Our guest Dr. Merica Clinkenbeard serves as President of the National Association of English Learner Program Administrators and as Secretary for MidTESOL. She is the Director of English Language Development for Springfield Public Schools in Missouri, where she leads district initiatives focused on instructional quality, compliance, and professional learning to support multilingual learners. With more than 25 years of experience in education at the local and state levels, she is a certified K-12 Spanish and TESOL educator whose work centers on strengthening professional learning systems that promote language development within content instruction. A link to the Seven Steps framework reference in this episode can be found here.
Merica: The perception is the development of language lies solely with the English language development department or with the EL teacher. That practice will not get us anywhere. The shift has to go from how do we support multilingual learners to how do we build language-rich classrooms so that it's there for all students. The landscape may be changing, but the students are still standing on it. Brandon: Hey everyone. Hola a todos. I'm Brandon Cardet-Hernandez and you're listening to Leading Multilingual Learning, powered by Medly Learning. Each episode we're exploring the leadership, the ideas, and the insights shaping better education for multilingual learners. And today, I'm excited to welcome my friend Merica Klinkenbeard. Brandon: Dr. Klinkenbeard serves as the president of the National Association of English Learner Program Administrators, otherwise known as Nalpa, and as secretary for Mid-TESOL. She is the director of English language development for Springfield Public Schools in Missouri, where she leads district initiatives focused on instructional quality, compliance, and professional learning to support multilingual learners. Brandon: With more than 25 years of experience in education at the local and state levels, she is a certified K-12 Spanish and TESOL educator whose work centers on strengthening professional learning systems that promote language development within content instruction. Brandon: Welcome to the podcast. Merica: Thank you so much. It's exciting to be here today. Brandon: You have this super impressive bio, and I ask the same question to all of our guests. Outside of that paragraph or two, what is a thing that never makes it into your bio that you are really proud of? Merica: Well, I don't know if a lot of people know that education is my second career. I didn't start out in education. My first job and my first career was actually with the Department of Commerce in the International Trade Administration, and that was in Little Rock, Arkansas, which is where I was living at the time. And then when I moved to Springfield, Missouri, which is where I still live, I was working in marketing and advertising for a very long time. Merica: I think both of those careers built themselves up before I was in education. So it's like a whole other life that I had before I got into education. Brandon: I love this, and I do know this about you, and I think it's one of the really sort of interesting flavors to your leadership because you're able to bring in other industries into a world that sometimes can be really insular. Brandon: What made you make that switch? This was a big change. How did you, how did you decide to do that? Merica: Well, I was never going to be a teacher, right? My mom was a teacher. I didn't want to be a teacher. And I wanted to start a family, and I had minored in Spanish and I used to be very, very fluent in Spanish. And I had lost that ability, and the best way to learn something is to teach it. Merica: And I was working a lot of long hours and traveling a lot in my advertising and marketing job. And I thought, well this is not what I want to do as a mom. So I will go to the university and see what I need to do to get my teaching certificate because I had minored in Spanish. Merica: And at that time, many years ago, Spanish teachers were very, very hard to come by. And I enrolled in my first class and I got hired in a very small district outside of Springfield. And so I became Señora Klinkenbeard right away. Merica: I was terrible. I was a terrible teacher. I mean, the kids loved me and I was the cheer coach and I got through, but I did not have those skills that you need to be a teacher. I was just thrown into it. But it was still a great experience and it it showed me that I did want to be a teacher. And it was a great program too, because I was allowed to take all of my education classes at a master's level and I was able to get my master's in education. And so, it obviously all turned out okay. But you think that going in front of a class of high school kids is going to be easy coming from the corporate world? No. I would much rather be pitching something in front of a bunch of corporate people than going in a class of high school students. Brandon: Yeah, because in the corporate world, they're going to fake it and and feign interest, but our students will let you know this isn't working. Merica: They're brutal. Yes. Brandon: Well, we are happy that you made the transition. And I love now in your incredible leadership, you went in thinking you were going to strike a different work-life balance and then continue to take on more and more in the field. Brandon: And as, let's talk a little bit about some of that. As President of Nalpa, you have this unique window into what's happening across state, across states and across districts. What has that