ISD 112 - Eastern Carver County Schools

ISD 112 -  Eastern Carver County Schools

11 Peavey Road

Chaska, MN 55318

Tel. 952-556-6100

2013-2014 NLCE Applications 

Year	File Folder Number	Last Name	First Name	District Number
13-14	451603	DOU	JIHONG	112
13-14	488900	MA	LING	112
13-14	997749	WANG	LING	112

Charter School - ISD 4181 - Community School of Excellence

- Under Construction -

Three-year Special NLCE Permission

From: "Ford, Sara [MN]" <Sara.Ford@edmn.org>
Date: May 21, 2018 9:12:49 AM
To: Lisa Wedell Ueki <lisaueki@me.com>
Subject: RE: 3-Year NLCE Special Approvals

HI Lisa,

This was just brought to my attention late last week, and I am going to do some research to see what we can find out. I have never heard of a 3-year permission like this.  

So I’ll do some digging.  

Sara

From: "Zaloker, Maria (PELSB)" <maria.zaloker@state.mn.us>
Date: April 25, 2018 10:59:34 AM 

To: Lisa Wedell Ueki <lisaueki@me.com> 

Subject: RE: 3-Year NLCE Approvals

Ms. Wedell Ueki,

We are still processing your request.

Thank you,

Maria Zaloker

Teacher Ethics Specialist

Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board

1500 Highway 36 West, Suite 300

Roseville, MN 55113-4055

651-539-4186

Maria.Zaloker@state.mn.us

From: Lisa Wedell Ueki [mailto:lisaueki@me.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2018 11:58 AM
To: Zaloker, Maria (PELSB) <maria.zaloker@state.mn.us>
Subject: 3-Year NLCE Approvals

Good Morning, 

What have you learned about the 3-year NLCE approvals? As I mentioned earlier, I haven't been able to find any information online about them. What is the criteria for a 3-year approval? How many of these have been approved?

I was just reviewing documents for a couple of H-1B visa dependent schools and noticed the three-year approvals so I am curious to learn more. I noticed the three examples I found were all approved at different BOT meetings. I suspect school districts are requesting these to obtain the three-year H-1B temporary non-immigrant visa for some of their workers, but I feel they are a bit problematic if they are only being offered to non-U.S. citizens. That would be a discriminatory practice if U.S. citizens aren't eligible too. 

Hope you can explain more on these 3-year NLCE approvals. 

Most warmly, 

Lisa Wedell Ueki 

ISD 625 - St. Paul Public Schools

Jie Ming Mandarin Immersion Academy 

1845 Sheridan Avenue West 

St. Paul, MN 55116
Tel. 651-744-4770

Our Curriculum

We use St. Paul Public School's curriculum which aligns with Minnesota State Standards and all components of the Core Knowledge Sequence.  Reader's Worshop for all grades - Students are immersed with rich Chinese literatures in addition to Chinese Language Arts daily.  These literatures include but not limited to the following genres: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, folktale, fantasy, and Chinese Idioms.

Overview of all grades

K - 1st grades - All core subjects (Reading, Writing, Math, Language arts, Social Studies) are taught in Mandarin Chinese. The rotation of specialists in art, gym and science are taught in English this year.

2nd - 5th  grades - All core subjects (Reading, Writing, Math, Language arts, Social Studies) are taught in Mandarin Chinese. There are 50 minutes of English Language Arts daily plus the rotation of specialist in art, gym and science are taught in English this year.

Ying Wang – H-1B Visa Worker 
Ms. Jing Li

Grade 3 Teacher
Jie Ming Mandarin Immersion Academy - Hamline Elementary School 
Office Phone #: 651-293-8715
Email: ying.wang@spps.org

Hello,

I graduated from University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 2014. I got my master degree from Hamline University in 2017. I am very excited to be Jie Ming Third Grade teacher. In my third grade classroom, students will have lots of fun and activities. Students will develop joy for reading, becoming excellent writers, learn new Chinese words, and cultural related interesting topics. I have high expectations for behavior and student's performance. Establishing a climate of high behavior standards may trigger high academic achievements. My expectation for all third graders is that students will leave my classroom more responsible, independent, respectful, and passionate about learning. Everyone has Strengths and weakness, but I expect everyone to try his or her best!

Sincerely,

Ying Wang

Jing Li - Visiting Teacher 
Intervention Teacher 
Jie Ming Mandarin Immersion Academy - Hamline Elementary School 

Office Phone #: 651-293-8715

Email: jing.li@spps.org

Hi parents and families!

This is Li laoshi. I am so excited to begin my first year as the visiting teacher at Jie Ming Mandarin Immersion Academy.

