Lynda Espinoza Idle: There’s no Berto syndrome, poor baby syndrome, no more gut feelings. We need to go by collecting the data to show is Lynda responding to instruction compared to her true peers? We looking at that. So it it’s a lot of organization, but that’s where I have a coach. I have an MTSS coach that goes out and meets with teachers.

We go meet with the team. We have to be there. I believe with high expectation comes high support. 

Mandi Morris: Welcome to the ML Chat podcast. Today’s guest is Mrs. Lynda Espinoza Idle, a 38 year veteran teacher. Her word of the year is collective efficacy, and that tells you everything about today’s conversation she brings. So much experience and warmth to the work that she’s doing. She really specializes in the pre-referral and referral process for dual identified students, and I love listening and learning from her and how she breaks apart the pre-referral process for these students.

This conversation is. [00:01:00] So uplifting while also so informative. I learned a lot today and I think that you’re gonna very much so enjoy this conversation with Mrs. Espinoza Idle. Let’s go. 

Lynda Espinoza Idol has been an educator for 38 years. She holds a master’s degree in educational administration and a graduate endorsement from Colorado in culturally and linguistically diverse education. Lynda has been an ESL director in four school districts, the senior consultant at the Colorado Department of Education, and was the president for the Colorado State Affiliate TESOL in 2022.

Lynda was named Colorado Department of Education’s distinguished administrator in 2020. She has been a speaker at many national and regional conferences and is passionate about meeting the complex needs of English learners with disabilities. Lynda, I am really looking forward to this conversation. I feel like all of your years of experience, [00:02:00] there are so many questions I wanna ask.

There’s so much I wanna learn from you today. Just to kick us off, welcome and tell us a little bit about where you are, your school district, the work that you’re doing today. 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: Currently I’m the director of CLDE, which is culturally linguistically diverse education in Adams 14 in Colorado, in Commerce City.

So it’s just west of Denver. We’re a very small district, but we’re the most highly impacted district in the state. Over 50% of our students are active Multilinguals, but more than that of our monitored and former ELL. We have about 65% of our district students are multilingual. So two out of every three students are multilingual in our district.

How we support all students is very important. We wanna make sure all students get that support in their education and in their grade level standards. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. So how many languages [00:03:00] are represented in your school district? So you’re talking about very high ML numbers in your school district. How diverse is that population?

Lynda Espinoza Idle: Well. We have 23 different languages, but 97% is Spanish, so we only have 5,000 students. 3,200 speak Spanish. Okay, so then, and we have, yes, I know. So when we’re looking at our languages, it’s mainly Spanish, and then we have English, and then we have all the other 21 languages are less than 1%. We’ll have five students here, three students here.

A lot of them are one. And each language is, but we do have 23 different languages because English language development is not about Spanish. It’s about language acquisition and helping them attain that English proficiency. 

Mandi Morris: I’m so curious. In the school district with such high L one first language, home language as Spanish, [00:04:00] do you have a big dual language program in your school district?

What does education just look like and feel like in your school district for an average student? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: We are a dual language school district. Currently, we have dual language classrooms in our pre-K all the way up to seventh grade. So when we look at our students, and in fact this year of our, I wanna say all of our students, we have in elementary, we have 971 students that are in our dual language program.

We have about. 1300 Multilinguals in elementary, 971 of that 1300 are in a dual language program. So every school has English only track and one or two classrooms per grade level that are dual language. Yeah. 

Mandi Morris: That’s incredible. And how are you staffing your classrooms with dual language teachers? It’s a lot of dual language educators.

I, it sounds like though, in Colorado you’re probably in the right spot. 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: Yes. 

Mandi Morris: You got access to a lot of [00:05:00] educators. Tell us a little bit about what has that the program needs felt like and looks like for you. 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: It has been a struggle and recently with the teacher shortage throughout the country. It’s the same here.

It’s about partnerships with our local universities, but also we also hire from abroad. We have wonderful J one teachers that are new to the country and we have international teachers, and so we do have a nice number of international teachers that come and teach in our district. 

Mandi Morris: Oh wow. What a cool program and a neat opportunity for students too to be able to learn about places and experiences outside of their immediate experience.

That’s fantastic. So there’s dual language up to. End of middle school, it sounds like. And then high school is English only track for all students? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: No, we have a newcomer program, so it’s multifaceted. Our dual language program, again, coming from New Mexico myself for [00:06:00] 15 years, which is a dual language state when you come to Colorado, which is a local control state.

Every district does it a little different. So in our district, we’re looking at, our dual language program right now is growing. We, last year we stopped at sixth. This year is our first year with seventh grade. Next year we’re gonna add eighth grade. The next year we’re gonna add a year. So every year we are adding, but at our high school, we do have.

Uh, newcomers. So we have a newcomer program or a pathway for our students in English and in math, and now we’re building science. Every year we are building more and more courses that are going to follow our 50 50 model. AB dual language. 

Mandi Morris: That is really exciting. So when you have newcomers come into your high school, so let’s say you’ve got a 10th grade student, they just arrived.

