Southern Illinois News

Illinois State Board of Education Multilingual Department Illinois Advisory Council on Bilingual Education met Jan. 14.

Here are the minutes provided by the council:

1.Introductions

Present:

Jean Barbanente DuPage 88, IACBE, Erica Craig - DuPage 88, Bianca Magana, ASD4, Kristina Davis, WestChicago 33, Susanna Melon - Glenbard 87, Josie Yanguas - IACBE, Agnes Stankiewicz, RidgewoodHS, Christina Schmidt, Leyden, Mireya Sanchez, D93, Sandra Moran, Waukegan

2. Public Participation - no public comments were made

3. Approval of Minutes - September 5th, 2024

Minutes were approved for the September 5th, 2025 meeting

4. Discussion of Next Steps - Concerns from the field

Kristina Davis shared that the parent who filed an appeal with the state Board regarding the erroneous identification of her child due to the HLS was denied. Jean Barbanente shared that the parent has the option to file a complaint with OCR but that there was no other appeal process that she knew of. Kristina Davies asked if the committee should consider a position statement to the IACBE. Jean Barbanente explained that the committee has to decide whether or not to make a formal proposal to the IACBE and that based on ISBE’s response in recent meetings that they would not be considering any revisions to the identification process despite complaints from the field. Josie Yanguas asked a question about high school districts and the need to re-screen students who were coming from other districts. Committee members shared what the process is. Jean Barbanente shared that of the three concerns raised: the HLS, the rule of 20 and the exit criteria, that two of them were in federal law and only the rule of 20 was a state regulation. Josie Yanguas shared that a possible route could be to request that the state petition the federal department related to the exit criteria, especially now with the new ACCESS test coming, the change to the ACT, and the concerns over the lack of authenticity in the speaking component. Josie Shared that it would be good to ask Rebecca Vonderlak Navarro from the Latino Policy Forum to share the results of the high school performance report from CPS. Josie will ask her to present at a future IACBE meeting. Jean Barbanente suggested that we compile the exit criteria from each state before deciding on next steps.

Future Agenda Items:

The next meeting for the IACBE Secondary Committee will be February 13th, 2025 at at 1:30 p.m. at DuPage High School District 88

The next meeting for IACBE will be March 7th, 2025

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CtpP6PZRRpRkg7A_mcuZn30iMc7toffEQeXWVpwnrok/edit?tab=t.0