T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Three of the graduating Marshalltown High School (MHS) seniors who earned the Seal of Biliteracy this year — Lexi Ladehoff, left, Daisy Play, second from right, and Gigs Tshaba, right — came before the Marshalltown Community School District (MCSD) Board of Education on Monday night to share their experiences with the program. Also pictured is MCSD ELL and Migrant Coordinator Rachel Inks, second from left.

Just over 24 hours after they celebrated their graduation from Marshalltown High School (MHS) inside the Roundhouse on Sunday afternoon, three outgoing seniors joined Marshalltown Community School District (MCSD) ELL and Migrant Coordinator Rachel Inks to share their experiences earning the Seal of Biliteracy, which certifies that a student has “achieved proficiency on a state English assessment and establish proficiency in another world language assessment.”

The Class of 2025 broke an MHS record with a total of 78 students earning the seal this year, a dramatic increase from the 12 who earned the distinction back when the program launched in 2019.

“I think our 12 would be very impressed that we’re up to 78 students,” Inks said.

Lexi Ladehoff was the first of the students to present to the board, and like the vast majority of those who have earned the Seal of Biliteracy at MHS, her two languages are English and Spanish. She attended Woodbury Elementary School and took pride in learning a skill that “not many others have.”

“I’ll be able to use this skill wherever I decide to go to college or career wise,” she said.

Ladehoff plans to start her postsecondary education at Marshalltown Community College (MCC) before transferring to the University of Iowa and studying stenography.

“This is an excellent path to continue to use my Spanish speaking ability because I’m making it easier for those who either aren’t native to the U.S. or aren’t fluent in English to get the health and medical care that they deserve,” she said.

She credited MHS Spanish teacher Charlotte Santana’s classes with helping her to where she is today along with her education at Woodbury, which features bilingual instruction.

“It all just kind of came naturally, I guess,” she said.

Inks gave a shout out to Ladehoff’s mother Kim for being “instrumental” in the early years of the grant that drove the dual language program and planting “a seed of hope.” The next presenter, Daisy Play, became fluent in English and Karen and lamented that so many children who come to the U.S. from Myanmar/Burma lose touch with their culture.

“Kids now, especially Karen kids, not to be rude, (but) they’re kind of whitewashed. So they don’t even know their own language — how to speak, how to read, or even write,” she said. “So learning really means a lot to me.”

Play started learning the Karen language at her church and then took the lessons home to teach herself until she gradually got good at it, in her words. She plans to attend Buena Vista University on a pre-med track with hopes of becoming a dermatologist.

She believes her biliteracy will be helpful in assisting older immigrants and refugees from southeast Asia who struggle with English. As she wrapped up, Inks told the board that the non-Spanish languages among this year’s biliteracy earners included Karen, French, Arabic and Polish. Members of upcoming classes, she added, will add Hakha Chin, Indonesian and Burmese to the list.

The final presenter, Gigs Tshaba, originally hails from the Republic of the Congo and earned the seal of biliteracy in English and French. When she first came to the U.S., she didn’t know any English, and she said earning the seal felt like a capstone on all of her hard work.

She plans to attend the University of Northern Iowa to study psychology and looks forward to using her skills to communicate with French and English speaking patients. After a round of applause from the audience, Superintendent Theron Schutte asked about how many French speaking students currently attend the high school.

Tshaba said she only knew of two or three, and Schutte recalled that the district once had a French teacher on staff.

“Unfortunately, those teachers have been very, very hard to find because when she left, I think to go to Des Moines, for two years, we could not hire a replacement teacher. But that was a fairly popular course prior to that,” he said.

Inks noted that Des Moines East, a larger school, also had 78 students graduate with the Seal of Biliteracy in 2025.

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.