They are going into, am I understanding you correctly into an ELA class in Spanish? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: No, we have, we have [00:07:00] dedicated ELD, so they’re gonna have three out of their six courses. Very sheltered. It’s sheltered in instruction. So we have that for we, we have their ELD newcomer class with a dedicated certified ELD teacher.

Then they go to a dedicated ELD teacher that’s also endorsed in ELA, secondary ELA, and she’s gonna provide that newcomer English course. Then we have a math teacher who is the dual language math teacher. He is going against him this year. He will provide Algebra one, geometry, whatever courses we have for them in a 50 50 model.

That means English and Spanish for them, so that will help the newcomer with not only the transition. But the maintenance that’s very important to us by literacy is very important to us. So that’s really our passion. We wanna make sure that you keep your L one, but that we are gonna help you attain your L two in math also.

Mandi Morris: Wow. Lynda, what an incredible model. [00:08:00] I’m just imagining students with this opportunity to be able, we know nationally one of the biggest, hardest challenges. Solve for feels like students coming in as newcomers in high school, especially with siphons life needs and the having the right teachers in the room with the right certification.

And you’re talking about a math teacher in high school who is dual certified. And bilingual. What an ideal situation for your students. Can you tell us a little bit more about what have you noticed the outcomes? How new is this model for you? What’s been the impact for your students in districts so far?

Lynda Espinoza Idle: This is my third year as a director here, so we’re still designing and flying the plane. We’re designing the plane, and while we’re flying it, I know everyone hears that idiom, but we’re working on. Increasing our rigor and also moving away from just being a bilingual program to a dual language [00:09:00] with a bilingual, we’re not, we don’t wanna be a monolingual Spanish program.

We wanna be a dual language. That means we honor both languages. We have dual instruction, dual assessment, dual progress monitoring on both languages. ’cause our goal is by literacy. Our goal is we want students to learn content in both languages, so that is where we’re working on redesigning our curriculum, pacing guides.

We had a. Last year by the correct curriculum that actually had that alignment. Because a lot of times you’ll have a program or curriculum in, in English, and it’s not properly translated in Spanish. It wasn’t designed in Spanish. So we were able to find a, a program, a curriculum that actually has both. So again, it’s a lot of backwards design and making sure that we have that.

And again, it’s a lot of, we are just now working with them to make sure. How do we honor and with fidelity, our 50 50 model and is it unit by unit? Is it one unit? And we look at the different standards. It’s breaking down the standards, doing curriculum [00:10:00] mapping, and making sure that we have the whole scope and sequence where we can make sure that students are gaining practice and showing mastery.

In both languages for each standard. So it’s a lot of work. It’s a work in progress, but I really like the direction we’re going. We’re moving away from monolingual Spanish only, which was the case before I got here. 

Mandi Morris: Wow. So you’ve got some big program shifts happening in your school district and it takes time and so you’re trying to implement some changes.

And of course, teacher consistency and teacher buy-in is a big. Piece of all of that shift and change. How do your families and community respond to the program offerings that you have? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: That’s where our heart is. We’re here for our families and my department is the one that does every parent interview.

When you enter our district, we talk to you first. We do a parent interview. We look at what resources and so families come to us and ask what supports we have, what, and if they have any questions, they go to their [00:11:00] schools, but they go to us too in our department to make sure that they have an advocate with them if we need to go to the to their school and go to meetings to make sure that.

Their wishes and their goals for their student are heard. So the main thing, it’s a partnership. It’s us reaching the parent. We want parents engaged, but we want them involved in the decision making of what their student’s education looks like. It’s a wonderful. They relationship, they come to us, they tell us how thankful they are.

They tell us, uh, they usually don’t get this much communication, as in other districts. They come to us and go, wow, we never had that before. And I said, we’re here, we’re not, we don’t have one size fits all. We’re gonna look at your student and look at what their needs are, and then we’ll create a pathway to make sure we’re meeting their needs, but also their language needs.

Mandi Morris: What does communication look like for you with your parents? If that’s something that stands out that you guys are doing a great job, I’m sure [00:12:00] other people would wanna know like, how are you doing that? How are you managing it? Do you have any tips? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: It’s all about relationship building and our schools do a great job.

The counselors here are wonderful. We make sure that we have bilingual staff in different departments, and especially in counseling. We have a community schools director. We have our counseling group, we, we have our, even our special education department has an assessment team that includes bilingual staff.

I think it’s making. Connections with those parents and just letting them know what’s available. I think awareness is really the key. Getting the information out in both languages, making sure that parents know where to get the information, or just having a face for them to contact. That’s why my department is like the first responders, we’re the first connection to these parents because before we can identify them, we talk to them, we do a parent interview.

And then they know now that we are the first contact at the [00:13:00] district to confirm the need for language support. So I think it’s relationship building, it’s awareness, and making sure that it’s available. Not only in Spanish, we try to have everything in the top five languages, but even though we only have one or two in the other languages, it’s easy when it’s Spanish, ’cause 97% are Spanish.

Mandi Morris: Yeah, you have a lot of systems built out to support Spanish speaking families, and what I’m hearing from you is having bilingual staff across. All of the departments means that those departments are accessible to families. So instead of a family that may be at home is a monolingual Spanish speaking family, and they feel like, oh, out of the entire school district, Lynda’s the only person they can talk to.