A native of China, I was born and grew up in Xiangtan city, Hunan province. This is also chairman Mao’s hometown. I attended the University of Huaihua and received a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary School Education. After graduation, I applied to be a Chinese teacher through Hanban(Confucius Institute Headquarters). In the Phillipines, I taught preschool, elementary, junior, senior, and college students Mandarin through the Confucius Institute at Angeles University Foundation for two years. After that, I returned to China and worked as a Chinese teacher at Fenghuang Junior High School of Xiangtan. After less than a year, my school (Fenghuang Junior High School) recommended me to come to the US as a visiting teacher. This year is my third year teaching as a Chinese teacher.

Teaching is a rewarding experience. I teach so I can learn about the world and all of those infinite possibilities that brand new minds bring to me each and everyday. I am so glad to learn and explore with your children this year!

Name	Title	Department	Email
Barb Hvidhyld	English Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	barb.hvidhyld@spps.org
He Huang	Kindergarten Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	hu.huang@spps.org
Hongtao He	First Grade Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	hongtao.he@spps.org
Jing Li	Intervention Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	jing.li@spps.org
Manling Wang	Fifth Grade Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	manling.wang@spps.org
Ping Chen	Second Grade Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	ping.chen@spps.org
Qiong Qin	First Grade Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	qiong.qin@spps.org
Xiaomin Liu	Second Grade Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	xiaomin.liu@spps.org
Xinyue Zong	First Grade Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	xinyue.zong@spps.org
Xuanyao Polga	Kindergarten Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	xuanyao.polga@spps.org
Ying Wang	Third Grade Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	ying.wang@spps.org
Yu Tian	Kindergarten Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	yu.tian@spps.org
Ziying Kvitrud	Fourth Grade Teacher	CLASSROOM TEACHER	ziying.kvitrud@spps.org

Ying He 
Jingfang Huang 

Unbelievable Optional Training Opportunities with Minneapolis Public Schools

Arjun Ale

Process for U.S. work visas suddenly gets harder

Five years ago, Cecilia Delbene decided to try out a study-based foreign exchange program that would allow her to teach Spanish in the United States. 

The Spanish literature teacher from Uruguay ended up in Eden Prairie, Minn. 

The experience was enriching for her and her students. But it wasn't long enough — just six months — so she decided to stay.

"We need it so badly. We need to start understanding each other," Delbene said. "The world is crazy right now. It feels like it's getting crazier and crazier, so we need these kids to step up tomorrow and change it."

Delbene found an employer that would sponsor her H1B visa so she could stay and teach in Minnesota for a longer period of time.

The H1B program allows foreign nationals to work in the United States for a three-year time period, with a chance to renew once for a total of six years. 

Delbene's first application went smoothly. But when it came time to renew in January, President Trump had taken office. Renewing her visa wasn't as easy.

Her visa was set to expire in June, about two months after Trump signed the "Buy American, Hire American" executive order.

"I'm not really sure what's going on with the system or where is the problem, but it seems like it's getting harder and harder," she said. "There is a lot of talk about illegal immigrants, but for those of us that are here legally, the process is quite complicated and it has a lot of bumps. And we want to do the things the right way, and we are, but it's tough."

Slowing down the process

Delbene got caught up in a new trend immigration lawyers say has been making the process of getting H1B visas more difficult than ever. 

As part of the approval process, in some cases the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, issues a request for evidence after an application has been filed. USCIS usually sends such requests when the officer processing the application believes the employer hasn't provided all the evidence necessary to meet the requirements of the H1B visa.

But lately, the requests have been inane and irrelevant, immigration attorneys say. Based on the paperwork sent by USCIS, the requests seem to be aimed at slowing down the process and creating additional hurdles rather than getting necessary evidence.

Employers and their attorneys have been asked to provide proof that jobs in medicine, architecture and engineering do, in fact, require bachelor's degrees. Another common request is for evidence that an entry-level wage is appropriate.

Delbene, a Spanish language and literature teacher at Lakes International Language Academy, or LILA, in Forest Lake, was asked to prove that her school was exempt from the annual cap on H1B visas. The federal government has set an annual limit of 85,000 visas, and allocates them to qualified applicants through a lottery. 

LILA, a Spanish and Chinese immersion public charter school that has been using the H1B visa program for at least 10 years, is exempt from the annual cap. But this year, USCIS asked the school to prove that Delbene, and five other teachers, are in fact exempt from the lottery.

"They're not subject to the cap anyway," said Shannon Peterson, director of LILA. "It was very nerve-racking, and a very tense situation."

'Just turning the screws'

In Sandra Feist's downtown Minneapolis office, H1B visa case files have taken up half of her desk. 

The immigration attorney has worked in the field since 2001. Over the past couple of months, she's seen a vast increase — about a 75 percent jump — in government requests for evidence, or RFEs. 

