E40 - Bilingual Orientation Centers Slated for Closure This Fall

See our Show Notes

Christie Robertson: Welcome to Rainy Day Recess, where we study and discuss Seattle Public Schools. I'm Christie Robertson.

Cherylynne Crowther: And I'm Cherylynne Crowther.

Christie Robertson: Today we're looking into Seattle's Newcomer program. These are specialized services for students who've just arrived in the United States with very limited English skills. 

Cherylynne Crowther: What you found sounds a lot like what we documented in episode 38 about the issues raised by deaf and hard of hearing families who were fighting for basic services for their kids. 

Christie Robertson: Yes, the Newcomer teachers who came to me are in classrooms that have been empty for years, while newcomer students seem to be struggling in overcrowded mainstream classrooms.

Cherylynne Crowther: Years of empty classrooms. How did we get here? 

[00:00:47] The Audit

Christie Robertson: The story actually starts in 2008. The superintendent at the time, Maria Goodloe-Johnson, commissioned an audit of their English learner services, presumably because they felt that they weren't being very effective. And the audit was done by the Council of Great City Schools. This 2008 audit was titled "Raising the Achievement of English Language Learners in Seattle Public Schools", and they found major problems. 

The audit recommended that SPS “decrease its use of the English as a second language ESL pullout model.” They also stated that “the district should set up a regular process to ensure that all schools and the Bilingual Orientation Centers have a transparent and clearly understood funding allocation system.” And the audit specifically recommended that SPS should strengthen support for Bilingual Orientation Centers. 

Cherylynne Crowther: Bilingual Orientation Centers, which are now called Newcomers, or the Newcomers program. 

So they have this roadmap. They have information about what's not working. 17 years later, the system hasn't been implemented. Or what has been implemented, they're taking apart.

Christie Robertson: Yeah, and actually I think there was a surge of implementation after that audit. There seemed to have been an increase in the number of kids that were being served in these programs. But over the last, like, five or eight years, it's been diminishing to the point where it seems like it is about to quietly disappear. 

[00:02:29] Voices from the Ground

But it's only quiet if you're not listening to the teachers and the former students who are trying to raise the alarm. 

Tricia DeVille is a Newcomer teacher at Dunlap Elementary, and she's been a Newcomer teacher for over 20 years. In fact, I also spoke to Nhi Nguyen, who was one of DeVille's Bilingual Orientation Center students back in 2008 to 2009, and now she's a kindergarten teacher at Dunlap herself.

 DeVille testified at the May 14th school board meeting about this, 

Tricia DeVille: This is my 25th year teaching in SPS, and my 23rd is a Newcomer teacher, formerly BOC, or Bilingual Orientation Center at both Thurgood Marshall and Dunlap. I'm so proud to be standing here today with other Newcomer teachers and former BOC students, including one of my former students who is now an amazing teacher at Dunlap. 

The Newcomer program is for students who've been in the US less than one year. We use the district curriculum with a focus on vocabulary and language development. We also teach students how to acclimate to the US school system. We care for the whole child and support families in ways that cannot be done in the regular classroom. 

For the past four years, newcomer students in SPS have been left out. We at Dunlap have had zero students in our Newcomer classrooms. Our homeroom classrooms at Dunlap are full, but any newcomer we receive is not able to enter our classroom and they're placed in the regular education classroom. For example, our fourth grade has 31 students with three newcomers. Come see how it's going for these newcomers in these huge classrooms. It is impossible that these newcomers are receiving the same attention as they would in a smaller Newcomer classroom, since they're in need of intensive support. We are ready to teach, yet we have a classroom full of empty seats. 

Dunlap is just one example. There are newcomer students in most Seattle public schools sitting in regular education classrooms. They're getting no special support besides what the typical ML student receives. 

The criteria used to qualify for the program is too difficult. The messaging families receive from the district about their options is confusing and misleading and deters them from our program.

Christie Robertson: And here's what DeVille told me about how enrollment used to work. 

Tricia DeVille: It used to be, families would register their kid. That day they would have the student take the test and determine "your student is eligible for mainstream ELL (ESL back then, ML now).” Or if the score was low enough, they would have the option to go to the BOC. 

And so that's how it used to be. And we would have full classrooms. You know, 20 kids, high teens, sometimes 12. And there were three sites in the district. There's always been a south, central, and north for elementary. 