They know they can go to the front office and they can get help. They could even email a teacher in Spanish and probably get help. What an incredible environment for families. Lynda, I’d love to take a step back. Tell us a little bit about you. 38 years of [00:14:00] education. What? Dedication. Thank you so much For so many years, committed to the field of education.

How did you get into education? Where did your passion for this work begin? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: I’m from South San Antonio, Texas. Okay, and I went to school in South San Antonio. I went to UT Austin, and I graduated in December and I started teaching in December in South San Antonio. I was a migrant dual language school, and I’m a reading specialist first.

That’s my degree, but then when I went back and everyone speaking Spanish or ESL, I said I needed to go back. To get my ESL endorsement in Texas. So that’s where I started. And then I married an Air Force officer and we were stationed in New Mexico, which is the Dolan state. So I really was excited to be a teacher and a principal there.

And then we went to Colorado and I’ve been a director and at the state level here, my passion is looking at supporting multilingual students and [00:15:00] making sure that they have access to. Their grade level content and standards. So looking that as a principal, as a teacher, and as a director in three different states in 38 years, it’s really helped me build those relationship with parents, but also teachers that every teacher’s a language teacher and we, they’re all our students and everyone deserves high quality, standard based education.

So really making sure that teachers have the tools to support. Students access to curriculum, but also having parents be true partners and aware of how we can work together to make sure their students are successful. So it’s about community building and every state’s different from Texas to New Mexico.

Go to Colorado. Every state’s different, but a federal program’s, a federal program. And making sure that our students are getting their supports they need is what I look at. And that’s my passion from a teacher to a principal, to director, to the state level. I just love working with the [00:16:00] community and making sure everyone has the tools they need to be successful.

And that’s what drives me is I wanna go where I can be an, I can make an impact. I wanna go where we have a team that works well together and making sure that everyone is looking at students first and community first. And I think that’s what makes us successful. Oh, 

Mandi Morris: that’s so well said. I couldn’t agree more.

In 38 years in education, you’ve seen in your career shifts and you’ve seen you say like the pendulum swings from one side to the other. What are some just high level observations? I would love to hear from you and you think back across your career and having worked in three different states, you do have different perspective.

Some states do this one thing really well. You go somewhere else and you’re like, oh, they don’t do that here. So I’m wondering what is your high level? I’ve seen this shift and it’s great, or I’ve seen this shift in change and I wish we would go back. 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: Yeah, you’re right about the pendulum back and forth, but what stayed the [00:17:00] same is knowing your students.

You can’t differentiate, you can’t plan unless you really know your students. So I think that’s what stayed the same in each state, is that do we really know our students? And knowing your student is collecting data, knowing your student is knowing their families, knowing your communities, and then making sure that your program.

Meets the needs of your local context. One size does not fit all. I’ve been in different districts that had 3% multilingual to a district that has 50%, and it’s different, but it’s looking at your local context and really knowing your population, but also knowing federal law. That state the same too. Like I said earlier of a federal program.

It’s a federal program. We have to meet the needs of our multilinguals and we have to meet their language level needs. That means we have to provide access to grade level content. Not only instruction, but in assessment. And this is what I see. Some dis states or school districts [00:18:00] here in Colorado, we’re local control state, so every district’s different.

We don’t really, in, in Texas it’s state run, so you have, we give a lot of guidance, but looking at where we’re at, do we know our students and how do we support them? 

Mandi Morris: That’s so nice. Really, the heart of your work is, are the students in the center of the decisions that are being made. So that is a perfect segue into this work that you are passionate about, that you’re doing, you’re presenting on, and both regional and national conferences.

I would love for you to talk some about the work that you do for students who are duly identified or going through the referral process for duly identified. Walk us through where did this work begin for you and. Where have you landed so 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: far? When I first came to Colorado in 2008, about 2010 to 2011, our state was really looking into this, so they would ask directors to come to their training.

So that’s how I was able to get connected. And [00:19:00] then we started looking at statewide. How do we look at dual identify students and how do we refer them? How are we equitable? Are we over identifying? Are we under, because a lot of districts were over identified, but we have some districts who are under identifying.

They were like, oh, we can’t touch ’em for two years. No, we need to collect data and then we are not gonna wait to fail. So really starting with the R-T-I-M-T-S-S model at the state level. And then I was able to start working with the state back in, I think 2016. We had a group and we went across the state looking at giving guidance.

And then as a district. A director, when I went back, we were able to go to Washington DC and be part of CCSO guidebook development for dual identified students. So I was able to go with the state and some of our practices that I’ve been doing since 2016 or in that guidebook. But then we went back and we started training as individually with myself and the senior [00:20:00] supervisor at the state level.

She retired. I took a leave and we started doing this across the country in our own little company training. Districts and states on the MTSS process to make sure that we’re equitable, making sure that we give them tools, making sure they had at their fingertips everything to make appropriate referrals.

So that’s where it started. So then we started presenting across the, uh, national conferences, and then I came back and started working here. At Annas 14th, and I just loved it here. I love the community. I love the leadership here. So I decided to step back from doing national trainings and focus on just one community to make sure that this community gets everything that they deserve.

