GUILDERLAND — The school district plans to add three new teachers next year to meet the needs of a growing number of foreign students learning English but Guilderland will fall far short of meeting new state requirements, which go into effect in September.

Superintendent Marie Wiles says Guilderland simply can’t afford to meet the commissioner’s regulations and has written to Cosimo Tangorra Jr., a deputy commissioner in the State Education Department, to express her concerns; she has not received an answer to her letter.

“We’re going to make a good-faith effort to meet the spirit of the regulation,” Wiles told the school board last week.

“All school district are expected to follow all Commissioner’s regulations and take appropriate action,” wrote Jeanne Beattie, a spokeswoman for the State Education Department, in an emailed response to The Enterprise asking if there would be penalties for districts that don’t fulfill requirements.

She also said that currently the graduation rate for English language learners is 31 percent “and all districts must pool their efforts in order to ensure a better success rate for this population.”

Guilderland has about 230 students who are learning to speak English; that number has grown 200 percent in the last eight years, Wiles said. She also said the current program effectively serves students who speak over 33 different languages and that the district celebrates the rich diversity they and their families bring to Guilderland.

The new regulations adopted last summer by the Board of Regents will require students to receive both “pull-out” and “push-in” services during English Language Arts instruction. That means teachers are to visit English learners in their home classrooms as well as working with them outside of the classrooms.

Additionally, if there are more than 20 students across the district who speak a single foreign language, the district is to hire a bilingual teacher for them. Wiles said, at Guilderland, this would apply for Mandarin Chinese and may apply for an Indian dialect.

The state used to call the students learning English ESL (English as a Second Language) students and now calls them ENL (English as a New Language) students.

The district, in its $93 million budget proposal for next year, has recommended adding one ESL teacher at the middle school for $78,000, one at the elementary level for another $78,000, and 1.2 at the high school for $93,600.

Wiles has calculated that, even if no new foreign students moved to Guilderland, which is unlikely given recent trends, the district would have to hire 7.4 teachers at a cost of $577,200 to meet the new state requirements. “That’s just shy of 1 percent of our tax levy,” said Wiles. She said budgeting for that expense would be “absolutely unrealistic.”

Because of stagnant or reduced state aid, the district has cut 227.6 posts since 2009.

Also, Wiles says Guilderland has had trouble recently filling even one post with a certified ESL teacher. “If we are required to offer bilingual programs, this challenge grows exponentially,” she wrote to Tangorra.

Wiles went on to calculate that the 23 districts in the Capital Region Board of Cooperative Educational Services would need 59 additional full-time equivalent teachers at a cost of about $5.3 million to fulfill the new state regulations next year.

In its April 2014 “Blueprint for English Language Learners Success,” the State Education Department said, “Over the last decade, there has been an increase in the number of ELLs enrolled in NYS public schools resulting in a current population of 214,378 students who speak over 160 languages.”

The report stresses, not just ESL teachers but “All teachers must be skilled in how to support ELLs as they acquire content knowledge while also progressing towards English proficiency.” It also says that school boards and district leaders “are responsible for ensuring that the academic, linguistic, social, and emotional needs of ELLs are addressed.”

The report goes on to list such steps as “providing training to parents in English and in their home language on effective strategies to support their children’s learning in and out of school.”

Beattie said that the Board of Regents has recommended an additional $86 million in aid for districts serving English language learners in its 2015-16 state aid proposal.

“In addition,” she said, “we have provided a scaffolding guide that will help apply the modules to ELLs.  The math modules are being translated in the five major languages.  Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Bengali and Haitian Creole.   In addition, we have created a curriculum for our SIFE [Students with Interrupted Formal Education] students that is currently being piloted throughout the state.  All the new regulations are intended to support the shift in instructional practice and outcomes for this population.”

Wiles told the Guilderland School Board last week that she questions whether the State Education Department did research “into the financial implications” of the new regulations. She said, too, that she doesn’t know anyone planning for full implementation. “No one has the money,” she said.

Wiles also speculated that there may not be 59 certified ESL teachers in the Capital Region.

Asked if there are enough qualified teachers available to implement the program, Beattie, after consulting with experts in the department, responded, “The Department continues to be committed to the recruitment and certification of new bilingual/ENL teachers, in an effort to address the increasing shortages in several regions of the state.  To this end, we will continue supporting and expanding the efforts of the Intensive Teacher Institute for Bilingual Education and the ITI for Bilingual Special Education to include a greater number of schools of higher education.  In addition, we are working with local state colleges and universities to expand the opportunities for teachers to become certified in either bilingual education or ESOL.”

“I worry that, with so many openings for ESL teachers, those teachers currently employed in poor, rural, or otherwise underserved areas,” Wiles wrote to Tangorra, “will accept positions in school districts like Guilderland and leave some of our most needy students with even less hope of being taught by a qualified, certified ESL teacher.”

Wiles concluded in her comments to the board last week, “ Our current program is quite successful. Even if money were plentiful, qualified, certified staff are not.”

Other business

In other business at its Feb. 3 meeting, the school board:

— Heard from Wiles that 38 people had applied to serve on a task force that will be formed to evaluate possible ways to use excess space in the schools rather than closing a school. The board will make the appointments at its next meeting, on Feb. 24. “All are welcome,” said Wiles;

— Heard from Wiles about a bill, backed by Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, a Democrat from Round Lake, and Senator Patrick Gallivan, a Republican from Elma, that would end the gap elimination adjustment in 2015-16, providing school districts with the full amount of state aid they had received before the state siphoned off funds to close its budget gap.

Wiles and school board members urged residents to write in support of the bill and noted sample letters are posted on the district’s website.

On Feb. 10, the Senate Republican Conference held a press conference highlighting the Senate Majority’s plan to fully eliminate the gap elimination adjustment;

— Heard that library and school trustees will meet on March 25 at the library;

— Learned from Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Demian Singleton that Lynnwood Elementary School has released videos to help students with math homework. Those involved in creating the videos include Jessica Follansbee, Kristen Janssen, and JoAnn Romano;

— Heard congratulations for the Guilderland High School Science Olympia team — Eddie Yu, Will Wang, Bill Dong, Gretchen Long, Gloria Zhao, Bolan Chen, Angela Zhu, Amy Guo, Hayley Chang, Sagar Kumar, and Alicia Chen — which came in ninth out of 28 schools in an invitational competition at Columbia High School. The team, advised by Chuck Bender, competed in a regional event on Feb. 7;

— Learned that eighth-grader Jamie Golderman had her artwork accepted for publication in the Washington Saratoga Warren Hamilton Essex BOCES 2015 Talented Unlimited Literary Arts Journal. Of the 273 artworks submitted, 51 were chosen for publication;

— Approved an agreement with the University at Albany for student internships;

— Accepted the donation of 13 Dell laptops from Albany Medical Center. Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders credited Emilio Genzano, a former school board member;

— Applauded board President Barbara Fraterrigo and board member Gloria Towle-Hilt for receiving awards from the New York State School Boards Association for leadership training. Fraterrigo earned 75 points and Towle-Hilt earned 150 points; and

— Met in executive session.