HOUSE BILL NO. 24 "An Act relating to instruction in a language other than English; and relating to limited teacher certificates." 9:10:42 AM Co-Chair Foster MOVED to ADOPT the proposed committee substitute for HB 24, Work Draft 31-LS0290\G (Marx/Caouette). Co-Chair Johnston OBJECTED for discussion. ERIN SHINE, STAFF, REPRESENTATIVE JENNIFER JOHNSTON, directed committee members to page 1, lines 11 through 12 in the committee substitute (CS) that incorporated the amendment that had passed the previous Friday. She relayed it was the only change in the CS. Co-Chair Johnston WITHDREW her OBJECTION. There being NO further OBJECTION, Work Draft 31-LS0290\G was ADOPTED. Representative Wool was concerned that immersion schools were being treated differently than other public schools. He noted they were all funded the same way and were in the same school district under the auspices of the Department of Education and Early Development (DEED). He detailed that when there was a language teacher shortage in a regular public school they had to go through the typical process; however, immersion schools had a fast track to getting teachers. He believed language teachers were needed everywhere and he had heard from his school district about the need. He reported that his district would be willing to accept a teacher under the conditions of the bill. He supported the concept. He reasoned that immersion schools were likely similar to charter schools (there was no immersion school in his community). He highlighted that kids attending charter schools tended to have parents who could drive them to school. He elaborated that the parents were typically more involved, and the kids were usually higher performing. He explained that it tended to attract a different kind of student. He reiterated that he did not have an immersion school in his district, but he was basing his experience off of charter schools that tended to be a little higher performing. Representative Wool thought it seemed slightly disadvantageous to the schools and children who could not afford to be driven to school but wanted language exposure. He considered that perhaps the bill did not apply to high school. He noted a person who had testified previously had stated there were K-12 programs; however, the bill sponsor had relayed there were not many vibrant K-12 programs. He remarked that younger kids did not have language programs in public schools. He objected to the idea that only immersion schools had the advantage of the hiring process, even though they were all in the public school system and all received state funds. 9:13:52 AM Representative LeBon considered how districts treated the immersion language program. From his perspective, the bill opened the door for a school district to pursue immersion language opportunities for students. He asked whether an immersion language opportunity allowed a student to receive foreign language credit towards graduation. Alternatively, he wondered if the immersion program was an enhancement to a student's academic portfolio, similar to a foreign language club. He considered whether the immersion program was a substitute for curriculum requirements to graduate by senior year in high school. He believed most of the programs would be at the high school level or may begin in middle school. He asked if the immersion language was intended to be an enhancement to the school day and to the language for a student or whether it was also intended to be a substitution for the foreign language requirements that a school district may establish for graduation from high school. He asked if it was one or the other or both. Representative LeBon shared that when he had served on the Fairbanks School Board, the board would approve curriculum for foreign language requirements to graduate. He stated that if the school district chose to allow the bill to be a substitution for the foreign language requirements to graduate, the curriculum for the immersion language program would need to be reviewed and accepted by the school board. Additionally, the performance of the instructor and student would have to be measured and tracked. The minimum requirements as established in the curriculum would have to be met if the bill substituted for the foreign language to earn credits to graduate. He summarized his questions. He wondered if the bill resulted in an educational enhancement as in a foreign language club or if it would add to the foreign language curriculum where standards would be established for the instructor and student. He believed it was an enhancement and not a substitution, given the name Alaska Native language preservation. He believed it would be up to a school district to decide whether to treat the program as its foreign language requirement. Co-Chair Johnston noted the department was available for questions. TAMARA VAN WYHE, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF INNOVATION AND EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT (via teleconference), asked Representative LeBon to repeat the question. 9:17:49 AM Representative LeBon repeated his question. He wondered if the bill would allow a school district to take an immersion language opportunity and treat it as part of the foreign language curriculum for graduation. Alternatively, he wondered if it was up to the district to decide. He asked if the department had any insight into how a district may treat the issue. Ms. Van Wyhe replied that much of the decision would be up to the school districts to determine. She elaborated that if a district or school offered foreign language in a club- type scenario with no credit attached, certification for the instructor would not be necessary. However, [instructor] certification would matter if academic credit was earned. She elaborated that the district would need to go through the proper channels to ensure the instructor was certificated. How the issue was handled would be a school- by-school and district-by-district decision. 9:19:08 AM Representative LeBon provided a scenario where a school district wanted to take advantage of the talent of a foreign language speaking individual in the community and allow the language (e.g. Russian or Chinese) to be part of the foreign language requirement curriculum. He asked if the class would be part of the curriculum and would fall under a whole different approval process. He stated that it was typically referred to a curriculum committee to write the curriculum and establish standards for instruction and student performance. He surmised it would have to be tracked and followed and a passing grade would have to be earned to check off the foreign language requirement for graduation. He had been reading the bill as an immersion program that would enhance the preservation of Alaska Native languages via a community member coming to the school to teach for a stipend or activity fee (not at the pay level of a certified language teacher). He asked for comment. Ms. Van Wyhe answered that it would be a question for the individual school districts. The way districts handled special coursework related to a uniquely qualified individual was specific to each district - it would depend