The NYC’s Council hosted a meeting supporting multi-language learners in early childhood education programs on September 29. The meeting was chaired by District 34 Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez.

Gutierrez mentioned the Trump administration proposed rule changes for Head Start, a federally funded program providing free childhood education, that includes a new requirement to deliver all instruction in English only. With NYC’s early childhood education increasing in prominence, the subcommittee wanted to understand how the DOE is planning to expand programs and inform families about options.

The subcommittee on Early Childhood Education held the meeting due to 45% of NYC residents from the ages of 0-5 identifying as multilingual with the national average of 32 %.

The hearing detailed the department of education’s ability to identify, educate and support the needs of multi-language learners in preschool programs. 

According to a memo issued by Erica Phillips, Deputy Chancellor for Early Childhood Education at New York City Public Schools, identifying multilingual learners in early childhood differs from English language learners in K-12. The latter identifies English language learners by having families take a home language questionnaire, an individual interview when appropriate, and the New York State English language proficiency assessment. For early childhood settings, families provide their child’s language experience through a survey that specifies which languages are spoken by parents and caregivers, as well as which languages the child understands and uses most often.

“All programs are required to support multilingual learners by using developmentally appropriate practices such as visual aids, modeling, intentional vocabulary development, home-language connections, family partnerships, and culturally and linguistically responsive instruction,” Phillips said. “The goal is to enable children to fully participate in learning while developing English.”

According to Phillips, the Department of Education supports emergent multilingual learners by using data such as home-language information, enrollment, provider information, current Dual Language Bilingual Education Program locations and K–12 Bilingual Education Program data.

 Implementing such support is aimed to enhance the quality of children’s learning experiences to ensure families have meaningful language access and to determine which programs best meet the needs of their children.

Just as with any early childhood program, there may be waiting lists. When a family applies for 3-K or pre-K, they can list an unlimited number of programs on their application. Each student is assigned to their highest ranked program or placed on the wait list. 

There is a massive demand for dual language programs in early childhood and 3-K. Dr. Georgette Branch, Chief of Learning and Partnerships, detailed the exact numbers in terms of applicants. For 3-K, 28 Russian language, and 60 for Spanish. For Pre-K, 17 Arabic, 129 Chinese, 100 French, 47 Italian, 24 Korean, 34 Polish, 60 Russian, and 1574 Spanish. 

To attend to the demand, Branch mentioned that there are 108 teachers who are certified or close to certification to teach in 3K and pre-K dual-language classrooms across NYC. To accommodate teachers, there are instructional coaches, social workers and inclusion specialists. These specialists help teachers in subjects such as literacy, language development, social-emotional learning and inclusive education.

The DOE is continuing to expand its multilingual program. “We cannot do that without investing in the workforce,” Emmy Liss, Executive Director of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Child Care, said. “We need to continue both bringing multilingual educators into the pipeline and supporting those who are already in our system to get their bilingual extension or otherwise develop the skills to support multilingual learners.”

According to Dr. Branch, the public school allocation memorandum for bilingual revitalization disseminated this year shows about $13 million distributed across 93 schools. The schools’  programs average from one to five years of existence. 

The meeting made sure to mention that multilingual children will always be honored and valued in the early childhood system. “We will always prioritize ensuring that they can show up and learn in both their home language and in whatever other languages they might be learning in school, and that we see multilingualism as an asset and a strength,” Liss said.