A guiding document for educating students who aren’t proficient in English was quietly repealed this summer by the federal Department of Education, a sign of the Trump administration’s changing approach to multilingual education that could impact thousands in Maine.

No laws have changed yet, and a series of Supreme Court decisions still require schools to provide services for students who aren’t proficient in English, as does the Maine Human Rights Act.

But the repeal comes as Trump has signed executive orders to make English the country’s official language, and to dismantle the federal Department of Education, where nearly all Office of English Language Acquisition staff already been been laid off. The orders and layoffs are clear signs that the federal position on educating multilingual students could be shifting.

More recently, a White House proposal for the department budget included cutting all funding, $1.3 billion, for multilingual and migrant students.

For a decade, districts in Maine and elsewhere have relied on a now-rescinded Obama-era document, in the form of a Dear Colleague letter, to guide their approach to multilingual education.

April Perkins, director of multilingual programs for South Portland Schools, said that document was “the only clear source of information that schools have been provided about what is and is not allowable, what is expected for a multilingual learner.” Her district has nearly 500 multilingual students, about 18% of the district’s enrollment.

“The law leaves a lot of room for interpretation,” Perkins said. “If you just say ‘You need to do what’s necessary for this student,’ that could be viewed 1,000 different ways by 1,000 different people.”

During the last school year, about 4.7% of Maine’s total student population, more than 8,000 students, were multilingual learners, meaning they primarily speak a language other than English and are not yet proficient in it.

In some districts, mostly in southern Maine and the Lewiston area, that proportion is much higher. About 30% of Portland students enrolled during the last school year were multilingual learners.

STILL GOOD LAW

The obligation to teach English to multilingual students comes largely from the landmark 1974 U.S. Supreme Court case Lau v. Nichols. In it, the court ruled that schools that did not provide supplemental language instruction to non-English speaking students were discriminating under the Civil Rights Act.

That case, and others, outlined legal requirements, but not guidance for how schools should provide for those students.

So in 2015, under President Barack Obama, the Department of Education put together a document that provided guidelines to districts on their legal obligations to English learners.

The Trump administration repealed that document with no public announcement this summer, and later said it was overly prescriptive and not in line with the administration’s agenda. It remains online marked “for historical purposes only.”

Perkins, who previously worked for the state as a specialist in English for Speakers of Other Languages, helped put together a similar document for Maine. That guidance gives benchmarks for English instruction and recommendations for staffing.

In the wake of the federal government’s repeal of the Dear Colleague letter, Maine’s Department of Education reminded districts that federal and state laws are still very much in place.

“Failure to provide appropriate language assistance services or to remove barriers to participation may constitute discrimination on the basis of national origin and language, which is prohibited under the Maine Human Rights Act,” an announcement on the DOE’s Multilingual Learners web page reads.

In other words, districts must continue to guarantee access to school and extracurricular activities for English learners, and communicate with families in a language they can understand.

MAINE DISTRICTS REACT

In the Maine school districts with the biggest multilingual populations, leaders said they’re looking to the state for guidance.

A spokesperson for Portland Public Schools said the state’s largest district “continues to be committed to ensuring that all of our students continue to get the support they need to succeed and thrive.”

The superintendent of Lewiston Public Schools did not respond to requests for comment.

Biddeford Superintendent Jeremy Ray said that in the absence of any change in the state’s guidance, his district will continue to “rigorously screen, serve, and assess the progress of” its multilingual students. Westbrook Superintendent Peter Lancia said the same — his district will continue to follow its Lau Plan (named for the Supreme Court case) and provide equitable education for all students.

But he said Westbrook is concerned about the possible loss of Title III funds, money from the federal Department of Education that covers the cost of supplemental services for English learners. The latest White House budget plan proposes cutting 100% of funding ($890 million) for Title III.

Thirteen Maine schools shared more than $830,000 through Title III this year and more than half of that went to Portland and Lewiston.

Perkins, in South Portland, said she’s also concerned about the possibility that the Supreme Court will revisit the Lau decision, and about the message the guidance change could send to multilingual students.

She said in the early 1900s, Maine passed a law forbidding the use of French in schools. At the time, it was the largest non-English language spoken by students. She said that decision created a stigma and shame around French bilingualism with long-lasting effects.

“I hope that we do not find ourselves in a similar situation where students and families no longer want to speak the languages that they bring with them because there is so much external pressure,” Perkins said. “There’s such a richness that comes with being bilingual or multilingual, and I think we have an obligation as educators to preserve that and encourage that, rather than squashing it.”

She said if the administration’s goal is to motivate immigrants to learn English, strategies like making it the official language, removing guidance and cutting funding are misguided.

“If that is the intention and the desire of the United States government, then the resources should be directed in that way, that we are supporting our most recent arrivals to become proficient in English,” Perkins said.