Ocean View District Slow to File Plan on Bilingual Teachers

The Ocean View School District, facing a serious shortage of qualified bilingual teachers, is Orange County’s only district that has failed to develop a state-approved plan to remedy the problem, state and county education officials say.

Although other districts also lack enough credentialed bilingual teachers to keep pace with booming Latino and Vietnamese student populations, Ocean View for the past 11 months has not responded to the state’s repeated reminders to file a bilingual teacher training and recruitment plan, said Norman C. Gold, the state Department of Education’s bilingual consultant.

“There are situations where a district may not have the staff it needs in this area, but it has to develop a plan to remedy it. And that’s something Ocean View has not yet done,” Gold said recently.

If a district is delinquent for more than a year in filing an acceptable plan, the state can take additional actions, including withholding funding to the district, he said.

Ocean View is also the county’s only district that has not established state-mandated, on-site committees to monitor bilingual education in all of its schools that have significant numbers of students who speak little or no English, said Estella Acosta, the Orange County Department of Education’s ESL coordinator. Failing to set up such parent committees, typically an initial step toward expanding a district’s bilingual program, “is extremely unusual,” Acosta said.

Supt. Monte McMurray acknowledges that his district has been slow in complying with state requirements but said it will meet all legal guidelines before classes begin this fall.

“This one did fall through the cracks,” McMurray said. “The main thing is that there was some confusion among our staff as to what manner this should be filed and in what form. Our staff got different points of view from the state.”

Additionally, the departure in April of Gayle Wayne, an assistant to McMurray who headed up the district’s bilingual program, complicated the district’s effort, he said.

The district encompasses 17 schools, all of them serving elementary and kindergarten students. There currently are just seven credentialed bilingual teachers in the entire district, about 30 fewer than the state recommends to teach its 1,158 limited-English students.

Based on April enrollment figures, nine district schools have at least 21 limited-English students, for which the state requires special bilingual programs.

The state Department of Education last July rejected the district’s plan to increase its number of bilingual teachers, calling it inadequate in some areas, and requested that a revised scheme be submitted within 45 days, Gold said. The district did not reply, so the state sent a series of follow-up notices throughout the school year, he said.

The district only recently completed its draft version of its new plan, which it expects to file with the state by June 30, McMurray said.

According to the draft report, the district has been training 28 teachers to help offset its bilingual teacher shortage. If those teachers pass exams scheduled within the next two months, they will be certified.

McMurray said plans also are under way to establish parental bilingual advisory committees at schools where they are required. State law requires that on-site committees be set up at any school having at least 21 limited-English students.

Of the district’s nine schools that meet that criterion, only Crest View, Lake View and Oak View schools operate such committees under the auspices of those schools’ parent advisory site councils, McMurray said.

Elizabeth A. Spurlock, a school board member, said some parents complain that district administrators have been negligent in addressing the bilingual issue and have withheld information from trustees concerning efforts to meet state requirements.

Spurlock recently assailed staff members for not informing trustees about the state’s repeated calls for an acceptable bilingual teacher training and recruitment plan.

“If the state has been sending us notifications on a regular basis, it is the staff’s duty to disclose that,” she said during an interview last week. Trustee Carolyn Hunt, with whom Spurlock frequently disagrees during board meetings, said she has been satisfied with the way the staff has handled the issue. Hunt said administrators may have been too busy with other problems, including a budget deficit and proposed school closures, to fully inform the board of its progress on the bilingual teacher shortage.

“Perhaps we weren’t specifically informed of every detail of this compliance problem, but I don’t believe our staff has ever withheld any information from us deliberately,” she said.

Spurlock said she has been pleased with the progress made on the issue since Karen Colby took over for Wayne as the district’s bilingual coordinator. Colby prepared the draft bilingual remedy plan that trustees will consider Tuesday.

“I want to emphasize that our main intent is to become fully compliant with all legal requirements in this area by the fall,” McMurray said. “And we will continue working with the Department of Education of both the state and the county about how to do that.”