CARLSBAD UNIFIED CONNECTIONS

Rob Brown, English Language Development (ELD) TOSA

Serving Our Multilingual Learners

A small group of eager English learners, wearing headphones, study their Chromebooks as Mr. Brown helps them access English lessons on Lexia at their own individual levels. “The lightbulbs are going on in their heads” as they realize that they can understand and confidently respond to prompts in English.

“We provide every student with an extraordinary education in an inspiring environment.” This is our mission at Carlsbad Unified – to serve every student according to his or her particular needs.

Carlsbad Unified teachers are experienced professionals who work hard to meet the needs of all of their students every day. But the challenge of addressing the individual instructional requirements of each student, including an English Learner or Multilingual Learner, can be daunting.

One teacher cannot do this alone. To empower our teachers districtwide with the collegial support, professional development, and instructional resources necessary to provide instruction to our multilingual learners, Carlsbad Unified created a new three-year position: Teacher On Special Assignment (TOSA) for English Learners.

Teacher Rob Brown has been named to this new position. Mr. Brown is uniquely qualified, with 20 years of teaching experience and a wealth of knowledge of teaching English Learners. He taught at Jefferson Elementary School for 14 years and, before that, at Valley Middle School, and for San Diego City Schools. Also a Reading Specialist, he has a Masters in Literacy and Literature.

Carlsbad Unified is coordinating with the State’s adoption of the EL Roadmap for Success to ensure success for our diverse population of multilingual learners.

To determine each student’s level of English proficiency, our two ELD Specialists, Stacey Ross and Ana Ramirez, administer tests, collect data, and interpret scores. The results are then shared with the Board, schools, teachers, and parents. The data identifies our multilingual learners and tells us how we can support their language development.

Mr. Brown’s mission is to work with teachers and families to make that happen. His job is to get into the classrooms and help all teachers to create the systems and strategies to target instruction. Because students have different needs at different levels, Mr. Brown uses the Multi-Tiered System of Support approach, from the integrated instructional level (general classroom instruction or the Lexia program) to small groups, to designated instruction, focused on individual levels and needs. In this way, he “meets students where they are.” His broader goal is to collaborate with his colleagues in developing instructional models that will prove helpful and relevant for English Learners across all schools.

“Mr. Brown has been ‘boots on the ground’ since day one,” reports Kimberly Fuentes, Director of Elementary Education. “He has taken a lot of initiative to create this new role, learning all he can so that he can empower teachers. As soon as he was assigned the TOSA position he was already designing an approach to serve all multilingual learners by ensuring that teachers know who they are and where they can seek instructional support.”

Mr. Brown sees his job as not only that of building relationships with all of the teachers he supports, but also building relationships with students and their families. He spends his days at the schools, in classrooms, working with teachers as well as helping students with individualized instruction in areas such as how to log onto Lexia on their chromebooks.

“Mr. Brown’s presence at the schools has been well-received,” states Ms. Fuentes. “He does grade level presentations, and always has the time to work with individual teachers. He has such a heart and passion for all kids, especially our language learners.”

“I am thrilled to have this opportunity to bring support and resources to the Carlsbad Unified classrooms,” says Mr. Brown. “It is an honor to work with such fine teachers and to have an impact on the education of our English Learners.”

Rob's wife, Roon Brown, is a teacher at Valley Middle School. A professional photographer, Mrs. Brown teaches Photography, STEM, and Yearbook. Their daughter is a senior at Sage Creek High School. Also, this year the Browns are hosting a foreign exchange student from Paris who is a senior at Carlsbad High School. They have five chickens, a cat, and a dog.