Feist works with clients in research universities, technology companies and nonprofits.

"The petitions that I file are several inches thick, and they include detailed documentation and information about the company, or university or agency that is sponsoring," she said. "And we're receiving two-page or eight-page requests for additional evidence that make it clear that the government has not read or reviewed anything that we filed and is uniformly sending out these requests regardless of the type of case."

Among the piles of paperwork on her desk is an eight-page request that says nothing about her case or her client. The incomplete template says "the evidence you submitted is not sufficient" and goes on to say "(officer must insert the reasons why the evidence listed under this subsection is not sufficient to meet this requirement)."

"And I don't know what they want to know because they didn't bother to tell me," Feist said.

It's not uncommon for the government to send additional requests for evidence during the H1B petition process, and it's well within the law. But those filing the petitions say the sudden jump in RFEs, especially after President Trump signed the "Buy American, Hire American" executive order in April, signals a move toward scaling back on legal immigration to the United States. 

"They're just turning the screws," said Mark Schneider, head of employment-based visas at the University of Minnesota's office of International Student and Scholar Services. "For many years, they haven't required these types of things. We haven't had any major violations here at the University of Minnesota."

In the last month, Schneider has received four requests for evidence, far more than in the past. 

One request asks for proof of credentials of a Ph.D. The faculty member already has an H1B visa, works for another university in the United States, and has been offered a tenure-track job at the University of Minnesota. Now USCIS is asking the university to prove that the Ph.D. this faculty member has from overseas is valid. 

"It seems a waste of a lot of people's time and energy," Schneider said. "We're bringing in the people that we need, that have the degrees that we need, especially at a place like the University of Minnesota. We're not hiring cheap people off the street. Ninety percent of our people are Ph.D.s doing research or teaching. And they're not going to be hired if they're not qualified." 

USCIS did not respond to a request for an interview, but a spokesperson sent a statement saying that it's typical to have an increase in RFEs based on the number of petitions being processed, and that each petition is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. 

"USCIS officers request further evidence when the preponderance standard has not been met," Tim Counts, a public affairs officer with USCIS, said in a statement. "USCIS is committed to protecting the interests of U.S. workers (as directed under the Buy American and Hire American Executive Order) and has received numerous valuable fraud tips since rolling out our new tip line."

Immigration lawyers recognize that the government wants to catch companies that may not necessarily need foreign workers and are taking advantage of the H1B visa process. But they say cracking down on jobs that are hard to fill with U.S. workers isn't the way to do it. 

At Lakes International Language Academy, Delbene's fifth-period class is filled with sixth-graders sitting around tables, talking with each other as they fill out a Google Doc on their iPads. They're talking about school, what they like about school, favorite subjects, uniforms. \

And it's all in Spanish.

The students are all fluent by this age. They've been in the Spanish immersion program since kindergarten.

Half the staff at the pre-K-12 LILA schools are from Spanish- and Chinese-speaking countries on H1B visas. 

Because it's a charter school, it's tougher for LILA to find local licensed teachers who are fluent in the languages. District schools usually snatch them up. 

But despite that, the schools have been growing. They started with 177 students in 2004 and are now up to 1,200.

And the directors credit the foreign visa programs for that.

"It will come back around," said Cameron Hedlund, executive director at Lakes International Language Academy. "You have to hear the anecdotal stories of our parents of a second-grade Chinese student interpreting in a taxi cab in China, or kindergartners helping their parents with menus in a South American restaurant. It's just phenomenal, the amount of language these kids get in a short period of time."

For the next three years, all six of the challenged teachers at LILA, including Delbene, can stay and teach. They've gotten their renewals after the school sent evidence that it is, in fact, exempt from the cap.

However, the hurdles they faced this year make them uncertain about the H1B program's future.

"I'm usually a very calm person, but with this whole visa process, it's stronger than me," Delbene said. "It's like you don't have absolutely any control of what's going to happen with your life at the end. You've done everything right, you've followed all the steps. However, at the end of the day there is nothing you can do about it."

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/09/13/work-visa-h1b-process-more-difficult

Washington public schools hire some foreign teachers byusing H-1B visas

Francisco Size came to Washington from the Dominican Republic last year on a type of work visa that each year draws thousands of other foreign professionals into the state.

But the 42-year-old is not a computer programmer or software engineer for the typical high-tech companies using these visas.

Rather, Size works as a math teacher in the Highline School District — one of scores of teachers across the state hired on the H-1B visa.

While use of the visa in the private sector at companies like Microsoft is well-known and hotly debated, less is known about school districts’ use of the program. In fact, at least 40 Washington school districts have applied for H-1B visas to employ teachers and staff over the past five years.