I’m really excited at this time to, I get to focus on the community. I get to rebuild the narrative of this community to make sure that our students. And every teacher’s a language teacher gets the high quality standard base. Whether or not you are dually identified or not, but [00:21:00] that is really the key training teachers to know the difference.

And the US Department of Ed a couple of years ago have a wonderful tool. I was part of their national convening and I was part of their expert panel to talk about their chapters. They have 10 chapter guidebook and I was able to talk about dually identified. That’s what chapter six. So my training is a lot about chapter six in the OS guidebook for ELL students and how we support dually identified students, how to refer.

But then after that, how do you make sure that SPED doesn’t Trump? E-L-D-E-L-D doesn’t trump sped, but we work together to make sure we’re collaborative. ’cause they have needs. In both areas and we need to work together to maximize our goals. That’s where we come together. We look at their learning goals, we look at their language goals, and we make that seamless collaboration 

Mandi Morris: for the referral process.

I love what you said a moment ago and wanna go back there, that you’ve got some school districts that are saying we can’t do anything for two years. [00:22:00] And I think when you’ve got access to a dual language or bilingual teachers, sometimes. You’ll get insight into that student faster because they’re able to communicate more effectively with the families in the home language, with the student in the home language.

They can start connecting some. Pieces or filling in some gaps of where maybe the student missed education or was held back in their home, in their native country and in their education system. But in general, what advice are you giving people for what kind of data? Are you collecting? And let’s think about really, a lot of our school districts have situations where I just feel blind.

I don’t have access to a lot of bilingual teachers. I don’t have access to resources, so I’m feeling blind. What advice do you give to that school district to say start collecting data even from the beginning as part of the referral process? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: And that’s what exactly what we do. Tier one and tier two is about [00:23:00] comparative data.

That means it’s in English. And yes, we do the Spanish, but that really doesn’t come until tier three because we wanna look at how are they responding compared to true peers. That means I’m gonna have comparative data, not, I’m not gonna compare an apple to an orange. I’m gonna compare a multilingual who’s in first grade, who’s a level one to another first grade level one student.

So we’re gonna look at how are they responding to, first and foremost their ELD instruction. And looking at that. So we do a lot of comparative data is at the school level and at the district level. And again, we’re making sure that we’re looking at that trajectory of that student and that normative data that Lynda is compared to these three other students who are in first grade and they’re all NEPs.

And they’re all in a small group and they’re all learning for sound fluency or initial sounds. All the other ones are meeting their goal of three letter sounds a week. Lynda [00:24:00] knows one. Then she goes, none. Then she goes a two, then she goes, one. We’re collecting data to say, Lynda, compared to a true peer, something’s going on other than language because we’re doing a language class and Lynda is not growing.

So again, it’s all about how are they responding to instruction. Tier one. Tier two, tier three, and it’s about collecting that comparative data to show is Lynda atypical or is Lynda typical or below? And then we need to look at ruling out, and this is where I come in, what does the federal law say? It says that we have to rule out language as the main reason for the low performance.

How are you gonna do that unless you compare student? To true peer. So that is a lot of our data collection is at the school level and at the district level, comparing true peers to so to show is Lynda responding, how is Lynda doing compared to true peers that should be showing their goals being met.

Mandi Morris: Lynda, when you say [00:25:00] true peer, let’s think of a scenario. So we’ve got a student who’s monolingual English, home language, English. And a student who came in as a first grader and is just learning English and Spanish is their home language. Are you comparing that second student to another student that Spanish is their home language and they’re also learning English?

Or are you comparing that student to that first home student? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: We do not compare English only to Multilinguals. That is the first guidance I give. Later on we can look at that to see how much, what is the discrepancy compared to English, only to monolingual. It’s about normative data among peers of who are multilingual.

’cause we’re, that’s the first and foremost that I need to show that they’re not responding compared to true peers. So it is a first rate NEP to a first rate nep. It is a ninth grade leap to a ninth grade lip because all of us have these [00:26:00] wonderful benchmark assessments, but they’re not desegregating the data.

They’re looping and grouping everyone together. And yes, there’s a place for that. But first we need to look at that subgroup that that cohort and how they’re doing in their, first of all, tier one ELD instruction, and then their tier one instruction in the classroom that is, again, grouped. Because it’s not fair to compare a EO English only to a multilingual if no supports were given.

So this is another thing. I have schools and I’ve been training where they give the same instruction or even the same intervention to English only and to Multilinguals, but did not add any language supports. But they expect different results. ’cause remember, if federal law says that giving the same materials is not equitable.

That’s it. The same. The same. That was what, back what now? Back in the 1970s. And we still see that. We still have that, and since 1970 it’s been saying [00:27:00] that we should not give the same to everyone without making language adjustments. So that’s where we try to work with every school and say, what are we giving?

How are we supporting? 

Mandi Morris: Yeah, equal is not equitable. That’s where that concept comes from, of the same material for everyone. Isn’t the same access for everyone. And I love you calling out about defining, thank you for defining for us here the what like peers means. So you are very fortunate in some ways that your school district has such a high population of Spanish L one because you have a big pool for data to think about those like peers.

