What's happening in the world of Cobb County ESOL?
1. ACCESS Testing
The ACCESS testing window for the 2011 - 12 has closed. Many thanks to all ESOL teachers and ESOL administrators for all of the hard work. We assessed over 8,900 students this year. Kudos to all! Score reports are anticipated to be in the district the week of May 7th. We will contact all schools as soon as we have a more definitive date.
2. Tuition Summer School for High School
Our department has limited funding for tuition assistance for ESOL and immigrant students. Go to the "Summer School" category for more information, instructions and the forms.
3. ESOL Quarterly Training
The next quarterly training sessions will be held as follows:
High Schools: Thursday, May 3rd at Oakwood, rm 114 (8:00 - 4:00)
Middle Schools: Tuesday, May 8th at Smyrna Community Center (8:00 - 4:00)
Elementary Schools (areas 1, 2, and 6): Friday, May 4th at Oakwood, rm 114 (8:00 - 4:00)
Elementary Schools (areas 3, 4, 5): Wednesday, May 9th at Smyrna Community Center (8:00 - 4:00)
4. Are your school's enrollment practices OCR compliant?
Under Federal Law, all schools are required to provide ALL students with equal access to a public education regardless of their or their parents' perceived or actual citizenship or immigration status. A Dear Colleague letter was issued by the Office of Civil Rights on Friday, May 6, 2011. For more information regarding the requirements under federal law for student enrollment and a copy of the documents sent by OCR, check out the posting under "Student Intake."
5. ESOL Program Local School Contacts:
Do you need information about a local school's ESOL program? Every school has a local school lead ESOL teacher and an ESOL Administrator. The lists are posted on the "Local School Leads" and "Cobb ESOL Program" categories.
Do you have something amazing going on in the world of ESOL at your local school that you would like to share with all of us? Email me that information. Check out "Spotlight" and see the great things going on in ESOL around Cobb County.
For information on how to integrate technology into the FL/ESOL classroom, visit the FL ESOL Tech Blog. Check it out! There are several exciting resources that would assist every ESOL teacher with classroom instruction!
If you would like to contact me regarding the blog, please send an email to flesolblog@cobbk12.org.
Have you tried Wordle? Imagine using a word cloud based on word frequency to activate prior knowledge of your Unit topic. Check out the Wordle of the Cobb ESOL Blog:
Or, check out the Wordle of Title III law:
Compare the Wordle above to another type of word cloud from WordSift. WordSift, developed by Stanford University also has a visual thesarus and additional tools. Great for any text!