perspective allowed you to see about the field that you may have not seen serving in a single district role? Merica: Well, one of the biggest things I've learned is it's all different, but also all the same. Every state has requirements around identification and language support, progress monitoring, and access for instruction for multilingual learners. And that's pretty consistent across the country. But the way that we implement those requirements is really different. And I find that very, very interesting. States have different accountability systems, districts have different staffing models. And so things may not look the same everywhere. Merica: But what Nalpa has allowed me to see is the incredible innovation that different states and different districts have. And someone somewhere, if you run into a challenge or you run into a roadblock, someone somewhere has figured it out. And all you have to do is find them. And so you don't have to go through these struggles or these roadblocks alone. And there's this whole community of people and colleagues and experts willing to share and help you figure everything out. Merica: It's also showed me that none of us are alone. And leadership really at the district level, surprisingly can be isolating. Even at bigger districts, sometimes there's only one person that's charged, in charge of ELD programming. And so it can still be very isolating. And so that's a lot of responsibility to carry alone. And through Nalpa, I found a whole network to rely on. And so that's another thing. So our collective experience, it's kind of cliche, but we're stronger together. Brandon: No, it's true. I think it's a smart way of thinking about it because you're right, in a lot of districts, the person who is leading this work is in charge of the compliance implications of ELD programming and also the pedagogical strategies that are going to support systems and change practice on the ground. And you're right, it can be really isolating. Brandon: And in a moment when federal support for multilingual learners is shifting and being pulled back, what does that landscape look like right now and how are you thinking about the support that administrators need across the country? Merica: Well, let's see. I'll just get out my little magic eight ball here and give you the exact answer. Shake it up. Ask me later, not a good time, I think is what it says. Merica: You know, right now there's a great deal of uncertainty. Obviously, policies are changing, things are shifting. Funding conversations are always evolving. But everybody's trying to understand what that means for multilingual learners. But here's what it keeps coming back to for me. Regardless of what happens politically, our students are still here. We still have students. Every day, multilingual learners are walking through our doors and they have aspirations and they have needs. And so our job is to fulfill them regardless of the policy changes. Merica: And what I'm hearing from leaders across the country is a mixture of concern, but the best thing is that there's still all this determination. Like, nobody has faltered. I mean, you've come up with a brand new podcast, right? I mean, we're just going, we're just rolling with it. Nobody has stopped their momentum. Brandon: Yeah. And I would even say, and I felt this actually being at Nalpa this year at the conference, it also feels like people are doubling down. We are going to show up with greater intentionality. We are talking pedagogy and strategies in a different way. We're talking resources in a different way. And I think in many ways doing the work that you love, which is thinking about how to make sure content-level learning is rich and meaningful for our MLs. Merica: Yeah, it's like how are we going to provide the support in this landscape? Because the landscape may be changing, but the students are still standing on it. Brandon: That's exactly it. Gotta keep going. Brandon: I see you. And it's nice for all of us to be in a space of of opportunity instead of fear, right? We have to keep thinking about like, what does this moment actually give us and how can we show up for kids in the best way possible. Exactly. Brandon: You've done research on, you've spoken about, you even wrote your dissertation on how mainstream classroom teachers perceive English learners and how program directors think about L instruction. Tell me a little bit about that. Like, what have you found and what surprised you the most? Merica: Well, it didn't surprise me that teachers care, right? I don't, the problem isn't that teachers don't care. The the problem is that they just don't feel prepared. My dissertation explored specifically Missouri, right? The perceptions of mainstream classroom teachers in Missouri and program directors in Missouri. And the study consistently found two themes that teachers wanted more professional learning and that they didn't have a clear understanding of the role of the EL teacher in their district. Merica: And I looked at high population districts and I looked at low population districts and it really was the same regardless. But I didn't find a lack of commitment. I just found a lack of preparation across the board. Merica: Teachers want students to succeed. I don't, you know, that's not a problem. I don't, I believe in teachers. Um, teachers want all students to succeed and I think we all have to to know that and believe that. Um, the problem is not our content teachers, right? And so we have to keep looking for different ways that we can provide that support. What I