When you have a student, you mentioned you’ve got students, you have like one or two for a language. How do you go about for like peers in that situation? What advice do you have? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: And I have this, when I worked across the state, I had small districts that have very small, multilingual, so then we find like schools are like districts so we can share data.

’cause we do have some state assessments [00:28:00] that we give. We give dibels, we have some of ’em. Use i-Ready, there is other benchmark assessments we can look at. But also star, we use Star Renaissance here and that’s a national. A group and they are looking at multilinguals across the country and looking at that data.

So now we have a Biliteracy report just came out in May or end of April. So we are excited ’cause we’re, we were doing that by hand. Ourselves and now we’re gonna have an actual tool that’s gonna make our job easier because we are partnering now with Renaissance and looking at our BI-literacy report. So once I don’t have it, we need to look at how we can group ’em.

But also, first and foremost, before you look at that, we’re talking about language acquisition First you have to rule out language. So that means are we giving quality tier one, ELD support and, and language acquisition class. It’s not literacy, it’s not second dose, it’s not an intervention. You know how many times I had to say that in my last 38 years, that ELD is not an [00:29:00] intervention.

It’s a core. And I’ve had a school that wanted to refer a kindergartner to the Mt SS process and to referral, but he was getting sent home at 1130 and his ELD class was at one 30. He never went to ELD class. So guess what I had to say, I’m sorry. You have to, you can’t go to tier two till you go to tier one.

And then I had another district a couple of years ago, ninth grade high school, they were failing Multilinguals in biology because they did not provide any language supports or language scaffolds. So of course they weren’t accessing. They’re all nips. I guess what we have to go back and provide the instruction and adjust it ’cause that’s still equitable framework.

Is that you have to ingest your instruction, tier one, tier two, tier three, to allow students to have access to that grade level content. So again, I start first with, are we providing quality tier one, and that is in English first and foremost. [00:30:00] So then we look at tier threes when we look at uh, L one, and that’s when we do a lot of bilingual assessment.

We first wanna do comparative data on their language acquisition. And even if it’s content assessments, we’re gonna compare it to a true peer. To see if they’re growing, are they responding to our instruction? ’cause we have other NEPs that are learning three letter sounds a week, but Lynda isn’t. Do you see how it starts?

And so we are really setting up how do we collect data and are we collecting the right data? And also are we asking the right questions? And are we comparing the right students? So that really is the data dialogue that has to be set up first. 

Mandi Morris: So when you are in the pre-referral process, there’s a lot of data that you’re pulling the comparative data and you are.

You’re analyzing the needs of the students you’re observing. Part of that is just observing what is the data telling us over time? Because in two weeks we are not gonna have any information. We need some time. Where do you pull [00:31:00] parents in to that pre-referral process? Or are you waiting until the actual referral is happening before you pull parents in?

Lynda Espinoza Idle: No. Parents are always involved in tier one because, but first we have to have the tier one teacher collect their data. So within four weeks we ask every tier one EL, D teacher to be tracking how students are responding to their tier one. So after four weeks, we’re gonna see that Lynda is not learning three letter sounds a week where everyone else is.

So then we call the parent in and then we give early intervening. We do it at tier one ’cause we can do differentiate in tier one. And if they don’t respond to tier one supports, then we move them to tier two. And then of course it’s formal parents have to come in. We’re telling parents we try this in tier one.

We believe Lynda needs a little bit more time and I’m glad to say I have documentation. That’s all Lynda needed. After six weeks, Lynda’s back in it. But then I had Monica that, [00:32:00] that still did not respond in tier one, did not respond. The first cycle in tier two, the second cycle in tier two of, of interventions, and we can show that according to true peers.

Monica’s not responding. We’re seeing a discrepancy. So that’s the beginning collection. Then we have to do dual language. We have to do bilingual assessment. ’cause then we have to say, are they more dominant? Do they know it in their first language? Then it is, we have to wait. And this is where the Biliteracy report is so important.

’cause we can see that this student is above the benchmark in Spanish, but below in English. That means they know more in Spanish, they are dominant. So we need to give ’em more time. Because they do it. We do know that. They know it in their L one. It’s a language issue, not a disability, but I have a student that is equally low in both.

It doesn’t matter. Once I give them their intervention and their L one, they’re still not responding. Now I can show that regardless. I see a discrepancy [00:33:00] across both languages. And that’s the key. Do we see it across the both language? I like to say you’re not, you don’t just have a broken leg inside the house.

You have it outside the house too, right? So I say we have to see the disability across both languages. So that’s where we look at collecting that data in tier three. ’cause we’re first showing that they’re not responding to this initial instruction compared to a peer. And now we’re gonna look at more deeply, do they know it in their first language?

Mandi Morris: I love something you said a a moment ago about at four weeks, teachers are analyzing which students in my classroom are on track. Which students in my classroom look like they’re going to need more support In a K five system where you have essentially one teacher, you’ve got your grade level teacher, yes, you have your specialist classes, but you have a teacher that is just.

