HRIEC Minutes 01-15-2020 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Human Rights, Inclusion and Engagement Commission Minutes January 15, 2020 Page 3 of 7 91 Chair Beltmann asked approximately how many Spanish students would be 92 participating. 93 94 Ms. Vasquez explained she is teaching the pilot class which has approximately 65 95 students in it, these are all seventh graders. 96 97 Commissioner Lee asked if any student from the city who speaks and writes in 98 Spanish could enter the contest as well even if not in the program. 99 100 Chair Beltmann indicated that was correct. She noted there is a deadline for st 101 submission of the essay, which is January 31. She thought the Commission should 102 look at this as being a pilot program, specifically focusing on the dual language 103 emersion school. 104 105 Commissioner James proposed if continuing this in the future to rename this to 106 “Native Language Award” so it can be more open to other students then just Spanish 107 and English speaking. 108 109 Chair Beltmann indicated that could be brought up in a later discussion when talking 110 about next year. 111 112 Commissioner Allen thought it should be separate because it is a pilot program. He 113 thought it was important to be mindful of what the Commission is learning every step 114 of the way so when the Commission meets again the Commissioners really 115 understand what is needed going forward and it puts the Commission in the position 116 where it might mean that the Commission needs to make sure there are more folks 117 that speak different languages on this committee in order to read some of the essays. 118 119 Commissioner Djevi thanked Ms. Vasquez for coming to the meeting and thought it 120 was very exciting. Going forward the question is who will be doing the grading. 121 122 Chair Beltmann asked the Commission if it wants to move forward with the pilot 123 program this year. 124 125 The Commission was in favor of the pilot program for this year with Spanish written 126 essays. 127 128 Ms. Vasquez indicated all of her students are required to write an essay, whether it 129 passes the evaluation or not. She noted all of her students are looking forward to this. 130 131 Ms. Olson reviewed how the essay contest has worked in past years. 132 133 Chair Beltmann thought the question on scoring from the last meeting was if it was 134 going to be a smaller group of people Ms. Vasquez has identified, with a question 135 around how many people have been secured by the pilot program to read the essays.