July 31, 2008
Dear County and District Superintendents:
ANNUAL NOTIFICATION OF TRANSLATION LANGUAGES
PER ASSEMBLY BILL 680
Assembly Bill 680 (Chapter 706, Statutes of 2006) requires the California Department of Education (CDE) to notify districts, by August of each year, of schools within the district where languages other than English are spoken by 15 percent or more of the student body and for which translations of parental notifications are needed, pursuant to California Education Code (EC) Section 48985. According to AB 680, the CDE must make this annual notification by electronic means.
This message constitutes the CDE’s annual notification to your district or county office.
According to EC Section 48985 states:
If 15 percent or more of the pupils enrolled in a public school that provides instruction in kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive, speak a single primary language other than English, as determined from the census data submitted to the department pursuant to Section 52164 in the preceding year, all notices, reports, statements, or records sent to the parent or guardian of any such pupil by the school or school district shall, in addition to being written in English, be written in the primary language, and may be responded to either in English or the primary language.
The “15 percent and above” statistics for a district’s schools are being provided by the CDE as a special report that you or your staff must access at DataQuest, the CDE’s online, searchable data resource. The report for your district will show a table that lists schools with language groups constituting 15 percent or more of a school’s enrollment, according to data for the 2007-08 school year. For any school affected by EC Section 48985, the languages listed are the ones for which translations of notifications to parents and guardians are required by the law.
Instructions for accessing reports
DataQuest is located on the CDE Web site at http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest. After going to the DataQuest Web site, follow these steps to access your schools reports:
Step 1:
Begin by selecting “District” from the pull-down menu for “Select Level.”
NOTE: If you are a county office, you still should select “District” for the purposes of this report.
Step 2:
From the “Subject” pull-down menu, below the heading “Student Demographics,” find and select “English Learners.” Then click “Submit.”
Step 3:
On the resulting page, enter the first four letters of the name of your district or county office. Click “Submit.”
Step 4:
On the next resulting page, select the name of your district or county office from the pull-down menu. Then, under “Select a Report,” select the very last report in the list, “Language Groups by School Determined to Meet 15 Percent and Above Translation Need.” Click “Submit.”
Step 5:
The resulting report will show a table that lists schools and the “15 percent and above” language groups. For more complete information about the language groups at a particular school, you may click on the name of the school. In cases where a district has no schools with language groups in the “15 percent and above” range, according to 2007-08 statistics, the report will so indicate, in place of any data.
Why are Fluent-English Proficient counts included in the calculation?
The intent of EC Section 48985 is to facilitate effective communication with parents/guardians. If a student is reclassified from English Learner (EL) status to Fluent-English Proficient (FEP), that may not change the need for his/her parents to receive notices in English and the primary language. Consequently, the formula used by the CDE in determining the "15 percent and above" statistics includes EL and FEP counts. The formula is the same as that explained in the Categorical Programs Monitoring (CPM) Cross-Program Monitoring Instrument, Item 7.
For more information
For information regarding AB 680, please refer to the letter dated February 23, 2007, “Local Translation of Parental Notifications to Be Monitored,” which was mailed by the CDE to county and district superintendents. The letter explains the requirements of AB 680. Two enclosures with the letter contain supporting information for local implementation of EC Section 48985. The letter and enclosures are available on the CDE Web site at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/pf/cm/transref.asp. Please refer to the second bullet under the sub-heading, “Translation Requirements.”
If you need assistance in accessing the DataQuest reports for your schools, or if you have questions regarding the calculations, please contact the Educational Demographics Office, Assessment and Accountability Branch, at
916-327-0193.
Sincerely,
Original signed by
Anthony Monreal, Deputy Superintendent
Curriculum and Instruction Branch
AM:jg
1430 N Street
Sacramento, CA 95814