CARLA PRESENTATION: Seals of Biliteracy: Supporting Equity and Access Nationwide

Feb 11, 2025 | 12 - 1pm CST
Online via Zoom

State seals of biliteracy are awards given 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. Yet while seals are technically available to nearly all U.S. high school graduates, access is biased toward students of widely taught languages and students 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. After a brief overview of the national landscape with respect to seals of biliteracy, this talk showcases our recently completed national toolkit to support and advocate for seals locally and nationally. 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.