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Spotlight on You: Mary Ann Ullrich

Foreign Language Supervisor, Arlington Public Schools
“If you’re going to build acceptance, you need to start at the grass roots.”

This philosophy has served Mary Ann Ullrich throughout a career of building successful Foreign Language programs. She began in the Chicago area as a Spanish teacher, department head, and administrator. After moving to the Arlington, Virginia area in the 1980’s she taught Middle School and High School Spanish as well as ESL, and began actively leading the growth of the Arlington World Languages programs as Foreign Language Supervisor for the Arlington School District in 1989. That growth has culminated in elementary and middle school immersion programs; Spanish for Fluent speakers; localized and distance programs for Chinese, Arabic, Italian, and Japanese; and a comprehensive FLES program. Eight years ago, Arlington developed a successful Spanish for Educators program for all educators in the district to develop the ability to communicate with native-Spanish speaking parents of students. That program has now grown to be a nationally delivered distance learning opportunity.

Mary Ann’s passion for building language programs is driven by a desire to enhance individual’s lives through international connections. To that end, she has participated in and led numerous programs for students in Mexico and El Salvador; supported school activities with sister cities in Germany, France and El Salvador; and actively encouraged international community efforts such as weekend school programs created by the Embassies of Mongolia and Bolivia. A recent personal highlight was serving as a translator with a medical-services mission to La Ceibita — a small rural village on the East Coast of Honduras — where the immersion-style learning about the culture and the people who live at subsistence levels with positive and loving attitudes was beyond touching.

According to Mary Ann, creating opportunity for cultural awareness through the growth of language learning in Arlington faces two primary challenges — staffing and accountability. As recognition of the necessity for multiple language proficiency grows, so does demand for fully certified teachers in all subjects and at all levels who are bilingual in both English and any number of additional languages. This is a particularly large challenge in the early education programs because of the preponderance of emerging FLES programs in Arlington and surrounding districts. Providing accountability to the community that supports the growth of whole language that the programs are at or above national averages is a critical issue as well. Assessments associated with national standards have become recognized as key accountability tools and STAMP has not only filled that purpose, but has also served as a key staff development opportunity for the district by helping to identify successful strategies in the classroom. But, how does a district leader successfully engage all staff in adopting an assessment tool? According to Mary Ann’s leadership model, “if you’re going to get acceptance, you need to start at the grass roots. As an administrator, you may see a tool as outstanding, but you need to allow staff to become familiar and comfortable with it and want to use it on their own. You need to build in a belief system.”

Traditionally, Arlington Schools had annual writing assessments that were graded by groups of teachers — a time-intensive commitment for staff. Mary Ann’s three year process in building a district wide STAMP assessment started by selecting a couple of high school teachers as representatives to pilot STAMP and give honest feedback to staff leaders regarding reliability, ease of use, technical parameters, and student experience. Those piloters were enthusiastic, so a larger district-wide pilot took place during the second year and was used as one of the major pieces to establish proficiency levels across all ages. Additionally, high-level Administrators and the rest of the World Languages staff were able to see and appreciate the inter-rater reliability of STAMP. Use of ClassPak and testing with STAMP by all Level Three students during the third year provided data for school-to-school comparisons and subsequent revelation of best practices that became the basis for discussion about program improvements. Teachers now look forward to the time when all students can take STAMP and all programs can benefit from reviews of the results.

Whether building programs within the schools or connections within the community, Mary Ann Ullrich’s secret of success grows out of her consistent awareness and patient engagement of grassroots efforts around the world. We are honored to share her story here as a source of motivation to all.