KIPP charter network launching biliteracy program at new Denver elementary school

A high-performing charter network will run a biliteracy program at a new elementary school in southwest Denver this fall — a first for KIPP schools in Colorado.

KIPP officials said they designed the program in response to parent interest in bilingual education that starts from a young age. Many families had seen their high school students educated in two languages earning a seal of biliteracy upon graduation.

“Families said, ‘why can’t we start that sooner when kids are learning to read instead of waiting until high school to develop those skills,’” said Kimberlee Sia, the CEO of KIPP Colorado. “It was really driven by families seeing what was possible with their older students.”

Ellen Dobie-Geffen, KIPP Colorado’s director of English language development, designed the program and said KIPP is optimistic about the academic results it can have.

“We really believe in the power of biliteracy,” Dobie-Geffen said. “We’re not doing something that’s impossible.”

Several charter schools across the state offer dual-language or language immersion programs, but biliteracy programs, which focus on simultaneously creating a literacy foundation in both English and Spanish as a way to foster bilingualism and to help kids learn to read while they are still learning the language, are still rare in Colorado. While the programs are similar, they have distinct goals and can target different students.

In the case of KIPP, this program isn’t designed for students who have no English background, although they are welcome to take part. Rather, the biliteracy program is designed for students who are growing up in English/Spanish environments, which KIPP officials say describes the vast majority of the students in southwest Denver.

As the charter network works on expanding outside of Denver, officials said that if the program at the new KIPP Sunshine Peak Elementary goes well, they may replicate it at a new school in the Adams 14 school district. Biliteracy education was a common request from parents there too.

For several years, a number of Adams 14 schools had been rolling out a biliteracy program from the University of Colorado. But this year, Adams 14 officials put the program on hold, claiming they were unsure of its effectiveness, and citing shortages of qualified teachers. Parents and advocates have held protests and community meetings, and continue to ask the board to reconsider.

Last month, several mothers who asked the board to support a KIPP charter school for their district cited its bilingual programming among their reasons.

One of those parents, Maria Centeno, told the board that she didn’t feel that her district school celebrated her Hispanic culture, but she said she saw students integrated and working together at KIPP.

In biliteracy programs, the amount of exposure students get to their home language and English can change by grade level, compared with dual-language programs that generally stay at a 50-50 split. At KIPP, students will start in preschool with 50 percent of their instruction in Spanish and 50 percent in English. The balance will shift so that students in fourth grade may be getting about 70 percent instruction in English and about 30 percent in Spanish.

“There are very few bilingual options in Denver at the middle school level,” Dobie-Geffen said. “We want to make sure we are setting students up to have the academic vocabulary to be successful.”

Dobie-Geffen said if the school in Adams 14 is approved, KIPP’s biliteracy program could be modified for the needs of that community.

Before designing the biliteracy program, KIPP also started a program last year, as mandated by a standing court order for the Denver district to serve English language learners, at its school at the other end of town in the far northeast.

That transitional program has accelerated students’ literacy growth, Dobie-Geffen said.

For southwest Denver, KIPP officials chose to create the biliteracy program, modeled upon other programs and based on research.

Kathy Escamilla, director of the BUENO Center at CU Boulder created a biliteracy program used in many districts across the country, said charter schools may have some advantages when operating a biliteracy program because of their independence and flexibility.

Escamilla said one of the keys to success is to train and help teachers as they roll out any biliteracy program.

KIPP plans to train teachers for five weeks this summer. Dobie-Geffen said teachers who already have the state’s credential for teaching students who aren’t fluent in English are “a bonus.” KIPP is requiring its teachers be certified as early-childhood educators and as bilingual teachers – under standards set by the district’s court order.

Sia, KIPP’s CEO, said finding teachers who meet those requirements was difficult. It’s a challenge for all schools offering bilingual programming.

Teacher training will cover the biliteracy program, why KIPP chose it, and how to execute a good lesson.

After that, teachers will receive weekly trainings, which can focus on biliteracy if teachers or charter leaders feel teachers need it.