You may have heard of the Seal of Biliteracy, an award that is currently given to high school seniors in 40 states.  It honors second language proficiency along with heritage or English language proficiency.  For the past two years, some schools in Vermont have been awarding this award under the guidance of the Vermont Foreign Language Association (VFLA).  As well, the VFLA has been advocating and meeting with the AOE to get it established as an official award in our state.  Just before Christmas, Secretary Dan French approved this award for Vermont students.  It will become official once it is on the website of the AOE, hopefully this spring!  This award honors students who study a world language in school and achieve proficiency levels of Intermediate Mid and above on the ACTFL scale, as well as ELL students who achieve a similar score via the WIDA test or other acceptable measure.  There are various ways to demonstrate proficiency, including testing and portfolios.  

The Seal of Biliteracy is the only award recognized by the AOE for graduating seniors and certainly will help advocate for world language programs across our state.  For more information visit Vermont Seal of Biliteracy

The Seal of Biliteracy at CVSD

Contributed by: Johanna Shaw-Daniels, Robyn Suarez, Susan Simpson, and Melita Sedic-Lawton

The Seal of Biliteracy is a fairly new award given by the Vermont Foreign Language Association under the authorization of the Agency of Education in recognition of students who have studied and attained proficiency in two or more languages by high school graduation. Since 2020, CVU High School has had two recipients of this award and our numbers and program are growing. This year we have five seniors graduating with this award. In CVSD's elementary and middle schools, there are approximately 30+ active participants working towards this achievement through our Pathway to the Seal of Biliteracy program. The Pathway program is designed specifically for our younger Multilingual Students, with classes focusing on their heritage languages. This year, classes are being offered in Nepali, Chinese, Russian and Vietnamese.  Students’ enthusiasm for participating in the Pathway program has been wonderful to see!  Before the 8 week sessions began, students frequently asked when their heritage language instruction would begin.  The warm relationships they developed with their language instructors and with each other as Multilingual Learners has been invaluable.

The Seal of Biliteracy was awarded

to fourteen Vermont High School seniors!

The Seal of Biliteracy offers students a purpose in second language study because by achieving proficiency, they will receive recognition that is useful for college applications as well as employment opportunities.  It does not denote fluency, it denotes proficiency.  It means that a person can communicate with a high degree of comprehension in both speaking and writing, as well as in understanding and reading.  This past year 14 students in Vermont received the Seal of Biliteracy.  We anticipate many more students becoming eligible this year as 3 large districts in Chittenden County alone hope to implement the Seal (Burlington, South Burlington and Essex), along with many other schools.  Most exciting is that it also extends to non-native English speakers who are fluent in their native language, and hopefully by graduation will be proficient in English, thereby qualifying for the Seal.