New DOE program produces 37 finishers

Nearly 40 Hawaii public school graduates have received the state’s first round of awards signifying they have mastered two languages.

The Department of Education doled out 37 so-called seals of biliteracy — a bronze-colored metal medallion on a blue ribbon — to graduates at 13 high schools statewide. Nine additional awards are pending assessment results.

The award recognizes students who demonstrate a “high proficiency” in either of the state’s two official languages — English and Hawai­i­an — and at least one other language, including American Sign Language. Students who demonstrate proficiency with reading, writing and speaking both English and Hawaiian also are eligible for the seal.

Students who apply for the seal need to successfully complete English requirements for high school graduation with a minimum 3.0 grade point average, and meet scoring benchmarks for world languages that include French, German, Ilocano, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Mandarin, Spanish, Tagalog or Vietnamese.

Hawaiian-speaking students, such as those enrolled in the state’s Hawaiian immersion programs, must demonstrate proficiency in the Hawaiian language and pass an English proficiency test to earn the medallion.

This year’s awards went to students who demonstrated they’ve mastered English and Chinese (eight awards), Japanese (11 awards) and Spanish (six awards). Twelve biliteracy seals were awarded to students of Nawahiokalaniopu‘u, Hilo High School’s Hawaiian immersion program, for mastering Hawaiian and English.

Suzanne Mulcahy, assistant superintendent for the Office of Curriculum, Instruction and Student Support, said mastering more than one language is expected to help students with their future academic and employment plans.

She added that the DOE continues to support students whose first language is not English in learning the language. There were approximately 11,000 students identified as English language learners in 2016.

“But we do not want them to have to give up their first language in order to do so,” she recently told members of the Board of Education’s Student Achievement Committee.

Some board members asked about the possibility of adding Micronesian languages to the lineup. Mulcahy said the department is working closely with the University of Hawaii at Manoa and other institutions to create assessments for additional languages.

“As we move forward we’re adding new languages,” she said. “We’ve had to … develop the tests — we couldn’t just buy it off a shelf.”

Hawaii is one of 27 states and the District of Columbia to adopt policies for awarding biliteracy seals to students. In establishing Hawaii’s seal with a new policy in 2015, the state Board of Education said it recognized that “there is personal, cultural, social, academic and vocational/occupational value in encouraging students to maintain or develop proficiency in more than one language.”