The Northshore and Shelton school districts have been honored by the Washington State School Directors’ Association (WSSDA) for outstanding efforts to promote and value diversity/multicultural education in their schools and their communities.

School board members and superintendents from the two districts were presented the association's 2005 Diversity Awards during the WSSDA annual conference in Seattle this past week. The awards are presented each year by WSSDA, an organization made up of all locally elected school board members in the state.

Districts that apply for the awards submit an essay describing the steps they have taken to implement the State of Washington’s Joint Policy on Equity in Education. The policy emphasizes fairness, openness and equitable access for all students in public schools by eliminating prejudice, bigotry and discrimination, addressing racial integration and language needs, hiring a diverse staff, and involving the community.

The WSSDA Diversity Awards program is now in its twelfth year. Awards are presented to small, medium and large school districts.

The Northshore district, based in Bothell, was selected to receive a WSSDA Diversity Award in the category of districts with more than 10,000 students (the district enrolls just over 19,000). Members of the school board during the past year were Richard Baldwin, B-Z Davis, Eugene Hawkridge, Vicki Opsata and Catherine Swanson. The district superintendent is Karen Forys.

The Northshore district’s English language learning (ELL) program serves approximately 700 students who speak 30 different languages. From 2001 to 2004 the number of ELL students in the district increased by 37 percent, with most of those Spanish speakers.

After researching best practices in educating English language learners, the Northshore district implemented a Spanish/English dual language program at an elementary school where 35 percent of the students are Hispanic and 43 percent receive free/reduced price lunches.

The program is a bilingual immersion approach that integrates Spanish-speaking and English-speaking students for instruction in and through the two languages. The dual language program started the 2003 school year with kindergarten and first-grade dual language classrooms. Since then, the district has added a second-grade class, a third-grade class and five kindergarten classes. Classes will be added yearly until the program is K-6.

The Shelton School District is this year’s recipient of a WSSDA Diversity Award for a district with 2,001-10,000 students (there are approximately 4,000 students enrolled in the district). The board members this past year were William Freund, Ross Gallagher, Susan McCausland, Julianna Miljour and Holly Sharpe. The district superintendent is Joan Zook.

Following a year of study, the Shelton School District created a magnet elementary school program for Spanish speaking students in the 1997-98 school year. All Spanish speaking students from the district’s three elementary schools were brought together at the magnet school and a Spanish/English dual language curriculum was implemented.

At the outset, the program consisted of one dual language classroom per grade level. Today, every child in every classroom in pre-kindergarten through grade five is participating in dual-language instruction. Of the 20 certificated teachers at the school, 11 are English/Spanish bilingual; 13 of the 17 educational assistants are bilingual, both secretaries are bilingual and the district has a full-time translator.

In its essay, the district says the dual language program has reversed racial divisions in the school and has led to significantly increased involvement and collaboration by English and Spanish speaking parents. It also says the district’s experience indicates that the program is helping to increase achievement levels for both English and Spanish speaking students.