From the President's Desk
Reciban un cordial saludo y mis mejores deseos para ustedes y sus familias; les doy la bienvenida al ciclo escolar.
De parte de TABE, deseo agradecer a todos los docentes y líderes educativos ante la realidad del caminar histórico que nos ha tocado vivir. Han trabajado arduamente para garantizar que el servicio educativo se ofrezca de manera segura y con calidad para todos los estudiantes y sus familias.
Como educadores, se mueven hoy por nuevos caminos, en actitud de búsqueda para reinventar los modos de hacer educación, encontrar o crear estrategias y recursos más adecuados para el éxito de sus estudiantes.
Agradecemos profundamente el trabajo realizado de forma conjunta. La sinergia que se logró permitió educar de un nuevo modo en tiempos inéditos, para un futuro distinto.
Al mismo tiempo, TABE, desea unirse a la nación en la preparación de la conmemoración del Mes de la Herencia Hispana. Se celebra del 15 de septiembre al 15 de octubre, coincidiendo con los aniversarios de la independencia de México y Chile, además con cinco países centroamericanos, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras y Nicaragua. Cada año en este tiempo, valoramos las habilidades y talentos de los hispanos y la comunidad latina, y celebramos las experiencias y contribuciones únicas que han hecho para nuestra nación.
En consonancia con lo anterior, la educación para estudiantes hispanos y latinos ha logrado avances sustanciales desde el Movimiento por los Derechos Civiles en la década de 1960, sin embargo todavía existen obstáculos y sistemas establecidos que continúan subestimando a estudiantes hispanos y latinos, inmigrantes e hijos de inmigrantes. Muchas comunidades hispanas y latinas enfrentan diariamente opresión y barreras sistémicas en su camino hacia una educación equitativa. En las escuelas, muchos maestros de estudiantes, equivocadamente etiquetados como alumnos con dominio limitado del inglés (LEP), no cuentan con la formación y los recursos adecuados para enriquecer las experiencias educativas de nuestros estudiantes bilingües emergentes durante sus clases.
TABE los invita a todos a aprovechar este tiempo de celebración y concientización de la experiencia latina para continuar replanteando nuestra forma de pensar, reformular las estructuras y sistemas que se han generado dentro de nuestros propios sistemas educativos, y reimaginar nuevas formas para ayudar a nuestros estudiantes hispanos y latinos, a verse a sí mismos en su proceso educativo de forma auténtica y significativa.
Dr. Josefina Tinajero, Publications and Archives Chair
Dr. Tinajero is Dean of the College of Education and Professor of Bilingual Education at The University of Texas at El Paso, where she also directs the nationally acclaimed Mother-Daughter and Father-Son Programs. Dr. Tinajero is a noted author and featured speaker in the field of gender equity, cultural diversity and in the recruitment and retention of Hispanic students in higher education. Dr. Tinajero specializes in staff development and school-university partnership programs.
A consultant to school districts, publishing companies and universities throughout the United States, Tinajero has been a keynote speaker and presenter at numerous international, national, state, regional and local conferences.
Dr. Tinajero has served on state and national advisory committees and boards for standards development, including the English as a New Language Advisory Panel of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards and the Texas Reading Academies.
She has received numerous awards, including the Chancellor’s Council Award for Teaching Excellence from the UT System/UTEP, the prestigious Eleanor Roosevelt Award from the American Association of University Women, and the Multicultural Educator Award from the National Association for Multicultural Education and was honored with the Texas Higher Education Star Award for the Mother-Daughter Program. Dr. Tinajero also received the Humanitarian Award from LULAC and was named one of 20 Most Influential Hispanics in the U.S. by U.S. Hispanic Business Magazine and the Texas Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.
She holds a BS degree in Elementary Education/Reading and an M. ED. in Supervision and Administration from the University of Texas at El Paso. She holds a mid-management certificate from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio and a Doctorates degree in Curriculum and Instruction with an Emphasis on Bilingual Education from Texas A&M University/Kingsville.
