovate locally. They can own their own results. They can champion this work, and they can then eventually scale it out to communities beyond. So they are reaching those families who perhaps otherwise would not have an opportunity because they're in rural communities and don't have access to services. This model is able to break those barriers and reach all families.