Connecting English learners with school leadership

Organizers of a council for English-learning students are calling on parents to participate.

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Vineyard public schools superintendent Richie Smith and council facilitator Borges welcome parents. —Daniel Greenman

It was raining, dark, and well into the Friday evening before Thanksgiving. No one had shown up at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School library, and Marciá Borges was worried no one would attend the first meeting of the year.

But by around 7:30, about two dozen parents had filtered in, and she was looking forward to a strong start for her English Learner Parent Advisory Council.

The council, formed in 2019, connects public school leadership with one of the Island schools’ biggest constituencies — parents of students learning English.

Public schools have focused this year on meeting these families’ needs, as they make up 20 percent of the district, up from 10 percent a decade ago. The district has undertaken a thorough audit of learning experiences for students of all backgrounds, and acknowledged a lack of diversity among school committees.

At Friday’s meeting, Borges focused on recruiting parents, asking them to help organize future meetings, and consider taking on volunteer positions. 

Borges, from Porto Alegre, Brazil, has lived on-Island and served as council facilitator since 2023. She also teaches English at the Edgartown School, and serves as an interpreter.

Her council’s goal, explained in documents handed out to attendees, is to connect parents of English learners with school leadership, and approach learning as a shared responsibility between schools and home. It also offers parents a place to make themselves heard, which can be difficult for parents who don’t speak the district’s dominant language.

Speaking to The Times after the meeting, Borges said her council is a resource for families looking to get more for their children from public schools. Some parents want their children to learn English faster, while many also want schools to offer Portuguese classes, worried their children might become monolingual English speakers.

“The council helps to build these bridges between the system and this community of English learners who have different backgrounds, different cultures,” she told The Times. “And in some way I think the council helps the system understand students better, and students better understand the system.”

Borges welcomed parents with a presentation in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, accompanied by live translations via headset. She told them she was looking forward to repeat attendees, and called for parents to step up into council positions.

“Parents will be the ultimate leaders of the ELPAC,” the presentation read. “So it is critical that their input is included from the very beginning, to identify areas of English learner education they want the ELPAC to focus on.”

While Borges said her council primarily contends with the same difficulties as any other group asking for public participation — busy parents and scheduling conflicts — she said one issue is how highly some parents think of the Vineyard’s schools. “What I heard last year is, in general, they think their school is so good compared with the schools in their homeland that they think they don’t need to [participate]. They think, ‘Oh, I don’t need to, my kid gets so much in school’ … We’re trying to change this idea, to show this group to congregate.”

Recruiting parents wasn’t the only concern at the meeting. Much of the talk focused on testing, a source of anxiety for many students and their families. Borges advised parents to keep calm while outlining the four types of testing for English learners in Island public schools.

Of the four categories, perhaps the most discussed are state-level tests.

Some parents on Friday were happy to hear that scores from the yearly state test, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, commonly known as MCAS, would no longer be a requirement for graduation, as per a recent ballot question.

Borges also walked families through the ACCESS test, an acronym for Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English language learners. Federal and state laws require this test, which students take every year to measure their proficiency in reading, writing, listening, and speaking English.

The ACCESS test determines whether a student is able to exit the English learning program, and this year they are scheduled for Jan. 6–18.

On-Island, there is room for improvement in ACCESS, though Borges said the latest results were a positive sign. She told parents that 52 percent of English-learning students made progress in their scores from 2023 to 2024, up from 50 percent from 2022 to 2023. “It takes a lot for students to get this improvement,” she told The Times.

While parents are looking to raise their students’ scores, they also have requests of school leadership.

Carlos Trindade, a fourth-grade teacher at Edgartown School, preceded Borges as council facilitator. He told The Times parents want their students to learn English faster, eager for them to move on from English-as-a-second-language classes.

“It’s something we are working on for all schools … really focusing on improving and speeding their acquisition, because we want those students to be in mainstream classes,” he said. “Today [students] go to sheltered classes, with the support of English and Portuguese or Spanish. The goal of English language learning is to actually make this period as short as possible, so students can go to mainstream classes.”

At the same time, he said, parents want their students to learn Portuguese in public school. They are worried about their children becoming monolingual, or proficient only in English. “Many students here come from Brazil, for instance, [speaking] Portuguese,” he said. “But they are losing Portuguese, because they’re not having Portuguese lessons in elementary or middle school … one thing parents would like to have is someone to advocate for them to have Portuguese lessons, even for American kids.”

The high school currently offers a Portuguese language arts class, but other grades do not.

The council’s first meeting of the year also had a special guest — Schools Superintendent Richie Smith, who appeared to welcome parents and introduce himself. Smith drew parents’ attention to the district’s improved state test scores, and the high school’s upcoming major building project. He also remarked on the diversity in Vineyard schools.

“We have a very diverse, wonderful group of students here, and we’re blessed to have a great staff that leads and supports our kids,” he told parents.

Along with the superintendent’s welcome, Borges also offered parents food and several rounds of bingo after the meeting, handing out prizes provided at no cost from local businesses.

“We’re trying this year … to have fun meetings, not just informative, and see if we can really attract people to come,” she told The Times.

She is also looking to hold a multilingual movie night this year, and possibly a night of dance.

The English Learner Parent Advisory Council meets quarterly; its next meeting will be in January.