David Nungaray began his career as a dual language teacher at Bonham Academy. As a founding teacher for the Teach For America-San Antonio region in San Antonio, David moved to Texas after graduating from Chapman University with a bachelor’s in Political Science and a minor in Spanish. He is the son of Carmen and Hermenegildo Nungary, immigrants from Mexico. His parents instilled the importance of education in his life. He is also a first-generation college graduate. After teaching at Bonham, David became an instructional coach. He received his master’s in School Leadership from Trinity University. He then served as assistant principal and academic dean in Alamo Heights ISD, as well as the district Bilingual/ESL coordinator. David returned to San Antonio ISD to serve as one of the founding associate principals at the Advanced Learning Academy before serving at Bonham Academy as a principal. David loves fostering dogs with his husband, Jonathan, and together they own David’s Plantas, a small business.
Cloris Paulette Rangel is a passionate educator and relentless advocate for English learners. With experience as a Bilingual teacher, language and curriculum specialist, instructional supervisor, academic coordinator, independent consultant, and Director of Dual Language programs, Cloris’ knowledge scope of bilingual education, practices, program implementation, research, and trends are both immense and impressive. She currently serves as the Executive Director of Multilingual Programs in Fort Worth ISD.
She received her Bachelor of Science from Texas Woman’s University. Cloris continued her education at Southern Methodist University receiving her Master of Bilingual Education specializing in Gifted and Talented Education and earned her administrative certification from the University of Texas at Arlington. She is currently enrolled in an Ed.D. program at SMU.
Cloris is married to her high school sweetheart and a mother of two young boys ages 10 and 5 who she is raising to be bilingual and biliterate. She has served TABE as former Vice-President and is honored to continue to serve TABE.
Blanca Gálvez-Pérez moved to Austin almost 13 years ago, to work as Bilingual teacher for Austin ISD. She is still working as a DL at the same Title I school where she started, and collaborating with the District on different capacities as teacher, mother and as and advocate for Bilingual Education. She has being part of the CAC, DAC, MEAC and AAABE as a Board Member, for the last 10 years. Before that, she was an ESL teacher for 6 years back in Spain, where she was born. Over there, she earned both of her Bachelor Degrees in Education (Universidad Complutense), and then, her TESOL Master Degree and National Board Certification once in the USA.
All her family is still in Spain, except her husband and children; and her new Austinite family, made of all the new teachers from Spain that she mentors every year. ¡A su servicio!
By Rudy Rodríguez, Ph.D.
Gloria L. Zamora, Ph.D.
April 20, 1935 – August 30, 2001
Among the Pantheon of Outstanding Bilingual Educators
Deserving of Lasting Honor
The passage of time is quickly exhausting all prospects of honoring our early program trailblazers with a permanent memorial or tangible lasting marker of their system altering legacy. These were our leaders during the most stressful times for public education in Texas. During the 1960s and 1970s, federal and state mandates in response to civil right advocacy groups were looming throughout the country demanding desegregation of schools and improved learning opportunities for the language diverse and economically needy children.
Dr. Gloria Zamora is among the top candidates of hall of fame status whose memory we should keep alive. Her early experience as a young classroom teacher presented Gloria with a special challenge that helped inspire her pioneering work in dealing with the state’s diversity of learners and demands for quality education.
“I was full of enthusiasm and proud as classroom teacher…”, she wrote for Education Week in 1990. In those years, Dr. Zamora stated, “80 percent of us (Hispanics) failed to graduate from high school, let alone attend college. I began my bilingual-education teaching career (in 1956) without curriculum materials or language tests. I had no training and little research to guide me. But these obstacles were nothing compared with what our students had endured for years: low achievement levels, repeated failures, damaged self-concept, and very high dropout rates.”
Her most urgent assignment as a beginning San Antonio classroom teacher, according to the Our Lady of the Lake University October 1, 2018 Alumni Newsletter, “was to find a way to communicate with first graders whose first language was Spanish without speaking their language.”
What did she do?
“I closed the door to my classroom,” Dr. Zamora told the San Antonio Express-News, “and broke the law!”
As a young 20 - something teacher of children of migrant farm workers in the Sinton ISD, I remember as it was yesterday meeting Gloria Zamora for the first time at the April 13-15, 1967 San Antonio “ Texas Conference for the Mexican American: Improving Educational Opportunities”. This was the second meeting of educators of historical magnitude leading to the eventual enactment of federal and state legislation supporting bilingual education. The first of these meetings was the October 30, 31, 1966 Tucson Symposium on “The Spanish-speaking Child of the Southwest”.
