Center for Bilingual and Multicultural Studies Receives $2.5 Million in Grant Funding

The College of Communication and Education at California State University, Chico recently announced that the Center for Bilingual and Multicultural Studies (CBMS) received $2,592,133 in grant funding from the US Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition for the Community and Instruction for Expanding English Learners project (CIELO).

The Orland Unified School District and professors from the School of Education, the Departments of Civil Engineering, Mathematics and Science Education at CSU, Chico will form a consortium for planning CIELO activities to address four areas of need: bilingual teacher shortage; professional development for students and current teachers; development of language skills, and bilingual student teachers’ engagement with parents, families, and the community.

The five-year grant will provide 20–25 percent tuition stipends for student teachers and provide funding for a staff member to work with and support the Orland Unified School District and the faculty members working on the project. The grant will also fund two summer institutes each year beginning 2018. One institute will serve Orland English language teachers who have never taught in a bilingual classroom. The second institute, delivered in Spanish, will serve Orland teachers already teaching in a bilingual classroom.

The summer institute planning committee includes Professors Esther Larocco, Chuck Zartman, Elizabeth Stevens, Nora Bouqayes, Pablo Cornejo, Christine Herrara, Carolina Alverado, and Joanna Castaneda from Orland and John Hoover from University of Colorado, who is also the external evaluator. They will discuss content and strategies for needs in math, science, bilingual education, and language development.