Owning those kids in his or her classroom, and then the shift we know to secondary education. Most systems, middle school, you’re gonna [00:34:00] start having seven teachers a day. High school, that’s where if, if you don’t have those PLCs set up, if you don’t have the interdisciplinary communication established that.

What is the ELA teacher seeing in his or her classroom compared to the math teacher and so on and so forth? How do you support that level of tier one support once you move into secondary where you just really do from a strategic perspective, have more layers of complication 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: it, it is more layers of complication and requires more scheduling.

This year we are. Ensuring that we meet with, first and foremost, it’s the ELD teacher. We have either one or two ELD teachers at every school site. We meet with them every week, and this is one of the conversations of our MTSS. How are students doing? And then at the middle school and high school, this is on the.

Secondary admin, they’re doing a great job. They do not only department PLCs, they do cross [00:35:00] department PLCs, and this is where we really have to nudge some districts to say, where do your EOD teachers meet with the science department, meet with the math department, meet with the English Language Arts department, and making sure that we have dedicated time.

To discuss students, and I think that’s the struggle that I am very proud of our administrators here in our district because they really look at the PLC schedule and making sure that it’s cross content. And then I come in and say. Can you add us? Can we meet with you? And that’s where we come in. We work very well together.

It’s all about collaboration. Every department has to work together and we didn’t have dedicated time. ’cause I truly believe that the best PD is when teachers have dedicated time to discuss what students work looks like, what professionally looks like, what best practice looks like. And they need to have time, not only about practice.

But talking about student work, talking about what [00:36:00] students need and say, oh, you have Lynda too. What are you doing with Lynda? Oh, I see that too. When do they have time? Unless we dedicate time. So it’s up to us as leaders, and I’m one of those leaders that say, do you have dedicated time? Can we talk about that?

Mandi Morris: I feel like we all know as educators that the best environment for both the teacher and student is not the closed door policy. I go in my room, I close my door, I do my thing. Do not question me yet. Strategically, structurally, a lot of systems haven’t built in that common time. So how are we expecting teachers to, to break that cycle and to have more of a collaborative, interdisciplinary relationship collaboration if they don’t have time during the day to do it?

I love that you pointed out earlier that. You’re so excited about the school district you’re in because you love the people that you’re working with, and you’re so committed to the work that you’re doing. I feel like when I reflect on my career, where [00:37:00] I have thrived personally and professionally is when I’m surrounded by other educators that get me excited.

It’s normal in this profession, you ha. Maybe every profession you’re gonna have slumps, you’re gonna have times where you feel defeated or discouraged or frustrated. But what makes such a difference is when you’re surrounded by other people who believe in the work, have the commitment for the work. Um, I would love for you to talk a little bit about that.

When you reflect over 38 years, how has that community, that peer-to-peer connection matter to you in your work? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: It matters. I feel like I have a choice of where I wanna be. And I love going across the country and presenting and doing that and helping districts, but being in a community and making a difference for those.

Parents and teachers, and then working with a group of educators that have the same values and same vision. We have a wonderful superintendent that believes that all students deserve high quality education [00:38:00] and that we’re gonna be a dual language district. She said in five years, that was two years ago.

We’re up to seventh grade, so we’re getting there. But parents have to have a choice. Parents have to have input. We have to work together to make sure we’re meeting the needs of everybody. So that is where. Really working with a group of educators and parents and community that we all have the same vision and goal is that we’re gonna do what’s right for kids.

First, and that means making sure they have access to high quality education, making sure we have structures in place. And that includes collaboration. That means not working in silos. You’re right. We are having to tear down walls. I used to say, I used to say everything was so private, it was like a private practice, like you said.

And now. We are really pushing collective efficacy. ’cause what we do, individual efficacy is so important because that means you know your integrity, what you’re doing, you have to know what you do matters. But what we do together matters more. ’cause that’s when we can show that our gears are connecting.

We’re not just [00:39:00] all spending, ’cause all of us are working so hard, but when we are collectively, our gears are moving. Because we are collective and our efficacy together matters the most because we’re better together, we’re stronger together. So I, I think that’s where I love the district I’m in right now.

That hasn’t always been the case in other districts or other states I’ve been with. And that can bring you down. It can be discouraging when you know you’re working so hard, but you don’t see the levers moving 

Mandi Morris: because you find yourself as that individual gear. Turning, turning, turning, turning. But it’s not connected to anything.

There’s no progress happening. 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: We have to be connected. It’s collective efficacy. That means you need to, you all have to be on the same page. You have to have same vision, the same mission, and that’s leadership. Leadership does matter, but building capacity matters more. 

Mandi Morris: Building capacity, what does that look like for you?

And maybe it’s different from the elementary school lens versus the secondary lens. We know that [00:40:00] there are, we’re hearing different things. There’s a teacher shortage, but then also the school districts are lay laying off teachers because of funding issues. So I don’t know if we’re. I haven’t quite landed yet.

Are we moving out of what has been a teacher shortage for years and now maybe moving into a season of federal budget cuts? State budget cuts where teachers are being let go of where? When you think of that, of building bandwidth, building capacity, what advice do you have for teachers, for school districts when you ha think about you all of your years of experience?

