Education Equity in Remote Learning

As we navigate the impacts of the coronavirus crisis and weeks of protests supporting racial justice and systemic change, the English Learner (EL) Initiative portfolio is supporting a set of grantees to deploy a coordinated communications and programmatic response to support ELs throughout the state. Preliminary information from the field has revealed that the needs of ELs are exacerbated during this crisis with many families, students, and teachers lacking the tools and necessary supports to engage in teaching and learning. The grantees below will separately deploy tools and supports for ELs from early childhood throughout high school. Simultaneously they will collectively create and deploy media and communications pieces to surface issues and recommendations to support ELs in the short term and beyond.

• The California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE), in coordination with the California Department of Education (CDE), will create in-language and remote learning tools to support EL students and their parents

• Advancement Project California (APCA) will gather community data and stories and create policy tools that advocate for and prioritize young ELs also known as dual language learners (DLL)

• Californians Together (CalTog) will create tools alongside a learning community for teachers and advocates to support ELs during the COVID crisis

• Early Edge California will support the training and development of the early learning workforce to build its capacity to serve DLLs and their families in our newfound distance learning environment

• Education Trust West is conducting parent and student surveys and will release a series of reports on how students, educators, families and ELs especially are being affected by the COVID-19 crisis

• Loyola Marymount University (LMU) – Center for Equity for English Learners (CEEL) will publish materials and tools that educate the teaching profession regarding the impact of COVID on ELs