Yoshikai Elementary is part of the Salem-Keizer School District in Oregon. It was named after Alyce Yoshikai who was a principal, teacher, and administrator for 39 years in the Salem-Keizer District. The name of the school changed to reflect Alyce’s work in October of 1994. Currently the principal of the school is Zan Payne. According to the Oregon State Report Card the school received a 4 out of 5 rating based on its achievements, academic growth, and performance of subgroup students. Salem-Keizer has a large amount of ELL students and Special education students within its district. For Yoshikai specifically there are 56% of English Language Learners with up to nine different languages spoken. Of the 56% …show more content…
When a parent goes to register their child for school, they must fill out a survey that asks question about what languages are spoken in the home. If the parents fill out anything other than English, the student is assessed for their English language skills. One of the assessments for placing students into a program that helps them is called the Express Placement Test. This test can be conducted by the teacher. The student is asked a series of question and is prompted and given an example of how/what the answer the teacher is looking for. For example questions range from “point to the girl in the green shirt” to “tell me in a complete sentence what the boy is doing”. The goal is to have all the students proficient in the English language, and if having instruction in some Spanish, for example, is going to help them improve then Yoshikai decides whether or not they should be placed in the ELL program. Another assessment that Yoshikai uses is the Woodcock Munoz Test. This test looks at four distinct groups of English learning; picture vocabulary, verbal analogies, letter-word identification, and dictation. Each part of the Woodcock Munoz Test represents different parts of English language learning. There are students that seem like they could use more instruction and guidance in English, parents have the right to refuse services.
When it comes to placement, once the testing is finished they are placed in whatever level they tested into. Like any other service however, parents can refuse this service at any time and have their students placed in a regular education classroom. They are notified by any means possible, but usually they try and schedule a face to face meeting with the parents to discuss what is going on with their student. In the end though, it is always up to the parent to decide what happens with their students ELD