CARLA Presentation: Seals of Biliteracy: New Tools to Support Equity and Access

State seals of biliteracy are awards to U.S. high school graduates who demonstrate high levels of proficiency in a language other than English. Seals are an important recognition and powerful step towards reframing multilingualism and multiliteracy as individual and societal assets. Although seals are technically available to all U.S. high school graduates, access is biased toward students of widely taught languages residing in large or well resourced districts (King, 2022).  This presentation provides an update on CARLA’s Equity and Access to State Seals of Biliteracy initiative. This talk showcases updates to our Minnesota and national toolkits to support and advocate for seals locally and nationally, including new languages, outreach and promotional materials, and social media tools. Participants will be encouraged to interact with the site and provide additional feedback.

Presenters
Kendall A. King is a Professor of Multilingual Education in the Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction and Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Faculty Development in the College of Education and Human Development (UofM). She is co-leader of CARLA’s Equity and Access to State Seals of Biliteracy initiative. 
Ayumi Stockman is the World Languages Education Specialist at the Minnesota Department of Education. She provides support to Minnesota K-12 schools in the areas of world languages, heritage languages, Native American languages, dual language immersion programs, and Minnesota Bilingual Seals. She is co-leader of CARLA’s Equity and Access to State Seals of Biliteracy initiative. 
Andrew Fiegen is a Ph.D. student in the Multilingual Education program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota. He works with the initial licensure teacher education programs for both elementary and multilingual classroom settings. Prior to his doctoral studies, he was a K-12 teacher in US public schools and international schools.
Zijun Xie is a Ph.D. student in the Culture and Teaching program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests span teacher education, multilingual education, and the experiences of international students in U.S. higher education. Prior to her doctoral studies, she was a K-12 teacher in public schools in China.