There are over 22,000 multilingual learners (MLLs) in our secondary schools in Denver metro area. They hold many assets including proficiency in other languages and experience in different cultures. Further, strong research shows that once MLLs acquire English, they can outperform their peers who were never English learners. However, older multilingual learners – either students who started their formal English instruction later in their schooling careers (“newcomers”) or students who have remained static in MLL programming for many years (“long-term MLLs”) – see some of the worst outcomes in our metro area.

At Gary Community Ventures, we were interested in dramatically improving services to MLLs. We were looking to identify and accelerate proven and highly promising solutions for MLLs in grades 6-12.

Gary was seeking to fund 4-5 proven and/or highly promising solutions that:

• Show disproportionate positive impact on MLLs in secondary grades; and/or
• Can ensure MLLs in secondary grades have equitable access to high-value programming (such as concurrent enrollment and credentials of value); and/or 
• Have a track record of moving long-term MLLs to English proficiency in secondary grades. 

We hoped to add catalytic funding to support the expansion of these solutions and amplify them for further adoption across the Denver metro area (which we define to include Denver, Adams, Arapahoe, and Jefferson counties).