For example, Puyallup hired a high-school English teacher from Jamaica, Seattle hired a special-education teacher from India, and Bellevue hired a parent-outreach coordinator from Chile.

Districts say they use H-1B workers to fill teaching positions with long-reported shortages in such areas as special education and math. Districts also have hired foreign nationals as English, elementary-school and substitute teachers. Like any employer using the H-1B program, schools do not have to show a lack of qualified U.S. teachers before they hire foreign workers.

Schools have had mixed results with the visa workers. Some districts have not renewed the visas for certain teachers, while others decided to keep these workers long-term by helping them get permanent residency with employer-sponsored green cards.

Faced with laying off hundreds of teachers and staff this summer, Washington public-school officials may find it harder to support hiring new foreign workers.

Lori Simmons, employment director for Federal Way Public Schools, said “in this kind of climate” she doubted her district would hire an H-1B teacher.

“Districts all up and down the I-5 corridor are laying off teachers, and so we have experienced teachers looking for jobs,” she said.

Each year, the U.S. government issues at least 85,000 visas to foreign professional workers who have at least a four-year degree. The process begins with an employer petitioning on a worker’s behalf for a visa, which is valid for three years and can be renewed for another three. Ultimately, most workers hope an employer will sponsor them for the coveted green card that allows them to work permanently in the U.S.

Obtaining the temporary work visas may be more difficult before long. At a time when so many people are out of work, members of Congress have introduced a bill that would force employers to seek out U.S. residents first before employing H-1B workers.

Cultural differences

Due to limited budgets, school districts such as Seattle and Federal Way recruit teachers and recent college graduates with teaching degrees from within the state. Other districts send recruiters to job fairs across the country.

Highline School District is one that goes overseas. It sought teachers by going to Spain through a teacher-exchange program and to Jamaica through an agency that links districts with teachers wanting to come here on H-1B visas. Highline’s trips were paid by either the country’s program or a private agency.

Last year, the district hired Size, from the Dominican Republic, at a minority-educators job fair in New York. “He was a viable candidate,” said Don Waring, the district’s human-resources director. “There aren’t enough American math teachers to go around.”

After spending $3,500 on attorney and visa fees, Size landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport two weeks before he was to begin teaching several classes of remedial math. Despite some teaching experience in his home country, Size said he had trouble setting rules in the classroom and disciplining students.

“I think I really maybe don’t know the culture of the students, how they think, how high school [is] like here, what they expect from the teachers,” said Size, interviewed in his utilitarian classroom at Mt. Rainier High School.

Size said he became depressed, which he brought into the classroom. Highline will not renew his contract for next school year.

Now Size must scramble to find another employer willing to hire him, or he must return home. Last month he interviewed for a math teaching position at a Houston school that hires H-1B workers.

Surprise: visa’s needed

Seattle Public Schools has employed a dozen H-1B workers over the past decade, many of them hired as special-education teachers.

The district usually doesn’t know if potential employees will need to be sponsored for H-1B visas until after they are hired, human-resources director Brent Jones said.

The Pullman School District got surprised, and stung, when it hired a graduate from Washington State University several years ago, not knowing he was a foreign national.

Garren Shannon, director of information systems for the district, said at least four people applied for an entry-level job as a computer systems administrator. In March 2006, he hired Zhengmao “James” Yan, who he said was highly qualified and enthusiastic about the job.

“[He was] different from the typical applicant — the standard American kid isn’t as aggressively eager to work,” Shannon said.

Two weeks into the job, Yan told the district he needed a visa to continue to work legally in the country.

Shannon told Yan the district would sponsor him, but he’d have to pay for the filing fees and his own attorney to handle the paperwork.

But both were unprepared for the laborious H-1B process. “It’s not for the meek and mild,” Shannon said.

Fearing deportation, Yan quit after three months. The district had to start the hiring process over again.

Had he known the district would need to sponsor Yan for the H-1B visa, Shannon said he wouldn’t have hired him: “I had other candidates that weren’t as qualified but didn’t come with the costs and work.”

For the Issaquah School District, the hiring of Bettina Gehle of Germany on an H-1B visa several years ago was positive.

Gehle, who teaches sports medicine and other classes, has strong skills and a passion for the job, said Kathy Miyauchi, the district’s personnel director. The district will sponsor Gehle for a green card, with her paying the costs.

“We are looking for qualities of a good teacher and that’s the same whether the person is a citizen or someone going through the immigration process,” Miyauchi said.

Christine Willmsen: cwillmsen@seattletimes.com or 206-464-3261. Lornet Turnbull: lturnbull@seattletimes.com or 206-464-2420.

Christine Willmsen: 206-464-3261 or cwillmsen@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @christinesea.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/washington-public-schools-hire-some-foreign-teachers-by-using-h-1b-visas/