And then that enrollment process changed, I think it was like 2017/18 something like that, where, I'm not sure why, but students were just assigned to their neighborhood school first. So let's say a kid was assigned to Emerson. And then their multilingual teacher there will have them do the home language survey. The multilingual teacher will test them using the WIDA, and if the student scores low enough, they could be sent to BOC, which would be Dunlap. And then they would stay half a year and then go back to Emerson unless they moved.

But, so... Numbers were still fine. Like we still had, high teens in our classes. But it just was finding those kids. And, like, you would hear about a neighborhood school saying, "we have this kid." I'm like, well, did you, "are they potentially BOC?" And then they, you'd have to investigate and then the family would say, "oh my goodness, yes, we do want that program!"

Christie Robertson: And then here's what Nguyen told me about her experience as a student.

Nhi Nguyen: Everything is brand new, foreign. You have no idea what's going on. You're put in a school with a bunch of new norms. You know, like, classrooms over here don't look like classrooms in Vietnam or in Asia. So I came into Ms. DeVille’s... or back then she was known as Ms. Haney. Yeah, Ms. Haney. And then there were other Vietnamese kids that just came as well. So in a way, I had kids from my own home country and then other kids who are from different countries. And then in the way that we all share a similar experience of all being new in the classroom. It was scary, but then familiar because you had other kids going through the experience the same as you. So in a way, like, it feels comforting too. 

Cherylynne Crowther: Wow, that's some powerful testimony. And what a wonderful sense of community and belonging. And crucial for kids who are already dealing with transition and trauma.

Christie Robertson: And here's more from DeVille about what the program provided.

Tricia DeVille: Some years there's an influx of Somali one year or Vietnamese one year, and so you do have a higher population of one group of students. But a lot of times there's a mix. I remember one year there was, I think I had nine different languages and nobody spoke the same language. So. 

And I think that the purpose of the BOC, the original purpose, and what it still, I believe is, is to help students feel comfortable when they get here instead of being in the mainstream classroom where the teachers are already overloaded with students. 

And, you know, a lot of the students... not everyone, but many students have come from war-torn countries and just need, like, a little buffer before they go into the mainstream. And I think that this program provides a little safe transition time. 

We use the district curriculum, but we just focus on vocabulary and language acquisition and we kind of slow things down, and really meet with the families and see what supports we can hook them up with, and just take care of them and just really make sure they're doing okay. 

Christie Robertson: And Nguyen also told me how important the program was for her entire family.

Nhi Nguyen: It's really reassuring for the family on that part. Yeah. Especially with my mom. Because she didn't even know where to apply for me to be enrolled in school at that time. She barely spoke any English. So it was reassuring to have, like, a teacher who's familiar with that, you know, first immigrant experience putting your child in school. So I think that's why she was still so, like, grateful for that. And she still remembered you, like, even years after. Yeah. 

Tricia DeVille: Sweet. 

Cherylynne Crowther: So this really went beyond just English language instruction. It created a wraparound support system for the whole family by preventing isolation and providing cultural navigation. What a wonderfully powerful support for these bilingual newcomer families. 

Christie Robertson: And given how effective they are, it's really strange to see what's happening now – these programs are basically not being accessed. Here's what Nguyen described when I asked about newcomers in her current classroom in our conversation.

Nhi Nguyen: I have a couple of newcomer kids too, and recently another one came from Columbia. And she, although she picked up really quickly, she still needed that environment, that space to just settle in. Because her first two weeks was so hard, like she just did not listen to anybody. Except the one, ML IA who speaks Spanish. And he couldn't even get her outside to recess or come back inside for recess, because she was just so discombobulated and overstimulated, so frustrated. 

Cherylynne Crowther: Good to have that instructional aid. But wow, that girl's distress levels? I see trauma adding to more trauma and that impacts her ability to learn for years. 

[00:10:16] SPS Barriers

Christie Robertson: So how exactly is SPS blocking access to these programs? One way is that they've made the qualification criteria incredibly restrictive. Here's what DeVille told me about how this plays out.

Tricia DeVille: They have changed the criteria to make it super hard to even qualify for the BOC. 

WIDA is the state test the bilingual kids take every year, to see their language proficiency. There's four domains – reading, writing, listening, and speaking. WIDA’s guidance for a Newcomer program would be a 1.5 overall. 1.0 is the lowest you can get. But they're like "1.5 or 1.0 – that would be helpful for that student if the parent agrees to it."