I learned from Gloria and other seasoned professionals at the San Antonio meeting that it was ok as a teacher to use Spanish and to teach our Mexican-American students about their beautiful culture and history. This new practice in Texas schools represented a radical shift from the established norm of state-mandated English-only education.
(NOTE: There has been a dramatic change since the 1980s in the countries of origin of students in Texas bilingual programs. The enrollment has shifted from largely native - born Tejanos of Mexican origin and Mexican immigrant children to the current mix that includes newcomer children from the upper triangle countries of Central America, e.g., Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. A few students of Southeast Asian descent are enrolled in schools in communities along the Texas Gulf Coastal region, including Houston.)
A review of Gloria’s work over the course of her career shows this exceptional educator was undoubtedly the consummate professional con un corazón de oro. She was a San Antonio school teacher, curriculum writer, central office administrator in the Edgewood ISD, TABE member and advisor to the TABE president and the Executive Board; and, professor specializing in early childhood education at Our Lady of Lake University. During the year she was NABE president Gloria delivered a powerful testimonial televised on C – SPAN to a U.S. Congressional Sub-committee hearing on the reauthorization of the Bilingual Education Act.
Dr. Gloria Zamora brought to our profession a wealth of knowledge, lots of positive energy, toughness of character, and selflessness that helped guide our public schools during one of the most turbulent periods in the nation’s history. Her incredible talent and her passion for caring for the most vulnerable children has left an indelible mark on all of us who knew her as a friend and had the privilege of serving our profession during her many years of active service. Clearly, for this educator committed to fixing a “one size fits all” system no longer relevant to a growing diversity of learners, the responsibility of achieving this task was not only driven by professional ethics, but by a deep personal concern for doing the right thing for ALL children and the future of our country.
Finally, I would like to reiterate my special petition that we, in TABE, seriously consider an enduring and fitting memorial honoring the legacy of Texas’ trailblazers of bilingual education. Indeed, Dr. Gloria Zamora’s name should be on the top of the priority list for the naming or re-naming of a San Antonio area school, a region where she made her most prolific contributions. Gloria’s legacy of selfless service and dedication to a worthy cause should be a compelling reason to honor her achievements. Thankfully, there are few administrative boards recognizing some of our early leaders. Those enlighten administrators with bilingual educators’ school namesakes gracing their districts are very few and grossly disproportionate to the many front - line warriors who paved the way for the legions of professionals that followed.
For more on our early bilingual program pioneers, including Dr. Gloria Zamora click the video below.
Rudy Rodríguez
TWU and UNT Retired Professor of Bilingual Education
Producer of the Youtube TABE video: The Texas Bilingual Education
Story: Celebrating our Legacy
Longtime TABE and BEAM Member
Dr. E. Gonzalez, TABE Legislative Chair
Transitioning to Emergent Bilingual in Texas
Texas passed Senate Bill 2066 replacing the term “Limited English Proficient” with “Emergent Bilingual” in Texas Education Code (TEC) effective September 1, 2021. USDE continues to use the term “English learner” in federal guidance, so either term could be used depending on the context of the guidance or resource.
Strategic Plan for Emergent Bilinguals
Texas passed Senate Bill 560 which requires TEA to develop a strategic plan for Emergent Bilinguals in coordination with Texas’ Higher Education and Workforce Commissions to increase the number of bilingual certified teachers and increase the effective implementation of dual language one-way and two-way programs.
Accelerated Learning Committees for Emergent Bilinguals
Texas passed House Bill 4545 which requires accelerated learning for students who do not perform satisfactorily or did not test on STAAR grades 3-8 or EOC Assessments. HB 4545 goes on to require an Accelerated Learning Committee (ALC) for students who did not perform satisfactorily on Reading and/or Math STAAR for grades 3, 5 and 8. Guidance pertaining to the ALC for an EB student is that the ALC must have an LPAC representative. In other words, the LPAC cannot serve as the EB student’s ALC.
