FCPS staff outline multilingual education growth, services and funding uncertainty

Dr. Moore, supervisor of multilingual education for Frederick County Public Schools, told the CNI committee that the district's multilingual education program aims to "provide multilingual learners and their families with equitable access to comprehensive education services," combining Title III'funded instructional supports with wraparound services from the international office.

Dr. Moore said the district now serves just over 3,700 multilingual learners, "about a 30% increase since 2021," and that more than 100 languages are represented among families; she listed Spanish, "Tugu," and French as the top three languages after English. She described a co'teaching K'12 model, standalone secondary ESOL and world-language options, small-group instruction, a one'way bilingual immersion program at Hillcrest and district-managed summer and credit-bearing programs for high-school ML students.

On student outcomes, Dr. Moore presented MCAP snapshots showing active multilingual learners lagging peers on some measures but said students who exit the program or who are multilingual at enrollment often perform at or near their monolingual peers. "As English proficiency increases, we see the number of proficient students increase on MCAP as well," she said.

Staff also reviewed family-facing tools and interpretation services. The district uses Elevation for EL data and lists Talking Points as its two-way messaging app; Dr. Moore noted the system has exchanged more than 718,000 messages between schools and families year to date. The district also uses an on'demand phone interpreting service (Boost Lingo), provides in-person interpreters for meetings and employs Spanish transcribers for written communications.

During questions, a committee member asked how possible cuts to federal Title III funds would affect services. Dr. Moore said key programs that would be affected include the summer program, professional learning, tutoring and coaching, and one staff position that conducts language dominance assessments for special-education evaluations. She emphasized that "the biggest challenge is the unpredictability" of grant awards, which makes multi-year planning difficult.

Asked about immigration-related enrollment changes, Dr. Moore said the district recorded a year'over'year decrease in active multilingual-student enrollment for the first time since the pandemic, but added the district lacks data tying the decline directly to immigration. She said the district is leaning on community partners and community schools to provide wraparound services and mental-health supports when families face stress or barriers to access.

The committee thanked presenters and noted a related policy item will be brought to the policy committee in June. The presentation was entered into the record.