Comments. Questions. Concerns.

I've received some great feedback from my cohorts like Nicole Woodard who said:
   Derrick you have a great start. I am interested in seeing your results from your first
task. I teach first grade and had one student that was supposed to be in a bilingual class this
year and was able to test out. I was excited to see that she was able to find success in two short
years of education. I think it is true what they say about it being easier for children to learn
English at an early age. I am interested to see what kind of suggestions your teachers will
come up with in those initial meetings. I think that will be a huge determining factor as to the
direction your research project will go. Good luck with your research and I will continue to
follow on. (Nicole Woodard, personal communication, June 25, 2013)

Another comment was made in the discussion group:
   My research study falls in line with yours. My school/district is experiencing similar
issues. We are introducing a "back to basics" program that highlights ESL best practices not
only for students in bilingual education but all of our students. We are hoping that over time
we are going to see early exiting by third grade which the program is designed to produce. At
my campus, we still have students in the bilingual program in fifth grade. We are going to have
a dedicated time campus-wide to implement this new program. The program has been very
successful in other states with similar populations as Texas. I am looking forward to your
research and following your blog. I will be curious to see our similarities as we both progress
in our research. Sometimes as educators we feel that the problem is isolated when in reality is
wide-spread. Good luck!  (Leigh Adams, personal communication, June 11, 2013)

From what I've gathered, I'm on a good track! I haven't received any comments to change or alter any part of my plan and oddly enough this actually makes me feel a bit uneasy. I feel that I still have a long way to go and I've already begun my initial planning for the PLC I'm presiding over in August. In addition, I've been asked by my principal to be a facilitator of Small Group Literacy professional development for my school in August. Attending these trainings offered by Neuhaus will allow me to help the bilingual teachers implement this into their additional instructional time in English and will allow students to be grouped in tiers and the teachers can monitor their progress and allow the groups to be fluid. Hopefully this will increase their academic performance which is directly tied to my action research project.

I need to do a better job of commenting on my fellow educator's blogs, but it's a 2 way street! COMMENT ON MY BLOGS AND I WILL DO THE SAME!

oh yea on something unrelated, CONGRATULATIONS TO MY ALUMNI CHAPTER XI ETA LAMBDA OF ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, INC. for being named NATIONAL ALUMNI CHAPTER OF THE YEAR!!! 0000000000000-SIX!!

-D