Montserrat Garibay arrived in the United States three decades ago with her mother and sister as an undocumented immigrant, and learned English at a public middle school in Austin, Texas. Later on, she worked as a bilingual pre-kindergarten teacher before becoming a labor organizer in Texas, first representing Austin public school employees and then serving as a top leader of the Texas AFL-CIO.
For the past four years, she’s been at the U.S. Department of Education, first as the senior adviser for labor relations to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and, for the past two years, as deputy assistant secretary and director of the department’s office of English-language acquisition.
She’ll leave that position on Jan. 20 at the start of Donald Trump’s new administration, when it’s unclear exactly what federal policy toward English learners will look like.
In Garibay’s time leading the office of English language acquisition, or OELA, it has taken back the responsibility of managing the primary federal funding stream that supports supplemental services for English learners: the $890 million Title III grant program.
In an interview with Education Week, she touted the office’s work to develop resources designed to highlight best practices for school districts in welcoming newly arrived students, introduce Mexican consulates in the United States to resources and services that should be available to English learners in public schools, award grants to states to grow their pool of in-demand bilingual educators, and celebrate the nationwide growth of the seal of biliteracy—a distinction high school graduates, English learners and non-English learners alike, can earn for mastering English plus another language.
Some of OELA’s work in recent years has been internal: aimed at ensuring that other divisions of the U.S. Department of Education are considering the needs of the nation’s growing population of about 5.3 million English learners as they administer grants and develop policy.
She spoke with Education Week as her office on Dec. 19 released a series of four “playbooks” aimed at advancing another key OELA priority: growing dual-language immersion programs in which English learners and non-English learners learn academic content alongside each other in both English and another language. The playbooks highlight the work five states have undertaken to grow the number of dual-language immersion programs—considered a promising model for boosting English learners’ academic achievement.
Garibay spoke about her office’s work to champion this model, the progress she’s seen in recent years to improve services for English learners, and the work that remains with a new administration soon taking office.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you share more about the newest dual-language resources OELA has published?
We identified five states: New York, Utah, California, Texas, and North Carolina. We chose these five states because they have 200-plus dual-language programs. We visited elementary, middle schools, and high schools that had dual-language programs. We talked to different stakeholders and had roundtable conversations about, what were the key factors that these schools put in place in their communities to have these dual-language programs?
And one of the great things about this is that all of the schools that we visited—the 19 schools that we visited in total—were public schools. So we were able to see high, evidence-based, quality dual-language programs in action in our public schools, and we learned from them about their policies, their processes, the strategies, their practices, how they’re funding these dual-language programs.
Now we are able to release these four playbooks, with their focus on policy, foundational conditions, family and community engagement, and staffing. We’re highlighting the different aspects that each of these states are doing to promote these important programs.
We went to North Carolina. We went to the first Urdu dual language program, which started in 2018. It’s a partnership with a university, and we were able to see how students were learning Urdu and how that came about, how it was really a grassroots movement from parents and the community to bring this program to the kids.
In Utah, we saw how thoughtful they have been in terms of the professional development of their teachers, how now they’re moving to having their professional development in Spanish [for dual-language immersion teachers]. I think one of the things that we saw within each of the states was the multilingual and bilingual teachers, and each of these states are doing different things to make sure that they have the most qualified dual-language teachers doing the work.
What work remains to support English learners nationally?
One of the areas that we still need to focus on is students in special education who are English learners, who are as capable as anybody in learning their heritage language in dual-language programs. So much more information needs to, and support needs to, come from the department to ensure that the students are receiving the resources that they need.
How has the department ensured English learners are not an afterthought in policy and spending? How can that continue under Trump?
One of the first things that I did when I came to OELA was have a national convening where we had 3,000 people.
We had the office for civil rights share specific cases where districts and states were not following the law, and we highlighted how they were able to fix that. As I’m reflecting and thinking of the work that we’ve done, I feel like, through these years with OELA, we have really been thoughtful and intentional in reminding educators, stakeholders, and parents of the obligation that states and districts have to our 5.3 million English learners.
We also know that if this set of students do well in our nation, our whole nation will be doing even better.
I feel that because the secretary has definitely raised the bar in terms of English learners and has showed the world and the United States that these students actually are the valedictorians from many high schools, that are graduating with honors because they actually know how to read, speak, and write in their native language, but also in English. And that is a superpower that will take them far.
But now, as the new administration comes, I think it’s going to be really important for parents, educators, and students to be unapologetic of the strength that they have to utilize all the different “dear colleague” letters, all the different information that we have provided so they can exercise their rights, so they can demand a good-quality education for them, for their children, and for their students.
What outgoing message do you have for multilingual educators, students, and families?
I came to the United States as an undocumented student.
For me it’s been very personal, because I’m able to be in this role because of the public education that I received, because I am bilingual. I am just a tiny example of what can be done, and to really embrace the beauty of the American dream. And to be able to serve at this level has been a great opportunity and a great responsibility.
I know that throughout these two years that I have been part of OELA, I have seen teachers, students, and parents who are hungry for a better education. What we’ve done these years under Secretary Cardona’s leadership will transform the lives of our students, so I’m very proud of that, and we’re definitely raising the bar.