Building Cultural Competency Through a “Multicultural Self” Activity
By Dr. Lileana Ríos-Ledezma
As most of our educators and students are heading back to school either virtually or face-to-face, it is essential we prioritize building skills and attitudes to place students at the center of learning! Take time learning about students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds which shape and impact their identity. Snyder & Fenner (2021) encourages teachers and students alike to explore their own cultural identities using Gorski’s My Multicultural Self activity (seen to the right).
Asking educators and students to write several aspects which profoundly influence each aspect of their identity and then elaborate on how that shapes their own views of the world around them is a powerful start to a new school year as it sets the stage for a classroom of emergent sociocultural learners. This increases the likelihood of establishing positive relationships between peers and teachers alike as well as shifts the focus to the plethora of resources that exist in the abundance of diversity and funds of knowledge in the classroom.
Invitation to Attend the Higher Education TABE Preconference Institute
By Dr. Judith Márquez and Dr. Laurie Weaver
AAABE
AAABE always active! The Austin Area Association for Bilingual Education is a true example of activism; and has organized several events and activities aimed at promoting its mission and values. Thank you AAABE for creating events that support your membership and promote the advancement of linguistically and culturally diverse students in the Austin area. Pictures include: board retreat, conference program, kick-off virtual meeting, end of year celebration and TOY award. ¡Muchas gracias!
The TEA EL Support Division publishes parent and family newsletters that are coupled with the EL Web Portal to inform families of English learners of educational resources to increase the language proficiency and academic success of their child. March / April / May / June / July.
Access helpful educational websites to share with families. The suggested links will strengthen listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills.
Supporting my Child page offers valuable information that can be viewed or printed in multiple languages.
Are you looking for educational opportunities for your families? Visit the Family Supports page to find community resources available in your area. Resources range from adult English as a Second Language (ESL) classes to trainings on technology. Discover other great community resources opportunities on the Community Partners page.
Check out the Student Resources page for links for English learners to practice their language skills through activities and quizzes. This page provides great resources as English learners explores next steps beyond high school.
As Bilingual/ESL Directors we always have so many things on our plate: compliance, instruction, professional development, finances, and the list goes on! Our goal is to simplify your busy lives by offering you a concise list of updated resources in this section of TABE Noticias. We hope you find it useful!
The TEA web-based training modules were designed to support Texas LEAs to better support the LPAC processes. The web-based LPAC framework training is comprised of six short modules. Each module contains information about one section of the LPAC. After completion of each module, users will be prompted to complete a brief quiz and then provided access to a certificate of completion to download and print. Users completing all six videos will have a total of six certificates of completion. TEA also provides updated LPAC forms at https://www.txel.org/lpac/trainingresources/.
2021 Fall TABE Directors’ Conference
Come join us in El Paso or virtually from the comfort of your own home or office on Monday, October 25th for our annual TABE Directors Institute! Check out the wonderful lineup of speakers that we have prepared for you! And since you are there already, just go ahead and stay for the whole conference! It would be great to be together again!
Do your new core content area teachers need professional Learning on Implementing the ELPS?
ELPS Academy (4 CPE hours)
English Language Arts and Reading (3 CPE hours)
Mathematics (3 CPE hours)
Social Studies (3 CPE hours)
Teachers can register for the new TEA free ESL Certification Training online course at www.txeslprep.org! Check out this video and flyer (PDF) for more information. This course accompanies our TExES English as a Second Language (ESL) Supplemental #154 Preparation Manual (PDF). These resources are intended to equip Texas educators who desire to increase capacity in their districts and to enhance their existing ESL programs beyond minimum state requirements.
Obtain Performance Acknowledgments for Former Emergent Bilingual Seniors
Texas does not award a Seal of Biliteracy, but a student may earn a performance acknowledgement on the student's transcript for outstanding performance in bilingualism and biliteracy in accordance with TAC §74.14(b). Performance Acknowledgment in Bilingualism and Biliteracy (PDF)Opens a new window
TABE
Karina Chapa, TABE Newsletter Chair
Email: tabe@tabe.org
Website: http://tabe.org/
Location: Po Box 37130, San Antonio, Texas 78237
Phone: 210-979-6390
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TA4BE
Twitter: @ta4be