on the size of the district, the resources available, and the size of the teaching staff. She was not comfortable answering the question for districts across the state. She deferred to the bill sponsor for additional clarification. REPRESENTATIVE JONATHAN KREISS-TOMPKINS, SPONSOR, asked if the question was whether fluency attained through an immersion credit should not qualify as a language credit in a school district. Representative LeBon explained he was trying to understand the world the bill applied to. He asked if the bill applied to a foreign language offered by a school district and perhaps it required students to take one year of foreign language to graduate. If so, he asked if the immersion language would or would not potentially satisfy the requirement to graduate. Representative Kreiss-Tompkins answered that Brandon Locke [director of the World Languages and Immersion Programs in the Anchorage School District] would have been best suited to answer the question because it would be on a district- by-district basis [Mr. Locke testified previously on the bill in a 3/10/20 10:00 a.m. meeting]. He believed it would be fairly absurd to not credential scenarios where students were fully fluent in a language. For example, if there were students coming out of grade 6 who could fluently speak Japanese and continued to do so through high school, something would be wrong if the school district did not recognize it as foreign language credit. He noted that he did not know how the foreign language credit worked. He added that the issue would be on a district-by-district basis. He surmised there was probably an existing mechanism to determine how the language would be credited. 9:23:12 AM Representative LeBon used the example provided by the bill sponsor about a Japanese speaking student. He considered a situation where a school did not offer Japanese as a language and the student was the only student taking the language in an immersion course. He thought the district would have to determine whether to formally recognize Japanese as an immersion language and to give the student foreign language credit. He continued that it would be necessary to run the course through a curriculum development process and ensure the instruction met the standards; it would also require approval by the school board. He continued that it would also be necessary to measure proficiency and declare that the instructor and student met the minimum standards and performance expectations, respectively. Representative Kreiss-Tompkins responded that he understood the direction of the questioning. He thought it was a nuanced inquiry. He had dialogued with over a dozen districts during the four years he had carried the legislation and the topic of how students coming out of immersion language programs qualified towards foreign language programs had never come up as a "sticky wicket." He did not have the answer to the question. He explained that someone who ran an immersion program would have to answer the question. He explained that the programs had been around for a long time and operated successfully. Representative LeBon referenced a scenario where a student entering a school district was fluent in Japanese. He asked if the student could opt out of taking a foreign language to graduate to meet the foreign language requirements of the district if Japanese was not one of the offered languages. He asked if the student would be required to take Spanish, French, or German if they were the three offered foreign languages and the district had no immersion program. He wondered if the student would be given a pass because they spoke fluent Japanese. He guessed the answer would be no. He surmised that the student would be required to take another foreign language even though they already spoke a foreign language fluently. 9:26:26 AM Vice-Chair Ortiz asked if there was a handle on the number of existing immersion schools and whether they only existed at the elementary or high school level. Ms. Van Whye replied that DEED did not track the data. She would check with the teacher certification administrators. Representative Wool followed up on Vice-Chair Ortiz's question. He recalled that a testifier who ran the immersion programs in Anchorage had referenced a K-12 program; however, the bill sponsor had communicated that the program was not robust. He believed many of the immersion programs were for younger students in K-6 or K-8. He assumed those classroom hours would not apply towards high school requirements. He did not believe [entering school] speaking a foreign language was enough to exempt a student from the foreign language requirement. He shared that his sister-in-law spoke a foreign language and her kids were fairly fluent and they had been a bit discouraged when they had to take a foreign language in school. He reasoned that it was not merely about speaking a language or else students would not have to take high school English. He thought the foreign language requirement was more of an academic requirement than just being able to speak the language. Representative Wool highlighted that the bill specified an immersion program. He thought Representative LeBon may have been referring to an immersion program within a conventional school. He surmised the bill would apply if a school wanted to start a program; however, the person instructing within the immersion program would not be able to teach a "regular" foreign language class within the same school, which he found challenging. On the other hand, he considered that perhaps the immersion teacher would be too busy teaching economics, history, and other topics in the immersion program. He had many questions remaining. He asked what a typical grade 9 through 12 immersion program looked like at present and into the future. Representative Kreiss-Tompkins believed the programs varied. He stated the question would have been best directed to Brandon Locke. The bulk of immersion programs were K-6 (whether they terminated at 6th grade varied). There were different language immersion tracks in the Anchorage School District where there was a continued study and maintenance of the language, including at higher levels (e.g. studying literature of the language). He did not believe there was a cookie cutter answer as to what an immersion program looked like after grade 6. Broadly speaking, immersion programs were primary education focused and the amount of time spent in a target language classroom tapered off as a student approached 6th grade. He explained that the immersion programs were frontloaded in the first few years of primary school. He relayed that the questions would be best directed to administrators of the programs. 9:30:45 AM AT EASE 9:30:54 AM RECONVENED Co-Chair Foster MOVED to REPORT CSHB 24(FIN) out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal notes. There being NO OBJECTION, it was so ordered. CSHB 24(FIN) was REPORTED out of committee with six "do pass" recommendations and five "no recommendation" recommendations and with one new zero note from the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development and one previously published fiscal impact note: FN1 (EED).