GLENDALE TRAINING HOMEGROWN TEACHERS FOR LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY.Byline: Eric Wahlgren Daily News Staff Writer Faced with a constant shortage of teachers who speak Armenian, Spanish and Korean, the Glendale school district Glendale School District may refer to one of the school districts in the United States:
With the start of a new school year this week, a new crop of former teacher's assistants with foreign language skills got a class of their own through a special district program designed to fast-track the credentialing Credentialing is the administrative process for validating the qualifications of licensed professionals, organizational members or organizations, and assessing their background and legitimacy. process. District officials say the novel program - there are only 12 others in California - helps them meet state mandates for bilingual teachers and put people with extensive in-class experience in teaching positions. ``This is a way of home-growing your own talent, nurturing it and having it flourish,'' said Alice Petrossian, Glendale Unified's director of special projects and intercultural in·ter·cul·tur·al adj. Of, relating to, involving, or representing different cultures: an intercultural marriage; intercultural exchange in the arts. education. ``There is a largely untapped pool of employees who have developed experience in education through their day-to-day work and would make excellent teachers.'' About 46 percent of Glendale Unified's nearly 30,000 students are identified as ``limited English proficient pro·fi·cient adj. Having or marked by an advanced degree of competence, as in an art, vocation, profession, or branch of learning. n. An expert; an adept. .'' Most of those students speak Armenian as their first language. Spanish is the next most spoken language, followed by Korean. Petrossian said many of the more than 40 graduates of the Glendale Paraprofessional paraprofessional 1. a person who is specially trained in a particular field or occupation to assist a veterinarian. 2. allied animal health professional. 3. pertaining to a paraprofessional. Teacher Training Program were district parents who had long worked as teacher's assistants before they were recruited for the program. Sookmin Yi, 44, was a teacher's assistant for seven years before she went through the program and landed a job as an eighth-grade math teacher at Rosemont Middle School. ``It's great,'' said Yi, a native Korean speaker whose two children have attended Glendale schools. ``I am fully responsible for the kids. I can plan my own lessons. I am a real teacher now.'' Yi said she had often considered being a teacher but had to put off her dream because she was raising her children and could not afford to take the time off from work to go back to school full time. ``Before I heard about this program, I thought it was too late for me to become a teacher,'' Yi said. Other candidates, like 25-year-old Betty Demerjian, had recently graduated from college and were approached by the district while they were considering teaching careers during their stints as teacher's assistants. Demerjian, who speaks fluent fluent /flu·ent/ (floo´int) flowing effortlessly; said of speech. Armenian and Spanish, became a sixth-grade teacher at John Marshall Elementary School Marshall Elementary School is an elementary school located in Wexford, Pennsylvania. Part of the North Allegheny School District, it serves students in grades K-5. External link
``I felt really comfortable in the classroom because I had been here before,'' said Demerjian of her first day on the job as a teacher. Demerjian said that although she teaches exclusively in English, four of her 32 students essentially understand only Armenian while another student speaks only Spanish. ``The languages come in handy Verb 1. come in handy - be useful for a certain purpose be - have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun); "John is rich"; "This is not a good answer" ,'' said Demerjian, who spoke Armenian at home with her parents growing up in Glendale and learned Spanish in school. ``I am able to give them explanations in their language, and I often stay after school and help them with their homework.'' Petrossian said the district has been striving to hire teachers who reflect the diversity of the school district's student body and who can help the district meet state requirements for bilingual teachers. ``So often when a child is behaving well or poorly, a teacher will say, `I will talk to your parents,' '' Petrossian said. ``If you can't speak the language of the parents, then that becomes very difficult.'' Founded three years ago with an initial $68,000 state grant, the program pays for each prospective teacher's tuition, books and other expenses for the credentialing program at California State University, Los Angeles California State University, Los Angeles (also known as Cal State L.A., CSULA, or "'CSLA"') is a public university, part of the California State University system. . The candidates perform their student teaching requirement while keeping their jobs as teacher's assistants, allowing them to speed up the credentialing process and to hold on to a paying job. About 15 teacher's assistants go through the program every year, but Petrossian said the district hopes to increase that number by looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. good candidates in other school jobs, including custodians
The Custodians is terminology in the Bahá'í Faith, which refers to nine Hands of the Cause assigned specifically to work at the Bahá'í World Centre in attendance to the Guardian of the Faith. and receptionists. Besides a push to recruit more teachers to reflect the cultural makeup makeup In the performing arts, material used by actors for cosmetic purposes and to help create the characters they play. Not needed in Greek and Roman theatre because of the use of masks, makeup was used in the religious plays of medieval Europe, in which the angels' faces of the district's student body, there has also been a surging demand for new teachers because of the statewide initiative to reduce class sizes. ``We have to compete with other districts for new teachers,'' Petrossian said. ``The (paraprofessional) program enables us to build our own pipeline.'' According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a state official, the Los Angeles Unified School District The Los Angeles Unified School District (the "LAUSD") is the largest (in terms of number of students) public school system in California and the second-largest in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population. and districts in Anaheim and Azusa also operate similar programs. ``This is a great way of getting people who have hundreds of hours working with children into teaching positions,'' said Kathleen McClure, Demerjian's principal at Marshall. CAPTION(S): chart, photo PHOTO Betty Demerjian, fluent in three languages, became a teacher through Glendale's quick training program. Gus Ruelas/Daily News Chart: Ethnic breakdown |
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