73 Medford School District Students to Graduate With Highly-Accredited Biliteracy Seal

by Camille Schuler, Ed.D.
Dr. Camille Schuler teaches AP English Literature and Composition at South Medford High School and is on the College Board’s AP Access for All team.

Students from North Medford and South Medford High School were recognized at last week’s School Board meeting for their incredible achievements. Among the award recipients were 73 seniors from both North and South who had earned the Oregon State Seal of Biliteracy.

The Seal of Biliteracy recognizes and values students who have demonstrated multilinguistic proficiency in two or more languages across all literacy standards: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. To ensure the Seal would be a testimony of academic rigor, the State School Board offered a variety of ways to measure and verify to colleges and employers that a student is “indeed bi-literate.” 

Most of the students this year earned the Seal of Biliteracy for Spanish. The certificate they receive, signed by the Deputy Superintendent and Deputy Director of the Oregon Department of Education, will be a way to prove to their prospective employers that they are biliterate in Spanish, which may mean the difference between getting a job offer or not. This is what happened with former Medford School District student Victor Rios. 

During Victor’s interview at an English-speaking medical office, the interviewer acknowledged that Victor’s Spanish fluency could be an asset in helping their Spanish-speaking patients. But the office needed someone who could read through medical documents in Spanish, explain them to patients, and then write out translated instructions. When the interviewer asked if he had any way to prove that he could read and write in Spanish, Victor produced his Seal of Biliteracy certificate and was hired on the spot.

Brianna Miranda, a current graduate and Seal of Biliteracy recipient, challenged herself by taking AP Spanish Language and AP Spanish Literature, two classes that helped her turn her basic Spanish literacy skills into academic literacy skills. Already working as a CNA2 at Asante, Brianna has developed an interest in medical technology that she plans to pursue at RCC and then OIT. She is confident that her State Seal of Biliteracy certificate will help verify her biliteracy skills to future employers as she advances in this specialized industry. 

Even for students like Akinori Oka, a foreign exchange student from Japan, the Seal of Biliteracy offers numerous opportunities. Earning the highest scores on any S.T.A.M.P. test taken at South, 8s across all standards (the highest is 9), Aki’s ability to demonstrate excellence in his native language and English will help him as he applies to Cornell’s competitive academic summer programs. 

How Students Receive the Biliteracy Seal

After meeting all graduation requirements and essential English proficiency skills, students are offered ten options for measuring their biliteracy in a second language. The most common demonstrations of proficiency for Medford high school students are measured by scores on the following exams: 

• 6 or higher across all literacy and linguistic standards on the Avant S.T.A.M.P. test (STAndards-based Measure of Proficiency)

• > 4 on the AP Language Exam in the partner language other than English (including American Sign Language) 

• > 3 on the AP Literature Exam in the partner language Language other than English 

While the S.T.A.M.P. test can be taken in a student’s senior year, with scores coming back almost immediately, the AP exams must be taken in the student’s junior year of high school or earlier since the College Board releases their scores over the summer. 

For those students who would like to demonstrate biliteracy in languages for which there is no test, the State School Board also allows students to present Partner Language Proficiency Portfolios, containing a body of work and specific evidence demonstrating their fluency and biliteracy, which they submit to the state for review and scoring. The OSSB has recognized students who speak over 47 primary languages, including Chinuk Wawa, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and American Sign Language (ASL).

Congratulations to all the Medford School District students who earned the State of Oregon’s Seal of Biliteracy!

 

by Camille Schuler, Ed.D.
Dr. Camille Schuler teaches AP English Literature and Composition at South Medford High School and is on the College Board’s AP Access for All team. 

Akinori Oka wears his light blue biliteracy cord and holds his certificate from South while he waits for the official certificate to come from the state. Students also received recognition certificates from the Medford School Board.