AWL Meeting notes for October 23, 2006

Present: Bonnie Bissonette, Julie Bunczak, Liza Doering, Nancy Hessert, Sara Merkey, Laura Place, Libby Plamann, Vickie Richmond-Hawkins, Shar Soto, Kathy Spencer, Mary Nell Reif

We’re going to be sending the names of the AWL people involved in presentations at WAFLT to the Wausau Daily Herald. If you want me to include your name in our article, please send me your information.

Julie will be talking about AWL during Paul Sandrock’s presentation on Saturday morning at WAFLT. The presentation is entitiled, “Seeing With New Eyes: Global Literacy for Wisconsin Students.” I’ll include it as an attachment along with these notes. Shar Soto, Kathy Spencer and Mary Nell will be taking some information to the Friday morning New Visions in Action Workshop on creating regional alliances.

We’d like to update the WEBSITE, so please send me any new information which you would like included on the website. The categories are: Upcoming Events (anything going on in your schools of interest), Local Projects (preparation of our Presentation)
Learning Opportunities (anything your students might have done this summer or any partnerships with elementary schools, etc.) Conversation Groups (any pictures and commentary on how the group functions……..the French group includes children and they discuss books), Advocacy, Links (anything new that you’ve found while surfing the internet).

Liza Doering reported on the Chinese classes at Marathon. She had an outline of what is being taught in the class which is conducted in the 1st grade. The first grade classes meet once a week. In the high school, there is a Chinese Club which will focus on culture and some beginning language.

I had another conversation with Jean Tehan of the CFONCW and we do not have funding for our presentation or for professional development. Jean had some suggestions for our proposal and then had some other questions and comments: Have you asked the districts for sub pay for this important work? Could there already be a document that you could use that supports language study? She suggested that funders would not want to pay people for researching and compiling a presentation. She asked if there might not be a state organization that would fund the project. If State Superintendent Burmaster is so interested in world languages, would not the state have some money? Shouldn’t we be working more closely with our districts on strengthening and lengthening the course of study or world languages? Perhaps the Kohl Foundation would fund the project. She encouraged us to get support from our districts and to work closely with the administration and the curriculum people. She said she strongly supports our work and would be willing to have the CF play a role in bringing together the administrators and the Chamber to talk about languages in our schools.

Her comments provoked a conversation about the role of AWL. In accepting Jean’s offer to meet with administrators and the Chamber, we would be changing our status from a group that provides professional development opportunities to teachers and also advocates (on the side and not actively with our administration) for the study of world languages, to a group that promotes significant curriculum change.

The group felt that this is too big a step for AWL to take and that it might change the cooperative nature of the group. Even though there is a “World Languages Initiative for Elementary Schools” in the proposed school budget for 2007-2009, people believe that this will be cut. Schools are under serious budget constraints and it is unlikely that any additional programs will be added. Some suggested that the group would be looked at (by the administrators and other teachers) as a self-interest group.

The group concluded that they wanted to continue to meet and to cooperate by providing professional development opportunities and by promoting the study of languages in the manner in which we have done for the past three years.

It was suggested that we research language academies and Charter Schools and look at lengthening the course of study of languages in this manner. Another idea was strengthening and lengthening the elementary offerings through Continuing Education. Perhaps there is an opportunity for cooperation between NTC and UWMC in this area. What about getting help from CESA and/or some federal grants for the language academy or the Charter school ideas?

Laura suggested that Wausau might take ½ day of one of their work days and offer some professional development. We would have to plan this well in advance in order to get all our districts to be able to cooperate and participate. The idea would be to cooperate for planning professional development and share that experience with the participating members of AWL and not just one district.

Shar, Kathy, Julie and Mary Nell are going to start to work on a presentation. We will work in the evenings and set a date to get started. Vickie suggested she may have a source for funding the brochure which would accompany the presentation. People will not be paid for this work.

We would take the presentation to service groups and parent groups. The plan would be to develop a group of supporters who would promote a language academy or Charter school. Nancy suggested we have a number of focus groups of parents (using the names of families who have attended language classes through Continuing Education) to help in developing these ideas.

We didn’t set a meeting date but are thinking of getting together for a dinner meeting after Thanksgiving. There were many ideas and we thought we should let these “settle” and then meet again to set our priorities.

Random notes these are so apologies in advance for any mistakes! Comments, corrections and suggestions are most welcome.