State seal of biliteracy: Tamil language exam is available now for Sacramento county high school graduating students

A long standing wish has come true! We now have an official way to recognize high school graduating students for their Tamil language proficiency in Sacramento county, CA, probably one of the first in our region!

Thanks to the extraordinary efforts by Sacramento Tamil Academy (STA) Folsom’s Principal, Mr. Rajarajan Thangavelu & Vice Principal Ms. Kavitha Manoharan through great collaboration & support by Ms. Graciela García –Torres at Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE), Tamil language is now officially offered as one of the languages in the language exam offered by SCOE for state seal of biliteracy.

Read this presentation to know more about state seal of biliteracy: link

Any graduating, eligible high school senior attending a public/charter school within the Sacramento county & proficient in Tamil (reading, writing, oral) can now apply to participate in the language exam and once successfully clearing (receive a score of proficient or higher) the examination along with the rest of the requirements detailed in SCOE biliteracy website can receive the state seal of biliteracy in their high school transcripts starting 2021-22 academic year.

Interested and eligible high school students should reach out to their school district coordinators to apply for the examination. A draft application can be found below that lists “Tamil” as one of the languages offered and can give an idea of what’s expected in the simple application. List of school district coordinators can be found in the brochure. Feel free to reach out to STA’s Principal, Raj and/or Vice Principal, Kavitha at contact@sactamilacademy.org, if you have any questions.

This didn’t happen overnight and at this moment, we would like to thank all the Tamil patrons instrumental to Tamil education in Sacramento county.

Eligibility:

In order to be eligible for the State Seal of Biliteracy, students must meet all of the following criteria:

Complete all English language arts requirements for graduation with an overall grade point average of 2.0 or above in those classes.
Pass the California standards assessment at the “standards met” or above in English language arts (ELA) set for native English speakers at the 11th grade.
Demonstrate proficiency in one or more languages—in addition to English—by accomplishing one of the following:
1. Score three or higher on an Advanced Placement (AP) foreign language examination.
2. Score four or higher on an International Baccalaureate foreign language examination.
3. Score of 600 or higher on the Scholastic Assessment Test II foreign language examination.
4. Score at the “proficient” level or higher on a school district language examination that, at a minimum, assesses speaking, reading, and writing in a language other than English.
5. Successfully complete a four-year high school course of study in a world (foreign) language and attain an overall grade point average of 3.0 or above in that course of study, including oral proficiency.

If students have a primary language other than English, they must meet the criteria in items 1–3 above and also obtain a score of 4 on the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California Development Test (ELPAC).

Language Exams

SCOE offers a language exam option (option 3.d listed above) for students who have no language course or assessment offered at their school. SCOE’s assessment process determines oral and written proficiency in the following languages: Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, Dari, Farsi, French, German, Hindi, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Pashto, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese.

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நன்றி! வாழ்க தமிழ்!
Kavitha & Raj

Sacramento Tamil Academy, Folsom

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