Lynda Espinoza Idle: Budget cuts are hard. Having to, as a principal, having to do school budgets, then having to go to a district and do district, and then at the state level trying to figure out how we were gonna spend our money at, at the department. It does throw wrenches in your best laid plans, uh, to build capacity. It’s working with what you have and [00:41:00] putting all our heads together and thinking outside the box.

A lot of the times it’s like, what community support can we get? What community partners can we have? So right now in this age, if there’s a lot of outreach to community partners. That really is what’s helping us. Our saving grace is making sure that we have those community partners and sharing some of that expense.

But being effective and efficient is looking at zero based budgeting. This is what do you know, what do we need? How do we fund it? And then making sure that we have it allocated in the right area. Sometimes it’s looking at why do we have that. In that area when we really need it here. But you know what that means?

We have to work together. We need to look at all our budgets. We cannot be, oh, this is my budget. Leave it alone. There’s braiding now with the new federal government, no longer is Title one by itself and Title three by itself. Now we’re gonna work together ’cause they’re all our students. So I think having a new [00:42:00] mindset of we are gonna work together, we’re gonna share resources because we already shared the vision.

But now let’s share the resources and then let’s look at community partners. 

Mandi Morris: I love this. It reminds me a handful of years ago, my mom wanted help cleaning out and organizing her pantry. I was like, I love you to come and do this with you, and why do you have this? Can that expired 20 years ago in your pantry?

What is happening? But that’s what you’re saying. It’s go through your pantry. The cans that are not serving you, they’re 20 years old. Get rid of ’em. Clean out the stuff that you don’t need, and think about if you took everything out and then you put it back, what would you put back and how would you organize it?

Because probably the bins that you had stuff in don’t make sense anymore and you need to do some rearranging. I love how you’re thinking about that. I think it’s so positive. Feels empowering versus I don’t have any control over this. I don’t have the ability to impact change. I don’t have the ability, [00:43:00] it’s taking a step back and saying.

These are the facts. What are we going to do with them and how are we going to work with other departments, braid our funds together, work together as a team for all student success, even if that takes a little bit of pain to to clean out your pantry and reorganize it to get there. 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: And it’s painful, but it’s courageous conversations that have to happen and we have to let go.

The I mentality. It’s so we, and that’s the gears again. That’s collective efficacy. So that’s really my word for this year is. How are we promoting collective efficacy? 

Mandi Morris: That’s so good. I could talk to you all day long. I love this conversation. Everything that I’m learning from you. I wanna move forward a little bit.

We talked a lot about the pre-referral process when you. A teacher and team, right? Because these decisions are not made individually, comes to the place where it, yes, this student, the referral process for dual identification makes [00:44:00] sense. When schools are having that, the meeting for the identification process, who needs to be at the table?

Who needs to be participating in that conversation? Explain to us what the best scenario looks like. 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: Multidisciplinary team. And I’m glad you said this ’cause I’ve been doing this across the country. The ELD teacher is the first one at the table, not the last. Because this student, the first question you ask is this student a multilingual, if this student’s a multilingual, then we have some OCR and IDA that we HA regulations that we have to meet.

We have to rule out language as a main reason. For the referral and that’s federal law. And so my question is, have we ruled out language? So we come in and that’s where you have to start with the ELD dedicated ELD teacher. I’ve gone across the country and they go, they tell me, Lynda, I didn’t even know they were [00:45:00] meeting on my student, Lynda.

They met three times without me, Lynda, I was the last one at the table. So I go and I say the. If it’s a multilingual, the e dedicated EOD teacher is a service pro provider. She has to be the first one. ’cause we first and foremost have to document that tier one EOD has been. Provide it. And that’s where I referenced that kindergartner that was leaving before he ever had ELD.

We have to do core tier one ELD first. So that’s why I say the ELD teacher needs to, we have to have the classroom teacher, but she starts it. She doesn’t take it over. She works in collaboration with the classroom teacher, with the other specialist teacher, with the admin, and with the parent. Again, equal pairing, we have to have every stakeholder that touches that child.

Mandi Morris: I love that. And communication in the language of the family. So they are truly participating in those very important conversations, access to the [00:46:00] materials, to the supports that have been provided because. Yeah, the parent voice is just so important in that. And then also just understanding too, the way that our public school systems function can look and feel very different from other countries.

So there are a lot of acronyms that we love in education. There’s a lot of terminology, and I’m sure you felt this in experiences. I’ve sat in many IEP meetings and identification meetings over the years, and you’ve got 45 minutes. To really talk through what would take three hours, let alone leave enough time for parents to ask questions and everyone’s perspective in the data to be viewed and.

Unpacked. Do you have any advice for schools, just even around timing, like these meetings should be broken down into several meetings to make sure that there’s time for questions, or what advice do you give when you travel and talk to people? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: We have MTSS for multilingual checklist, and we itemize that.

We have your first meeting with a parent. You have the second meeting with the parent. We [00:47:00] focus on why we’re there. But my main thing is that do we ask parents questions about their child? What are your goals for your student? What do you wanna see? What do you know for that? And that is where, especially with even IEPs, when do we ask parents what they want for their student, for their child?