find problematic is that seven years later we still have to talk about it. You know, we're still talking about it. So we haven't quite found what works yet. So I'm glad we're still talking about it, but we need to, we need to get this figured out. It's getting better. I think teachers are now saying, I want help, show me, right? And so I think that picture is coming clear. Merica: So the issue's never been a lack of caring. It's just a lack of preparation. Brandon: It's a lack of preparation, and I appreciate the nuance there because I think you're right. Folks get into this work because we love kids, and that's true across content areas, that's true for folks who are doing work in special education or working with multilingual learners. We show up for kids. If we wanted to do something else, we all could. This piece of preparation and feeling like you're ready to do that work, it's real. It speaks to even something you were saying earlier, right? Your own preparation going into the classroom. I did an alternative certification program as well, right? So I was there year one and two being like, I someone show me where the bathroom is. Like, I don't know exactly what I'm doing. But you you named that the content teachers haven't been prepared for multilingual learners in their classroom. Do you think it's a teacher prep problem? Is it a district PD problem? Is it something deeper? And for our listeners, some of whom are leading multilingual learning in their classrooms, leading multilingual learning in their building, leading in their district, help us think through like, where does, where's the root and where does the shift happen? Merica: I think it's both. I think it's district and teacher prep problem, but I also think it's something much deeper. Teacher prep programs can't possibly prepare teachers for every student they'll encounter. They just cannot. And districts can't solve everything through professional learning. Merica: The deeper issue is that for too many years, the responsibility has been with the EL teacher. So it's more of a, like perception, mindset problem. The EL teacher cannot be the sole owner of language development. So those are all different. So yes, could there be more in teacher prep programs? Yes. It could be more than a day or a paragraph. Could there be more PD in schools? Of course. But none of that will matter if the perception is the development of language lies solely with the English language development department or with the EL teacher. That practice will not get us anywhere. Merica: So, the shift has to go from how do we support multilingual learners to how do we build language-rich classrooms so that it's there for all students? Brandon: That is real. We talk about this often here, you know, every educator is an ELD teacher. And that is true across our buildings, right? And true across our districts. You think deeply about language-rich instruction as a best practice. In many ways, it reflects what we like to call this research-to-reality gap, like taking what's happening in academia and bringing it down to our classroom. You're a champion for language-rich instruction. What's the gap we need to close and what gets lost between what a framework like WIDA's ELD standard says and what actually happens in a classroom on a Tuesday morning? Merica: You know, there's this whole thing about the knowing-doing thing, which I think focuses more on teacher behavior rather than reflective practice. So for me, it's more about intention versus the expectation. And so what is the intention and then what is the expectation from the student? So if the intention is, okay, I want to produce more academic language with my students, and then what ends up happening is one student responds while everybody listens, then that's something that needs to be reflected on and talked about. Merica: There are lots of frameworks out there. And so for us, we we've landed on the seven steps because they were just actionable steps you could take. And I had this conversation with somebody the other day when we were in a training about our we were learning about our city and how to be um, stewards and collaborators with our city. And there was all this talk about resources and somebody said, what's the difference between a resource and a tool? And I gave a definition not knowing if that was the difference or not, but it made me really think about that, is we're so busy handing out resources, resources, resources, and to me a resource is something you just give somebody and go here, now you figure everything out. I'm going to give you all this. And a tool is this is it, you're it's ready to use. Merica: Teachers have everything they need, they need to be able to use it right then. And so, the seven steps and I'm a fan girl of John Seidlitz. I've never met him in person. I hope to do it someday. I've talked to him on the phone. But there was an older podcast of him, I don't know who it was with, and he talked about how that developed is he just drilled everything down to where it was very digestible for teachers that they could go in the next day and use all of this knowledge. And so teachers know they need to have objectives, but this is how you use them. Teachers know they need to have a safe learning environment, but this is how you do it. So they're actionable tools that that go with the knowledge they already have. So we're not, we're not being demeaning in the training saying, oh, you need to learn all this, you don't know all this. We're saying, we know you know all this, but we're going to walk along