As one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the nation, Los Angeles County is home to over 228,000 English learners in grades K-12.

In this episode of Let Me Add to That, we learn why the elementary years are such a pivotal window for multilingual learners, what’s working for elementary educators of multilingual learners, what’s challenging about the experience and how beneficial dual language immersion programs can be for young students.

Joining us in the studio is LACOE’s Multilingual Academic Support Unit Project Director, Roberta Gonzalez, and Nancy Hong, Ed.D., Director of Dual Language Immersion Programs and English Learner Services at Glendale Unified School District to share findings from a study they led alongside principal researcher and co-author Natasha Newmann, Ed. D., titled, Understanding the Classroom Experiences of Elementary English Learners, which looks closely at what’s happening in elementary classrooms across L.A. County.

---
About Let Me Add to That: An Education Podcast

Nearly 2 million students and 80 school districts make up the Los Angeles County education system – as you can imagine, the experiences, the success and the challenges vary from district to district as it does student to student. The Let Me Add to That Podcast, presented by the Los Angeles Office of Education will feature education experts including superintendents, administrators, teachers and students themselves who will highlight various hot topics that the county faces on a day-to-day basis. Let Me Add to That is titled and modeled after the inclusion of different perspectives, experiences and challenges. New episodes will be released on the first Wednesday of every month.

Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.

In recognition of National Foster Care Month, this episode centers the experiences, challenges and needs of foster youth across Los Angeles County.

Leading this conversation is Dr. La Shona Jenkins, Director of Foster Youth Services at the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE), and Dr. Kanika White, LACOE’s Chief of Human Resources, for a powerful conversation that brings both systems-level insight and lived experience to the table. Dr. White shares her personal journey of growing up as a foster youth and reflects on how that experience shaped her leadership and her work supporting foster youth as a former school principal.

Together, they discuss what the foster youth population looks like in Los Angeles County today, the educational challenges foster youth often face, including school stability and transitions, and the resilience and strengths that too often go unrecognized. They also highlight how LACOE partners with school districts and community agencies to support our foster youth, areas where meaningful progress has been made and where systems still fall short.

---
About Let Me Add to That: An Education Podcast

Nearly 2 million students and 80 school districts make up the Los Angeles County education system – as you can imagine, the experiences, the success and the challenges vary from district to district as it does student to student. The Let Me Add to That Podcast, presented by the Los Angeles Office of Education will feature education experts including superintendents, administrators, teachers and students themselves who will highlight various hot topics that the county faces on a day-to-day basis. Let Me Add to That is titled and modeled after the inclusion of different perspectives, experiences and challenges. New episodes will be released on the first Wednesday of every month.

Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.

STEM education has expanded beyond its traditional focus to include creativity, design thinking and real-world problem solving, often referred to as STEAM. But what does this evolution look like in practice for our education communities?

In this episode, Tanvir Dhillon, LACOE’s STEM Education Project Director III, and Deborah Atwell, LACOE’s STEM Special Projects Project Director, share how STEM / STEAM is transforming teaching and learning. They discuss how integrating the arts and humanities can deepen student engagement, and what high-quality STEM instruction looks like in action, where inquiry, reasoning and problem solving take center stage and classrooms are active, collaborative and even a little “noisy.”

The conversation also highlights the importance of fostering belonging for girls and historically underrepresented students and creating meaningful pathways into STEM. Tanvir and Deborah also share how programs like LACOE’s Math Field Day and Girls in STEM bring learning to life for students and discuss the grants that are also supporting this work.

---
About Let Me Add to That: An Education Podcast

Nearly 2 million students and 80 school districts make up the Los Angeles County education system – as you can imagine, the experiences, the success and the challenges vary from district to district as it does student to student. The Let Me Add to That Podcast, presented by the Los Angeles Office of Education will feature education experts including superintendents, administrators, teachers and students themselves who will highlight various hot topics that the county faces on a day-to-day basis. Let Me Add to That is titled and modeled after the inclusion of different perspectives, experiences and challenges. New episodes will be released on the first Wednesday of every month.

Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.