The district has decided to make it harder. They're not using that guidance. They are saying a student can't get a 1.5 in ANY of the domains. So they have to get a 1.0 in EVERY SINGLE domain to even be considered for the BOC program. 

And so we're missing students. For example, 2022 we had, probably around 17 Afghan students come – there was a student who, she guessed everything right on the reading. And so she didn't qualify. So that's just one example. So, yeah, they've just made it too hard.

Cherylynne Crowther: And we'll have links to WIDA in the show notes.

Okay. Guessed the right answers and failed the test? This sounds absurdly familiar to stories about access to special education services. Students denied services despite recognized need. 

Christie Robertson: And then even if the students do qualify with these WIDA scores, Seattle's website says they can only attend a Newcomer site for one semester before being transitioned back to their neighborhood school. 

Cherylynne Crowther: Okay, so there are a few schools that are providing classrooms for newcomers to the country?

Christie Robertson: According to the district's official Linked Elementary Schools and Location of Student Services 2025-26 School Year, Newcomer services are provided at three elementary schools – Dunlap Elementary, James Baldwin Elementary (which used to be Northgate), and Hawthorne Elementary. The document explicitly states that there are no Newcomer services in the Denny or Madison service areas, and that students there will receive services at their attendance area schools. 

And the population of kids who are designated as "recently arrived English learners" has been increasing. According to the state OSPI report card, in 2014-15 there were 169 kids designated as recently arrived English learners in Seattle, and by 2023-24 there were 464. So the population more than doubled. 

But then the number of kids who are being served at the 4 designated Newcomer schools, which is the three elementaries plus the Seattle World School for High School, that number has been decreasing. We've actually gone from 43% in 2014-15 to just 6% today. 

Cherylynne Crowther: A handful of kids down from nearly half from 10 years ago. More students need services, but barriers mean less access. 

Seattle's website makes it really hard to even find information about Newcomer programs. They're buried on a page that's mostly about general classroom support. The language on the page is "a multilingual student who is identified as a newcomer or new to English can be transferred from their neighborhood school to a Newcomer site for one semester, then transitioned back to their neighborhood school.” 

Christie Robertson: In March of this year, the six Newcomer teachers were officially told that their classrooms would be closed . Here's what Tricia Deville said in her May 14th testimony.

Tricia DeVille: The district has a new plan for the Newcomer program. Starting next school year, each of the six Newcomer teachers will be staffed in one to two schools based upon the numbers of newcomers in June. We will be spread across schools using the same model as an ML teacher. This inconsistent support of being spread across schools will not benefit newcomers, especially those who are in schools without an assigned Newcomer teacher. These models are not equitable for this population with such intense academic and social needs. This plan of inclusion without appropriate support is not working and will not work, and parents are unaware of how little support their children are actually receiving. 

What metrics does SPS use to evaluate the effectiveness of a program? How do they determine if a program isn't working? 

Christie Robertson: And remember, Cherylynne, that 2008 audit of multilingual education found that the pullout ESL model was the least effective. 

Cherylynne Crowther:  I'm also surprised that someone hasn't pulled up that audit. How are they not paying attention to that?

Christie Robertson: I wonder who is aware of the dismantling of this program. And that's one of the main reasons that I wanted to make sure that we did this story. Maybe there's some explanation for all of this, but regardless I think it's really important that everybody be aware of what's going on, 

[00:15:52] The Path Forward

Christie Robertson: According to the teachers I spoke with, the solutions are actually pretty straightforward. 

1) Go back to the WIDA-recommended qualification criteria instead of the impossibly restrictive ones that Seattle has created. 

2) Provide services for as long as students need them, not an arbitrary one semester limit, and 

3) Actually use the specialized Newcomer teachers for their intended purpose instead of scattering them as general support staff.

Cherylynne Crowther: These solutions make a lot of sense. It's just a let down in terms of being able to really bring people into Seattle Schools, both with the language and the cultural navigation. 

Christie Robertson: I want to conclude this section with testimony from Nimo Farah, who is also a former Bilingual Orientation Center student, and now she's a multilingual instructional assistant.

Nimo Farah: I attended Bilingual Orientation Center known as BOC, a program created to support students who are new to the country and are learning English. At BOC I had teachers who were trained to support students like me. Even with that help, I still struggled. 

Now imagine students having to face those same challenges without any support. That is what will happen if SPS removes BOC. It's not fair or realistic to expect newly-arrived students to succeed in general education classrooms without language and cultural support. These students often feel left out, discouraged, and this affects how they feel about school and how well they will learn. 

