What is Title I?
Title I is the largest federal-assistance program. The goal is to provide a high-quality education for every child. Title I serves the children who are furthest from meeting the state standards set for all children. Title I supplements the instructional program for all students in a Title I designated school. Title I of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation is a federal program that provides opportunities for the children served to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to meet challenging state content standards.

Title I ensures that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments.

Title I provides greater decision-making authority and flexibility within the schools. However, greater responsibility for student performance is the exchange made for this flexibility.

Title I Provides

  • Teachers and Teacher Assistants for Small Group Instruction

  • Technology

  • Tutorial Software

  • Support for EL Services

  • Teacher Assistants for Computer Labs

  • Materials and supplies for instruction

  • Staff development for teachers and administrators

  • Parenting initiatives

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How Does Title I Work?
The federal government provides funding to states each year for Title I. To get the funds, each state must submit a plan describing:

  • What all children are expected to know and be able to do

  • The high-quality standards of performance that all children are expected to meet

  • Ways to measure progress

State Educational Agencies (SEAs) send the money to school districts based on the numbers of low-income families. The local school district (called a Local Education Agency, or LEA) identifies eligible schools and provides Title I resources. The Title I school (this includes parents, teachers, administrators and other school staff) works to:

  • Identify students most in need of educational help (Students do not have to be from low-income families to receive help in school-wide settings.)

  • Set goals for improvement

  • Measure student progress, using standards set forth in the state’s Title I plan

  • Develop programs that add to regular classroom instruction
     

Title I Implementation in East Voyager Academy
Title I resources allow opportunities for students to achieve high standards by providing research-based instructional programs, providing additional technology, and reading and math intervention.

The Title I program adheres to the rules and regulations of the “No Child Left Behind Act” of 2001 (NCLB). Under NCLB, each Title I school is required to make “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) toward the goal of having all students score at the highest levels on PASS by the year 2014. Student attendance and teacher attendance also are used to measure AYP.

Title I schools offer parents an extra opportunity to become involved in their child’s education by participating in literacy and technology activities at the school and by joining the Parent Advisory Council (PAC). The PAC meets bi-annually to share Title I information, keep abreast of important events, visit Title I schools, and give input to the district from the parent’s perspective.

 

EVA parent and family engagement policy

Title III
English for Speakers of Other Languages (EL)
EL provides a safe haven and nurturing environment for East Voyager Academy’s growing population of linguistically and culturally diverse students. EL creates a learning environment that encourages student pride in cultural heritage and provides the cognitive and affective support to help them become contributing members of our society.

This program, beginning in primary school and continuing through high school, provides each non-English or limited-English proficient student the opportunity to be successful in academic areas and to develop English listening, speaking, reading and writing proficiency.

EL students are served daily by push-in, pull-out or EL classroom instruction. Students are served through the regular education classroom with differentiated instruction and are regularly monitored.

EL Overview
Students from non-English backgrounds are rated according to the following six levels of English proficiency:

  • 1. Pre-functional (Entering)

  • 2. Beginner (Emerging)

  • 3. Intermediate (Developing)

  • 4. Advanced (Extending)

  • 5. Proficient (Bridging)

  • 6. Native-like Fluency (Reaching)
     

Pre-Functional (Entering)
Students are in the “pre-production” stage of English in which their speaking and understanding is limited to a few words and phrases. Most pre-functional students go through a “silent period” where they do not attempt to speak, but they are working to make sense of the language and environment surrounding them. The use of visuals, pantomime and hands-on activities will give them ways to participate in class activities. By the second semester, these students usually begin to speak and understand conversational English. They can construct sentences, but must be conscious of the process to do so. Their control of structure is limited and their vocabulary is restricted to the concrete, context-related and practical. Students at this level begin with virtually no functional ability in listening, speaking, reading or writing English. They are often new arrivals to the United States. In addition to their inability to speak and understand English, these students may be dealing with the difficulty of adjusting to a different culture and the loss of friends and familiar surroundings. Pre-functional students benefit from being paired with one or two “buddies” who can show them how to adjust to the school environment.

Beginner (Emerging)
These students speak and/or understand enough English for communication, but have difficulty performing ordinary class work in English. The student understands parts of lessons and simple directions, but cannot understand more abstract or academic language. The student is at an emergent level of reading and writing in English and is significantly below grade level. They are beginning to understand spoken English that deals with topics that are familiar to them. Sentences must be simple. It is important that students at this level be encouraged to use the language they know without fear. They should be encouraged to participate and to focus on communicating ideas. Teachers should model and encourage correct usage in a positive way. If the classroom is an accepting environment, language acquisition at this point grows rapidly. Still, much of what the student encounters will be incomprehensible and bewildering. Assignments should use simple language with extensive visual support. At times, students may not be able to see that progress toward language proficiency is being made and may yearn for the familiar surroundings of their home countries, cultures and languages as the frustrations of language learning and adapting to a new culture mount.

Intermediate (Developing) and Advanced (Expanding)
These two levels of student have an increasing fluency in English. They understand and speak conversational and academic English with decreasing hesitancy and difficulty. Intermediate students are able to perform a variety of uncomplicated communicative tasks, but have pronounced difficulties with academic vocabulary and skills. Advanced students are at or very near fluent in communicative tasks, but still may have difficulty with academic vocabulary and issues with formal writing. These students are “post-emergent”, and are developing reading comprehension and writing skills in English. Their growing proficiency allows them to develop academic concepts and vocabulary in the content areas of social studies, mathematics and literary studies, but they require specialized teaching strategies. Their writing is basic and meets their needs, but contains errors. Students at an intermediate or advanced proficiency level are frequently misperceived and thought to understand more academically complex material than they are capable of comprehending. They may be perceived as “holding back.” Their desire to fit in and not attract attention to themselves may cause them not to ask questions when they do not understand. In their heritage culture, asking questions may be considered to be a negative reflection upon the skill of the teacher.

Proficient (Bridging)
A student who is proficient in English has reached the point of being able to converse, read and write about academic topics on a level comparable to his or her peers. Some difficulty with reading and writing may still persist, but not to the point of interfering greatly with their overall success. These students may require additional tutoring to help close the gap academically in content areas that were missed while the student was in the process of learning English. To keep their development in perspective, some studies show that it may take up to seven or even ten years for students to achieve native-like academic vocabulary!

EL Curriculum and Instruction
EL teachers make use of an intervention curriculum, and the types of materials used. For that reason the local EL teacher and the Intervention Team will outline a program they believe will best meet the needs of each LEP student.

Some of the curriculum planning resources available to EL teachers includes the North Carolina Standards for content areas and the WIDA Language Standards Framework. EL teachers are required to meet these standards based upon the level of their students, and the EL classroom should not be seen as merely a support lab.

EL teachers at East Voyager Academy make use of current best practices and researched-based techniques in the classroom. Visiting a class, you may see one of many practices in action: academic conversations, sheltered instruction, use of technology including one-to-one computing, audiovisual materials, class debates, culture presentations, blended learning, and more.

The EL program serves to develop and bolster the understanding, empathy and skills of every teacher across the content areas at each grade level. All teachers working with EL students are also instructed in using the WIDA Standards to effectively plan, present and assess EL students in an effective manner.