The GLAD model began in Fountain Valley 20 years ago.  Marcia Brechtel and her teaching partner, Linnea Haley, were challenged with multilingual classrooms filled with students from many different backgrounds.  The watered down ESL curriculum wasn't providing students with the academic language they needed for success.  The GLAD model was created to fulfill the immediate need to teach students grade level academic content in a comprehensible way.

In 1991 the model was declared exemplary by the California Department of Education and a Project of Academic Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education, OBEMLA (Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs).

As part of being named a Project of Academic Excellence, Marcia and Linnea were required to train teachers across the nation.  As part of our commitment to train and support teachers in the implementation of the GLAD model, we have established our own GLAD department in Santa Ana.  Santa Ana Key Trainers are classroom teachers, resource teachers, and curriculum specialists and have been certified by the Project GLAD National Training Center.