One of the best things you can do as an advocate for Hoosier multilingual learners is to contact officials and let them know that the interest and will is there. Get others involved too. You can inform your superintendents, principals, colleagues, friends, family and anyone else who will listen. Encourage and empower them to call, write or email their state representatives and state senators. 

Go to this website to find your state legislators (Senators and Representatives):  http://iga.in.gov/legislative/find-legislators/ 

Phone calls are great, hand-written letters are great, typed letters are good, emails are good. Below is a text you can use. If you want to put things in your own words, that's great too! Just remember to be polite, clear, brief, and polite.

Dear (Representative xxx or Senator xxx), 

 (insert your name, organization, etc.) is grateful for stable funding of 25 million in the Non English Speaking Program Bill of HB 1001 for this biennium (2022-2024). Its provision protects the general education funds of already over-tapped local general education budgets, particularly given the demands of the pandemic. I support the following agenda of the The Indiana Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (INTESOL). 

 (INTESOL) professional organization opposes the currently proposed tiering formula in the Non-English Speaking Bill (HB 1001). We advocate for a return to the per-pupil formula where the value for each child is the same. In the previous budget cycle, a tiered formula was adopted that provides more funding for English Learners who are lower in their English proficiency.  Here are the reasons in brief that INTESOL requests returning to a per-pupil formula that is even for all students:

• Indiana has far more 3s and 4s than 1s and 2s (more higher levels and fewer lower levels)
• ​The tiering formula ensures that a large majority of districts cumulatively lose NESP funding over Year 1 and 2 compared to a base amount per pupil
• Lower levels of language proficiency progress more quickly; higher levels are slower
• Short timeline to get students English proficient

Sincerely,

xxx