Proviso D209 is trying to find innovative ways to navigate the ESL teacher shortage as its English learner population continues to grow, doubling in just six years.
During its July 16 meeting, the board unanimously approved contracts with Elevate K-12, an online teacher provider, and Kaleidoscope Education Solutions, a national referral staffing leader for school-based therapy and special education services, which will provide paraprofessionals.
The district will pair a paraprofessional provided by Kaleidoscope with a certified and endorsed virtual teacher provided by Elevate to teach English as a second language students in real time.
“These are students that we absolutely need to support,” said Interim Supt. Alexander Aschoff. “This allows us to come to compliance with the Illinois State Board of Education as far as meeting the needs of our students. I understand that it is not conventional.”
According to Aschoff, there are currently 10 vacancies for bilingual paraprofessionals and eight vacancies for ESL/Bilingual teachers with one pending approval.
The estimated cost for the contract with Kaleidoscope for seven paraprofessional positions is $354,816. The one-year contract with Elevate is a minimum investment of $589,100.
Aschoff said the district has already invested and allocated the funds for full-time equivalents, a system used in school districts to measure the amount of work a teacher does during the school year.
“This is not additional FTEs, we have allocated for these FTEs,” Aschoff said.
During its April meeting, the board approved 11 full time positions to bring D209 into compliance with the Illinois State Board of Education, which mandates bilingual programming for English learners.
According to Illinois School Code 105 ILCS 5/14C-1, under 23 Illinois Administrative Code 228, public school districts are required to provide a Transitional Bilingual Education program for English learners. This includes home language – the language spoken in a student’s home other than English – and English instruction in all core subjects.
However, a district official said during the board meeting that there are no guarantees from Kaleidoscope that they would be able to provide the staff needed.
“While we’re seeking this, we don’t yet have a guarantee from the company,” they said. “Everybody across the nation is having a very difficult time finding these qualified staff members.”
The need stems from a lack of applicants, Aschoff said.
“We are still having difficulty finding highly qualified individuals,” he said.
And the need for more ESL teachers continues to climb.
According to the Illinois Report Card, the district has seen a continuous increase in English learners in the past six years.
In 2018, the district has 10.5% of students whose primary language is not English. By 2023, that number increased to 18.9%, which is 4.3% higher than the state average. Aschoff said the number has now increased to 22% this school year.
“We have seen a dramatic increase in that population from 2018 of 10% of our student population to now 22% of our student population,” he said. “It is now over 1,000 students. It is growing and very much needed support.”
The struggle is not new and not limited to Proviso.
According to EducationWeek, the number of certified licensed English learner instructors decreased about 10.4% between the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school year. But the English learner population grew by 2.6%.
In Illinois, the English learner population grew from 156,888 to 245,592 students from 2010 through the 2020-21 school year. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, by the 2023-24 school year, that number has increased to 271,000 students.
Board Member Rodney Alexander said that in the seven years he has been on the board, the district has not been able to find the requisite number of qualified teachers.
“You can throw money at the wall, but the problem is nationwide there is a problem finding enough qualified people to fill these positions,” Alexander said. “It is not that we don’t want to hire them, it is that they are not there.”
But the overall main goal is to find qualified teachers to be in-person with students on campus.
“We want a person in front of the students,” Aschoff said, adding that if the district can hire teachers, they will.