All: Thank you, how are you?

How are you?

Narrator: Benerisa Perez loves teaching.

(singing in Spanish) Benerisa: Good morning, boys and girls!

All: Good morning!

(speaking Spanish) Narrator: And, this kindergarten teacher at Sacramentos Ethel Phillips Elementary derives a special joy from helping these youngsters learn English and become bilingual.

Benerisa: So, my students are getting the same curriculum and... and were seeing the same thing that the English counterparts are.

What I do every day is... is helping them get to the Seal of Biliteracy.

Narrator: The idea of the Seal of Biliteracy was created by a group called Californians Together, a coalition of 25 organizations with a shared goal of better educating English learners.

Martha: We really wanted to showcase and to do something positive, to recognize students who achieved biliteracy, by high school graduation.

Narrator: In 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 815 into law, officially establishing the State Seal of Biliteracy.

Martha: We were the first state in the country to adopt a state seal of biliteracy, but since then 49 states plus Washington, D.C. have established their own version.

Jorge: Well, I would say that the State Seal of Biliteracy really is a recognition of a richly diverse community that understands the value of being bilingual and biliterate.

Narrator: Here in the Sacramento City Unified School District, bilingual options are available starting as early as kindergarten.

Jorge: We're a district in Sac City Unified that values being bilingual and biliterate at a very, very young age.

You can visit classrooms here at Ethel Phillips where you will be hearing our students speaking in a language other than English, um, as early as kindergarten.

Narrator: In classes like this, what's called a transitional bilingual curriculum is based on a 90/10 model.

Benerisa: 90% of the time that I spend with the instructional materials, it's in Spanish and 10% is English.

(Benerisa speaking Spanish) Benerisa: Hopefully by high school, you know, theyre- they take those Spanish classes or French or whatever other classes that... that they... they can have.

Narrator: Students hone their bilingual skills through high schools like John F. Kennedy in Sacramento.

Zachary: All right.

Now the tricky ones!

(Zahary and students counting in Spanish) Zachary: it takes a long time to become fluent in a language, and it gives them more opportunity, more time to become fluent in a language.

Anais: I hope the seal will amplify what it means to be a Latina and to be bilingual and to be able to communicate with the world And I hope that through the Seal of Biliteracy, Ill be able to have different opportunities in my educational careers.

Martha: We know that bilingualism and biliteracy has academic, cognitive, personal and also economic benefits.

It's important for our students to be prepared to work in this new world, in this global world, uh, where we need to communicate with all of our citizens.

(Zachary reads in Spanish) (students respond in Spanish) Zachary: It gives students opportunities to work in different communities, um, both national and internationally, um, to connect with other people, to learn about other languages and about other cultures, and kind of help them to be a little more open-minded.

Galileo: I feel like itll really help propel me when I go out looking for jobs, state jobs, federal jobs, private industry, because there is always, like, that extra skill of being able to speak another language.

Youre able to connect with people from a different culture.

Zachary: Right now, at Kennedy High School, we have Spanish, we have Japanese, and we have French.

Luther Burbank High School down the street has Hmong, um, and then also students can get the Seal of Biliteracy by taking a test through Sacramento County with languages that we dont offer.

Narrator: Those languages span the globe, from Arabic and Armenian to Hindi, Hmong, Punjabi, Ukrainian, Urdu and Vietnamese.

Jorge: This is a rigorous process where students have to maintain a certain GPA in their English courses, uh, throughout high school, but also have to take a minimum set of courses in a foreign language, in a language other than English.

Zachary: The knowledge that knowing going forward that they can use that on their resume, on their college applications, uh, and... and it-- just in the real world in general, is very rewarding.

Narrator: Rewarding indeed, say students like Citlali Perez, whos in her first year of law school at Sacramentos McGeorge School of Law.

Citali: So, in three years, um, Ill... Ill be taking the California bar exam and Id like to actually practice in immigration law.

So, I think knowing Spanish will help me out a lot because Ill... Ill have to speak with, um, clients who most likely do not speak English.

Martha: There is a benchmark that by 2040 three out of four high school seniors receive the State Seal of Biliteracy upon graduation, and so, we are really working hard to expand biliteracy programs.

Jorge: Weve had up to over 500 students who graduate with a Seal of Biliteracy.

And, um, what an honor I think it is for a student to receive a high school diploma with a seal of this type.

Narrator: Nationwide, nearly 100,000 students in the high school class of 2018 earned a seal of biliteracy.

Of those, 86% were from just five states — California, North Carolina, Illinois, Virginia, and New Jersey; and more than half were from California.

The best news both the application and the certificate are free to students.