MATSOL Board Applauds LOOK Act

The MATSOL Board of Directors applauds the passage of the LOOK Bill with the Seal of Biliteracy, which will allow school districts to establish English Learner programs that best meet the needs of students, recognize the assets that bilingual students bring to our schools, and encourage increased language learning for all students.

We would like to express our deep appreciation to Governor Charlie Baker, Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo, Senate President Stan Rosenberg, the bill sponsors Senator Sal DiDomenico and Chairman Jeffrey Sanchez, and Education Committee Chairs Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz and Representative Alice Peisch for supporting this legislation. In addition, we are grateful to Senator Karen Spilka and Representative Kay Kahn for championing the Seal of Biliteracy.

MATSOL is proud to be a founding member of Language Opportunity Coalition, along with Massachusetts Association for Bilingual Education (MABE), Massachusetts Foreign Language Association (MaFLA), and Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA). We thank the Coalition Steering Committee members Helen Solorzano (MATSOL), Phyllis Hardy (MABE), and Nicole Sherf (MaFLA), who put in countless hours supporting the work of the coalition. We are grateful to Eva Millona, Amy Grunder, and the support of Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA). Charles Glick and Kate Saville Worrall, Charles Group Consulting, also provided invaluable guidance on policy issues. In addition, we thank the Seal of Biliteracy Working Group, which today has over sixty members who collaboratively developed the Seal of Biliteracy Toolkit and also led the pilot project to implement and award the Seal in their own schools and school districts. Finally, we’d like to acknowledge the work of our MATSOL members, who advocate every day for their English learner students and programs, and whose influence and leadership helped achieve passage of the bill.

We are very excited as we look ahead to this new era in English learner education in Massachusetts. There is still a lot of work to do, but we look forward to working with our colleagues and fellow MATSOL members as new opportunities unfold to ensure equitable and effective instruction for all our students.

MATSOL Board of Directors
Vula Roumis, President
Juanita Brunelle, Vice President
Melissa Latham Keh, Treasurer
Mary Clark, Clerk
Victoria Ekk
Mary Hughes
Christine Leider
Jennifer Noorjanian
Kevin O'Connor
Allison Rainville
Laura Schall-Leckrone
Yuiko Shimazu

MATSOL Staff
Helen Solorzano, Executive Director
Ann Feldman, Director of Professional Learning

Share this post:

Comments on "MATSOL Board Applauds LOOK Act"

Comments 0-5 of 0

Please login to comment