Dear Colleague,

The Santa Monica College ESL Outreach Committee would like to invite you to our upcoming roundtable symposium Friday, March 23, 2007, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in Room 123 at the Bundy Campus. We welcome your participation!  Please RSVP via email by Friday March 9.  The goal of this event is to continue the secondary/post-secondary alignment/articulation conversation first begun in 2005, including how best to identify, serve, and place English Language Learners as they transition from high school to community college.  Light breakfast, coffee, and luncheon will be provided thanks to a Santa Monica College Foundation mini-grant.

You are welcome to bring particular questions, issues/areas of interest for discussion.  These could include (but certainly are not limited to) AB 540, identification and placement of "Generation 1.5s", the potential impact of SB 361, secondary/post-secondary curricular alignment, and any other issues on the minds of those who serve English Learners.  Please let us know what you would like to talk and learn about! 

Our last meeting (April 2005) proved very productive.  It led to the creation of a “Spring 2006 SMC Outreach Day” for a limited number of students from local high schools. For more information about our past events, please see http://homepage.smc.edu/sucher_kathryn/Generation_1_5/index.htm

We hope further dialog will enable us to expand both outreach and articulation efforts so that we can effectively reach underrepresented students.  The goal of the grant is to find ways to institutionalize inter-segmental alignment in order to assist learners of English in their high school to college transition.

We look forward to hearing from you.  Your input will help us set the agenda that will best serve our students. 

Sincerely,

SMC ESL Dept Outreach Committee

Tracey Ellis

Kathy Flynn

Sharon Jaffe

Emily Lodmer

Kathy Sucher

Janet Harclerode, ESL Dept Chair