Richardson ISD does not have enough certified bilingual and English as a Second Language teachers for some of its classrooms this school year, and administrators asked trustees Thursday night to let the district seek state permission to keep uncertified teachers in those rooms while they work toward certification.
State law requires a district that cannot staff those programs with properly certified teachers to file a bilingual education exception or an ESL waiver with the Texas Education Agency, and the board has to approve the request. The superintendent recommended approval in materials posted for the Oct. 29 called meeting and work session.
The district had not posted the result of the vote as of Friday morning.
Under the waiver, according to the action item, teachers who lack the certification work under a state-approved action plan that includes targeted training, mentoring and support until they finish their requirements.
The numbers by grade
Slides prepared by the district's multilingual department list 85 bilingual exceptions, all in prekindergarten through fifth grade, with the most in first grade (18) and fifth grade (17). ESL waivers total 181 and run from prekindergarten through 12th grade, heaviest in the early grades: 25 in first grade, 23 in kindergarten and 22 in third.
The district called one trend a celebration: ESL waivers are down by 84, which the slides credit to extra support for teachers preparing for the certification test and to campus language acquisition teachers reviewing practice test results with them.
Bilingual exceptions went the other way. The presentation says they rose because more teachers are now working toward the certification and because more students have moved into self-contained special education classes.
Part of the bottleneck is the order of the credentials, the slides note: a teacher has to hold certification in a content area before earning the bilingual or ESL certification on top of it.