beside you and give you this exact tool you can get up right now and go use with this. Brandon: I love this. I'm taking away this resource and tool dynamic because you're right, like we're giving out resources, but when are we translating them into tools? Things you can use. And I've, you know this about me, I've been obsessed with building tools. That's what I want. But I've never thought about it this way, like shifting from like, yes, here's the standards, this is an important resource, to when does it become a tool. Brandon: You are known for sharing what's actually working. I have watched you present. It is a really great experience. I highly recommend it. You're good at moving past the theory, something that is not always true to folks who hold that PhD. But things teachers can use, you bring to life. So what's one practice Springfield has implemented that you think more people should know about, other districts may even think about bringing into their own practice? Merica: I think one of the things that has helped us be the most successful with walking alongside our content teachers is one, I use these words all the time. I utilize and I optimize. I'm always looking for what my district is doing and I try to optimize that for our multilingual learners. And I think it was my second year here, our assistant superintendent for academics said we're going to drill everything back, we're focusing on Tier 1 instruction. That's all we're doing. And that's when I said, okay, we have to walk alongside our content teachers and that's what we're going to do. And that's when I landed on the seven steps because it was Tier 1 instruction based on Marzano and that's what our district was doing. So I knew we couldn't go in and talk about, and for multilingual learners you need to do this, right? And so with that, I knew that we could offer our teachers a tool to do what the district was already asking them to do. And so when we started offering professional learning with the seven steps, it it gave teachers tools to use in their classroom not just for multilingual learners, but for all of their students. Merica: And then what we started seeing is the struggle with getting substitutes. And that struggle is real for many, many districts. So we developed the teacher cohort model and we do a book study with the seven steps that's after school. And the book study can be done in about six Zoom sessions. And we compensate the teachers for that after contract time. And then we do modeling. Dr. Salva has been coming into our district and does the modeling of the strategies in the classroom. And there's like a pre-conference with the teacher and then a post-conference. And I'll tell you Brandon, there's nothing better than seeing a teacher just in tears when she sees a student engage and then participate that they've never seen engage and participate before. And then we follow up with a second visit, and then of course my team's able to go in there and follow up. And so it's it's PD, first of all, done in the way it should be done, right? It's the pre-learning, then it's the modeling, and then it's the follow-up, it's the whole loop. And then of course, we don't have to have a substitute. And then while we're in that classroom, the building leaders are able to come in and join in on the learning and anybody else in the building is able to come in and join in on the learning. So that has been highly, highly successful for us. Brandon: That is an incredible model and you're right, it is PD the way it should be done. And in many ways it's a parallel process to learning that's happening with and for our kids. Brandon: I am going to make sure we link the Seven Steps framework in the show notes for folks who are listening because it's good. I'm curious because you know, as someone who's also done district-level work, you hear about what someone else is doing and it's very easy to fall into the trap of like, okay, well this is why it won't work in my district. And I get that, you know, because a lot of us have tried big things and we've had to fall on our face. I'm curious in this work that you've been leading, there's always a gap between the teachers who opt into a cohort and the rest of the building. How do you move from a handful of willing participants to a district-wide shift in how content teachers approach multilingual learners? Merica: Slowly. You start with a few, but you start with the willing. I mean, it's very basic. Go slow to go fast. Some people don't want to hear that. It's kind of like with our learners, right? You just, you have to be patient and you go slow to go fast and you just, you have to just start with a small, small flame and I promise it will grow because you have some content teachers that do these practices and are excited about it, they're going to tell other teachers, and then that's all that has to happen. Brandon: Yeah. You build champions. Merica: Yeah, we build, we build model classrooms, model practices. It doesn't hurt that I have a very, very supportive supervisor who happens to be the executive director of academics. So I'm very fortunate in my district. I'm not going to lie. I mean, I'm extremely fortunate in the support that I get. And then we have some building leaders who have adopted this and have asked us to come, you know, filter it all through their buildings. But again, once, once people have seen the success, and the success again is the students, it's not the teacher behavior, but it's the student behavior. And they have seen the difference in test scores here as well, so. Brandon: I remember a mentor of mine saying, talking to me about sort of moving the slow to fast. And he's like, teachers don't want to have their time wasted. Sometimes just based on their histories, they've had to encounter a lot of professional development that hasn't been a good use of their time. And so that slow to fast is not just because that's the smart strategy to build champions and to get the modeling right and to build the infrastructure, but it's also how you build trust. I'm going to hear from my colleague that it was good, and then I'm going to hear from another colleague that it was good, and then we start saying, okay, I'm trusting that this is different this time. This feels different, this feels better. Merica: Yeah. Yeah, you don't want to force anybody into it or you're just it's not going to get anywhere. Brandon: Yeah. I'm shifting gears but it's connected and I'm thinking about how you resource and strategies for resourcing. You know, Missouri has a well-documented shortage of certified EL teachers and this is true across the country, but you're leading this work and in the state and you have to staff an ELD program for 1,400 students across 60 different languages when the pipeline of teachers just sometimes isn't keeping up. How do you think about this? How do you address it? What are some things that are in your toolbelt that you want to share? Merica: I mean, people always want to talk about what districts should do, and you actually just have to figure out how to do it with your budget, with your staffing, schedules, compliance requirements, those are the basics that have to be met. But you can't ever, ever staff your way out of a challenge. You know, if you do that, you'll always be running in circles or running behind. I of course, I'm always going to continue recruiting and advocating for more certified EL specialists. But really, the reality of that forces you to think differently, or it should force you to think differently. Although we're always going to provide direct services for our multilingual learners, we will always support our newcomers, we will always ensure compliance and we'll always make sure we're ensuring that language development. But increasingly our work is going to involve coaching, modeling, collaborating, and helping those content teachers in creating language-rich classrooms because that's where the students are most of the day. And if my superintendent called me right now and said I could double my staff size, I would not change what I'm doing. I just wouldn't. You know, I don't program around staff size. I program what's best for students. Brandon: Yes. I'm really holding that. I don't program around staff size. I program around what's best for students. It makes two things true though. It makes the choice around language-rich instruction more than just philosophical. Yes, it's the right thing to do, but in many ways, and I've had this conversation with other leaders as well, it is a staffing strategy when you're like, we have to deliver great content in real time because we are not going to support staff our way around the learning and the opportunity gaps. Merica: And sometimes I wonder if we don't, we're not our own worst enemy by having an ELD department. Because really I think ELD should be a mindset and not a department or a program. So it's kind of like, I don't know, are we, are we hurting our own business here, right? It's hard. Brandon: I see you. I talk about this a lot. Like, our kids are not an intervention. They are core instruction. I get it for all of the funding reasons and the way our systems are created, but yeah, what starts to happen is this need to shift mindsets because we see the work that's happening with ELD students as intervention work. And we're actually just talking about great Tier 1 instruction for the kids who are in front of us. Merica: Exactly. Brandon: I am so happy we got to chat today. I know, it's exciting. And I'm really thankful for the work that you're doing and just the way that you lead so clearly without jargon, just like to the point and ready for kids. So thank you for everything you're up to. Merica: Thank you. Brandon: Before I let you go, we are always in parallel process. You have spent a lot of time today talking about professional learning for educators and the way you're designing it and thinking about it and modeling. So, what's something you're learning right now, someone you're learning from, or something you're learning about? Merica: Oh my gosh. I'm such a nerd. I'm always reading stuff about work. I'm getting back into hot yoga, so… Brandon: Namaste. Merica: I know. I used to do it all the time religiously and I haven't in years. So I'm back and I love it. Brandon: Learning, focusing on that yoga. Listen, we have to find the balance. We cannot just stay focused on the work. Merica: Exactly. Brandon: It was great to have you on. And let me ask you this. If folks want to get in touch with you or learn more about Nalpa, where should they go? What should they do? Merica: Well, they can email me, msklinkenbeard@spsmail.org, or they can contact Nalpa. We have a website, I think it's just nalpa.org. Merica Klinkenbeard, there's not a lot of us around. You could just probably Google it and find me somewhere, so. Brandon: It's an easy one. Thank you and an easy one. Thank you, thank you. And thanks everyone for listening to this episode of Leading Multilingual Learning. Thanks to Merica for a great conversation and we will see you next time on Leading Multilingual Learning, powered by Medly Learning.