California Assembly Bill 2514 (Thurmond) Pupil Instruction: Dual Language Grant Program, introduced by Assembly Member Thurmond in February, is sponsored by the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) and Californians Together. AB 2514 would provide “seed” and “capacity-building” funding to school districts seeking to expand existing dual-language immersion or developmental bilingual programs or to establish new dual-language immersion or developmental bilingual programs or early learning dual-language-learner programs. The bill would also allow funding for early learning programs for California dual-language learners in preschool.

Significant provisions of AB 2514 (Thurmond) include:

• Establishes the three-year Pathways to Success Grant Program, proposing to provide up to $300,000 per grantee for a minimum of ten grants.
• Allows local educational agencies or consortia to apply for this funding.
• Funding can be used for purposes such as recruitment of bilingual teachers at the preschool, elementary, and secondary levels; ongoing professional development for teachers; teacher coaches; establishment and support of language-learning materials; instructional materials; and ongoing outreach to families and family engagement.
• Convening of grant recipients to share their program models, best instructional practices, curriculum, instructional materials, and other resources.

AB 2514 will be heard by the California Assembly Education Committee on April 11, 2018. Letters of support should be sent to Assembly Member O’Donnell, chair of the Assembly Education Committee, and Assembly Member Thurmond, author of AB 2514, to be received by April 5.