Aspiring and existing Colorado educators soon will be required to get additional training in an effort to better teach the state’s growing English language learner population.
The State Board of Education on Wednesday directed the education department to begin drafting new guidelines that will lay out what sort of new training will be required.
The new requirements come in response to an eight-year U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights inquiry into whether Colorado was doing enough to ensure students learning English as a second language had teachers who could effectively communicate with them. The federal government raised concerns that the state was out of compliance with federal law that requires the Colorado Department of Education to ensure that districts have adequately trained and qualified teachers to teach English learners.
Teachers already in the classroom will be required to take six semester hours of training over about five years. Six semester hours equate to 90 standard hours. The training will be part of the regular teacher license renewal process.
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