By Keighla Schmidt, Staff Writer

For the second year, students in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District have failed to meet the Annual Measurement of Academic Objectives (AMAO) goals set by the state.

So, the District 191 School Board unanimously approved a required improvement plan at its Nov. 5 meeting.

“AMAO measures the language proficiency and academic achievement of English Language Learners,” wrote Assistant Superintendent Sandi Novak in a memo to the board.

Measuring units include a Minnesota sound test, content achievement on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment exams (MCA) and scores on the Test Emerging Academic English (TEAE) exams.

As a second-year consequence of not meeting AMAO, the district had to notify parents of English Language Learners (ELL) students that the goal was not met and create a plan for improvement.

The plan includes expanding SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) teaching methods. Last year 30 teachers implemented the methods and this year an additional 60 are being trained. 

The next goal is to establish and expand two kindergarten language development sites. This year kindergarten ELL students at Hidden Valley and Sioux Trail take half-day kindergarten in mainstream classrooms and the other half of their full school day is spent with an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher. Novak said the goal is to expand the program, called LINK, or Language Immersion for New Kindergarteners, to other elementary schools.

The last goal is to create an ELL advisory team. This year an ELL committee that had encouraged the SIOP and LINK models no longer exists and Novak stressed the importance of starting one again.

“If our schools don’t meet the AMAO goals for next year, we’re going to have to look at the model for ESL and we will be working with people from MDE (the Minnesota Department of Education) to examine our models,” Novak said.