Renae Bryant is an educational leader who has served as director of plurilingual services for the Anaheim Union High School District since 2017, overseeing dual language and world language programs for a district of roughly 27,000 students. Dr. Renae Bryant has secured more than a million dollars in grants for the district, including a $425,000 Project LEARN Spencer Foundation Grant, and has supported reclassification efforts that helped over 1,000 students earn the State Seal of Biliteracy each year. She led the four-year development of a Plurilingual Master Plan incorporating CAL Principles for Dual Language Education and the English Learner Road Map, work that connects directly to organizations such as the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE), which named her its 2024 District Administrator of the Year. Dr. Bryant also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of La Verne and California State University, Fullerton, and holds a doctorate in organizational leadership.
The California Association for Bilingual Education, or CABE, formed as a nonprofit organization in 1976. CABE supports bilingual education, English learner advocacy, and school communities in California. Its priorities bring together biliteracy, cultural understanding, and fairer access to academic opportunity.
Schools may serve English learners, who are students developing English for academic use. They may also serve students who know English and learn another language through a bilingual or dual language program. A dual language program teaches academic content in English and a partner language. Students build skills in both languages.
Access matters because a language program helps students only when the students it serves can enter and stay in it. Research on dual language immersion indicates that program operations, enrollment practices, and staffing capacity can affect fair access for English learners. CABE’s equity focus connects to that access issue.
Bilingual education should connect language opportunity with the students and communities it intends to serve. Students need more than a program label. They need planned instruction, appropriate materials, trained educators, family communication, and methods for reviewing whether the program works. Those conditions help schools keep bilingual learning connected to daily lessons rather than leaving support solely to individual classrooms.
Biliteracy gives schools a clear learning target. A biliterate student can use two languages for reading, writing, learning, and communication. In school, this may include reading content, explaining ideas, participating in discussions, and completing written work in more than one language.
CABE helps keep biliteracy visible as an educational goal. Its vision names biliteracy, multicultural competency, and educational equity, not enrollment alone. That distinction matters because students learning in two languages need instruction that supports language development, content learning, and class participation.
Teachers carry much of this work through daily instruction. They need strategies for vocabulary, academic language, content explanation, scaffolding, student discussion, and checks for understanding. CABE’s professional learning services support educators, administrators, support staff, and future teachers in multilingual and multicultural school communities.
Additionally, teachers need ways to notice progress that may look different across students. A student may understand a concept before having enough English or partner-language vocabulary to explain it fully. Language-development tools can help teachers identify what students can already do, choose supports, and adjust tasks so language growth and content learning move together.
School leaders shape whether bilingual education works beyond one classroom. Districts and school sites make decisions about staffing, schedules, instructional materials, program goals, professional learning, and family engagement. CABE’s professional learning support for administrators can help schools connect those decisions with language access and student learning goals.
Families need clear information when a school uses a bilingual or dual language approach. Parents and caregivers may need translated communication, bilingual staff support, workshops, and practical explanations of how the program works. CABE’s family and community engagement services support home-school partnerships and help families advocate for their children.
Next, CABE works through chapters, members, and partnerships beyond one campus. That network supports a public voice for bilingual students, English learners, families, educators, and administrators. Here, advocacy means keeping those groups visible in discussions about language access, educator preparation, and bilingual programs.
CABE does not replace the daily work of schools. It contributes by helping bilingual education move from separate efforts into shared expectations across classroom practice, leadership decisions, and family communication. When schools maintain that continuity, students have a steadier path for using both languages as part of real academic work.
About Renae Bryant
Renae Bryant serves as director of plurilingual services for the Anaheim Union High School District, where she develops dual language and world language programs supporting thousands of English learners. She previously served as executive director of the office of language acquisition at Westminster School District and holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from the University of La Verne. An adjunct professor at the University of La Verne and California State University, Fullerton, she was named CABE’s 2024 District Administrator of the Year.