Research shows that early support in school is very important, especially for immigrant students. Without it, they more likely will fall behind, feel disconnected, and miss out on future opportunities like college or getting a good job.

Many immigrant families trust SPS will do what's best for their students, but they often don’t know about changes like this. 

Meanwhile, programs like Highly Capable are growing because these families know how to advocate. They have resources. They speak the language.

As a mother of multilingual students, and an educator who works closely with these learners, I am very concerned. BOC helps the students who need the most support. Instead of cutting this program, the district should be investing in it. 

I invite you. I ask you to come visit our schools. Speak with our students and teachers. The need is clear. The demand is real. Please see it for yourself before making a decision that will affect many lives. 

Cherylynne Crowther: Wow, she really brings that home. These newcomer families get shut out. Which is a loss for all of us. Especially when I see that two of these students are now employed with Seattle Public Schools. They have helped to create some of their own workforce. 

Christie Robertson: Yeah, I feel like the most powerful testimony is really coming from these students who went through the program and care so much about it that they are advocating for it now and are teachers themselves.

[00:19:26] The Bigger Picture

Christie Robertson: So there's two persistent themes that I think about that are being called out here.

One is – paying attention to what's happening on the ground. I really think that most of the board and the community and the legislature and people who want to make sure that the school district is performing as intended don't know that this is happening. To me, this just calls out that there's not enough of a mechanism to find out what is happening in schools. 

Even when people come and testify before the board, in their two minutes it's really hard to get into the amount of depth that we just got into. We did a bunch of research, we talked to a bunch of people, we spent a bunch of time here having a conversation... And now hopefully this will raise some awareness. 

But if people hear this condensed into a two-minute testimony... There's 25 testimonies, right? So if you hear something that is talking about something that you don't really know anything about to stick it to, you're probably just gonna think "What? I don't know what that is," and put it out of mind. "That can't be right." 

Cherylynne Crowther: Or even like, “well, that doesn't affect me.”

Christie Robertson: Right. Like, “I already have a bunch of stuff that I'm worried about. I can't think about that too right now.”

Cherylynne Crowther: And those are the few people that listen. 

Christie Robertson: Yes. Most people won't even hear that. 

And then the second big picture thing is – guardrail violations. To me there are guardrails being violated here. And how do we bring awareness of that guardrail violation? What's the mechanism for something like this to really come to the attention of the people who can do something about the fact that the district is not fulfilling the values of community?

Cherylynne Crowther: I mean, the deaf and hard of hearing about the alarms – that had come up before at a school board hearing. But yes, that idea of, like – where have they gone through the guardrail? Where have they hit it and bent it? Where have they driven over the side? 

Christie Robertson: Yeah. 

Cherylynne Crowther: And what are they gonna do about it? Because even if you do have some of these things that come to light, it really does feel like there... given that there's really no... no feedback from the school board for testimony, and then the staff doesn't have an obligation... So you don't get these questions answered. And I think that's so disheartening to people who are pushing for change or raising legitimate questions. 

Christie Robertson: And, you know, there's guardrail monitoring, but it only monitors the predetermined measures that really are not capturing these kinds of things. So what is the proper mechanism for – “did you guys know that these classrooms are being taken away?”

Cherylynne Crowther: Yeah, that part of – when a guardrail is violated, what is the procedure? 

Maybe that's something to ask the school board candidates, you know.

Christie Robertson: Yes.

Christie Robertson: Thanks for listening to Rainy Day Recess. You can find our transcripts and show notes on our website rainydayrecess.org.

Cherylynne Crowther: And if you found this episode helpful, please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Share it with other parents, community members who need to know what's really happening in our schools. The more people who understand these systemic failures, often for marginalized students, the more pressure there is for real accountability.

Christie Robertson: Rainy Day Recess is looking for help. If you care about public education reporting in Seattle and you want to get involved, let's chat. I would love a co-host, ideally someone who brings a different perspective than mine. 

I could definitely use help with audio editing or technical production skills. 

I could definitely use help with social media. 

And especially if you have ideas about the business end of things, sustainability, funding, or even finding a long term home for the podcast. 

If you think you'd be a fit for any of these roles, if you have any other ideas, contact me at hello@rainydayrecess.org.

Cherylynne Crowther: Stay curious, stay cozy, and we'll see you next time on Rainy Day Recess.