The Formation of Communities of Practice in a Network of Schools Serving Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

Abstract

Culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students comprise the most rapidly expanding, and among the most educationally marginalized, group in the United States. CLD students’ opportunities to learn are often diminished through service delivery models that are deficit-oriented, viewing linguistic diversity as a challenge to overcome, not a strength on which to build. Such models frequently leave CLD students clustered and segregated within underresourced schools. Moreover, schools that effectively educate CLD students frequently operate in isolation from one another. In this context, this article provides a counternarrative. It reports the formation of a network of schools transforming their service delivery model from monolingual English immersion to bilingual 2-way immersion. Through a nested case study, we examine how learning among educators within communities of practice occurs in and across networked schools. We discuss this at the network level, and highlight one school's use of courageous conversations and formative assessments to foster this learning.