The Language Acquisition Department of the Paradise Valley Unified School District offers support to its schools in a number of ways. Among them are the personnel filling the positions of District Testing Clerk and Language Acquisition Technician. It's important to understand their roles, and how you can benefit from their assistance.

District Testing Clerk
Any time you have a student whose parents indicate speaks or has spoken a language other than English in his/her home, this student will be designated a PHLOTE (Primary Home Language Other than English). At this time, the student will be flagged for testing in the English. While this is often performed by a testing clerk at one of our schools, or by the SEI teacher, there are circumstances which call for the assistance of our District Testing Clerk. Eleanor Ybarra, who fulfills this role in our district, has been specially trained to administer the Arizona SELP (Stanford English Language Proficiency) test in these cases, as well as the Spanish Oral, Reading and Writing IPT test to new students. After testing, Eleanor provides both the Records Secretary and SEI teacher with the results.

If support is needed to complete the paperwork involved in testing students, feel free to contact Eleanor. She can be reached at (602) 449-2124, or by emailing her at eybarra@pvschools.net between the hours of 8:00AM and 4:30PM.

Language Acquisition Technicians
There are many requirements made at the state and federal levels regarding record-keeping and data pertaining to English Language Learners. This is accomplished by the individuals who serve as our Language Acquisition Technicians, whose primary responsibility it is to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information, such as

• Tracking data and information on new and returning students throughout the school year.
  
  
• Ensuring that Dual Language students have valid, signed waivers.
  
  
• Providing entities at the state, federal, and local levels with data pertaining to program progress upon request.
  
  
• Training and assisting the school testing clerks to ensure testing inter-rater reliability and accuracy of data entry at the school sites.

As a teacher, you may receive a request for information from one one of our Language Acquisition Technicians, Dollie Gutierrez or Giuliana Ormeno, for information about your class schedule, your ESL or Bilingual Endorsement status, or about your students. This information is likely being requested by an agency, and becomes part of a report that will most likely result in the acquisition of funding for your students. Therefore, it is important to provide this information in a timely manner.

To view the Language Acquisition Reassessment Guide, please go to Language Acquisiton Department Conference Site on Connect Me.