That’s always left out. So I say, you know what? We need to, they’re not just there to listen to us. We’re there to listen to them too. And when do we have that opportunity for them to answer? So data needs to be concise. You need to come with your data already. So we have some data meetings before that. The teacher and the team needs to make sure that they, that’s our training.

I give them the form. You have to have the four to six weeks, tier one, tier two, tier three documentation of how they’re responding to a peer group. With a peer group. So a lot of that is our training that teachers come prepared with their data. So then, and then you together. You are able then to answer the questions, do we see growth?[00:48:00] 

How are they doing compared to their true peers? And then together we go, what are the next steps? And again, having our data dialogue that is very structured. Did we collect the right data? Are we asking the right questions? Do we have what we’re, what we are inferring? So then when we’re ready for the parents, we can say.

We met, we’ve been collecting. We’re looking at how Lynda’s working. Lynda needs a little bit more help here. We’re seeing that she’s behind here. We would like to give her additional instruction. Sometimes parents dunno what intervention means. That’s another thing. What are the words we’re using with parents?

How did we, looking at what the parents are able to understand in their language and then letting ’em know, oh, look it, we gave this to Lynda. Lynda’s back on target. We’re so proud of Lynda. We’re gonna put her back. Oh, Lynda’s still not responding. We’re gonna try again. We’re gonna do things a little different.

We’re gonna do this again, making sure that people understand what we’re doing, but first, we have to be data-driven decision. There’s [00:49:00] no Ceto syndrome, poor baby syndrome, no more gut feelings. We need to go by collecting the data to show is Lynda responding to instruction compared to her true peers?

We’re looking at that. So it, it’s a lot of organization, but that’s where I have a coach. I have an MTSS coach that goes out and meets with teachers. We go meet with the team. We have to be there. I believe with high expectation comes high support. 

Mandi Morris: That’s really good. Lynda. I wanna talk all day, but we’re coming up at our time.

We could all learn from you in your years of experience, and I truly, your teachers are lucky to work with you and to have an administrator like you. I am so happy and excited for your families and the students in your community that they have you. But let’s do a couple lightning round questions here at the end before we wrap.

38 years of experience, just an incredible amount of knowledge from being able to see what has worked, what hasn’t worked for you. When you think back at your career, what is [00:50:00] a light bulb moment for you? 

Lynda Espinoza Idle: Collaboration. I can’t do it by myself. You said it. One. Yeah, one person make a difference. But collectively we make a difference when we work together and that’s where we’re going to make more ground.

So I think because I’ve done this by myself, I’ve done it where I struggled ’cause I didn’t have a team or I didn’t have the right support. Golly. When you have a team that has the same vision and mission and puts children first, wow, the sky’s the limit. The work we can do together. And the difference we can make.

We’re making a difference. We’re transforming lives, not just education, but that happens with a community working together. So my light bulb is, are we collaborative? I guess that’s my light bulb collaboration. 

Mandi Morris: I love that. If you could give a piece of advice to an ML educator listening today, what is. A piece of advice that you would give to an ML educator that you think makes a big [00:51:00] difference?

Lynda Espinoza Idle: I feel like I’m a, I’m in a broken record. Who can you collaborate with? You have a team. If it’s not a felt, get to start collaborating with your teachers. Be the coach. Be go say, Hey, we, you have Lynda. She’s in your class. Let me tell you about Lynda, let me help you. This is what Lynda needs. This is what Lynda can do.

Do a positive mindset. We need to do acid-based mindset and not do the negative. A lot of times teachers multilinguals are, that’s our choir. They know that our multilinguals are gifted. In fact, in our district, we don’t say multilinguals. We say Our students are linguistically gifted. This is our linguistic gifted students.

And we don’t say English as a second language. It’s English as an additional language. So again, that positive mindset. So reach out to others and share your wisdom and your knowledge of your students because the, it really does start with the ELD teacher ’cause they’re the service providers, but every teacher’s a language.

[00:52:00] So building that collaboration with your grade levels, with your admin, and with of course the district. I think we’re here to support. So I wanna build the capacity and I wanna uplift my, our multilingual teacher. We wanna thank you for this service because you’re ensuring that multilingual, ency gifted student is having access by all, not just with you in the 45 minutes.

It’s throughout the six hours of the day. So I would say build relationships, build the, be the bridge. Be the bridge. Maybe that’s the shirt I’ll make, be the bridge. 

Mandi Morris: I love it. And what you’re saying is that it can start small, even changing the way that you talk about students, the words that you collectively use to refer to students.

I’ve always really liked English as an additional language. Uh, it feels asset based and. Just having that terminology. A colleague I worked with many years ago, he would always say the power of yet. So a student hasn’t done that [00:53:00] yet, or they haven’t had the opportunity yet, and it’s just a shift in your mindset of how do we think about these students that we’re supporting?

Lynda Espinoza Idle: We’re linguistically gifted. Like I said, our multilinguals are linguistically gifted. They bring talents to the classroom. 

Mandi Morris: Absolutely. Lynda, thank you so much for this time together today. I’ve learned so much personally, and I’m just really honored that you took the time to be here. This has been such a pleasure to learn from you.

Thank you.