At the Oct. 21 Plano ISD Board meeting, a parent said the closure of Foreman Elementary led to loss of one of the district\u2019s largest dual-language programs and asked how the district will remediate impacts on affected students.<\/p>\n
Harper Weaver, who identified himself as a Plano ISD parent, described Foreman as \u201cone of the largest multilingual, bilingual programs\u201d in the district and told trustees that district long-range facility planning recommended closing Foreman without naming a replacement for its dual-language program. Weaver said an earlier announcement that Dooley would host the replacement dual-language program was reversed and that two pre\u2011K dual-language programs (Foreman and Meadows) were closed; he asked what remediation the district will pursue and raised transportation\u2011time concerns for students moved to new campuses.<\/p>\n
The board then received a presentation from Tali Gomez, executive director for multilingual services, that framed program size and performance across Plano ISD. Gomez said the district serves about 11,256 emergent bilingual students, roughly 7,000 in ESL programs and about 3,500 in dual-language programs. She reported the district now records 94 spoken languages and students from approximately 132 birth countries.<\/p>\n
Gomez explained program models and state requirements: Texas Administrative Code requires districts to offer a program when 20 or more English\u2011learner students who speak the same language are enrolled at the same grade level. Plano ISD operates one\u2011way and two\u2011way dual\u2011language models. The one\u2011way (80\/20) model begins kindergarten with roughly 80% of class time in Spanish and moves toward a 50\/50 balance by upper elementary; the two\u2011way (50\/50) model mixes native English and emergent\u2011bilingual students to develop bilingualism for both groups.<\/p>\n
Gomez told the board the district has full implementation through fifth grade for one\u2011way dual language but noted outcomes in Spanish-language STAR (state) testing lag English results. She summarized spring 2025 STAR results: about 81% of the district\u2019s dual\u2011language students scored at \u201cApproaches\u201d or better on the English STAR reading assessment, while roughly 43% scored \u201cApproaches\u201d or better on the Spanish STAR reading assessment. Gomez said test design and differing cut scores between English and Spanish STAR norms complicate direct comparisons; she described steps the district is taking, including adjusting language-allocation schedules, increasing small-group time targeted by students\u2019 language needs, adding bilingual and ESL coaching, and issuing a district \u201ccall to action\u201d to raise fidelity in bilingual instruction.<\/p>\n
Trustees asked staff for more information about where Foreman students were assigned after closure and about transportation time limits; Weaver and Gomez said specific remediation steps depend on capacity and campus programing decisions and that the district\u2019s long-range facility plan and enrollment data guided earlier placement choices. No formal board action was taken during public comment; trustees and staff discussed next steps and asked the multilingual team to continue outreach and provide clearer updates to parents on program locations and timelines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the Oct. 21 Plano ISD Board meeting, a parent said the closure of Foreman Elementary led to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-16600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-plano","9":"tag-plano-headlines","10":"tag-plano-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}