English Learners

The regular classroom teacher provides instructional strategies and differentiation to meet the language and literacy needs of the student.  Instructional specialists/EL leads and/or instructional paraprofessionals provide linguistic and academic support to LEP students in the general education classroom by using an inclusion model.  Students may leave the mainstream classroom or receive English language development instruction during intervention periods for up to an hour per day.  Such pullout sessions provide intensive language acquisition instruction and are delivered in a setting with a low student/teacher ratio by an instructional specialist, EL lead, or classroom teacher.

(Newcomer or sheltered with core teachers.)

Instruction provided in English is adapted to the English proficiency level of the students in a sheltered environment (only EL students) for the initial stages of English language development.  The curriculum-based content is presented in a modified form to increase the learning rate of the English language including grammar along with social and academic vocabulary.  Students attend an Academic Language Acquisition (ALA) class.  

The ALA class provides intensive language acquisition instruction delivered in a classroom setting with a low student/teacher ratio. 

Students scoring approximately 1.0 to 2.3 are placed in a newcomer classroom.  The newcomer class is a self contained classroom in which students spend four or five hours of the day receiving intensive language instruction from an ESL certified teacher.  Core content and vocabulary are used as a part of the language development instruction.

At the elementary level, students are placed in the regular classroom with the support provided as described above. Each school has an instructional specialist/EL lead who monitors the placement and progress of the EL students in the building. That person, in conjunction with the classroom teachers, administrators, instructional coaches (where applicable) and other instructional specialists, coordinates the instructional process so that the appropriate literacy and language support is provided to the students. 

A balanced literacy approach that differentiates instruction for all students is applied in the case of ELL students as well. 

Students scoring from 3.5 to 4.9 are placed in mainstream core classes with a period of English language development (ALA class).  The ALA class, taught by an ESL certified teacher, is designed to provide language learning support in the four domains with the inclusion of core content and vocabulary. 

Students remain in an ALA class until they have demonstrated fluency on the ACCESS test.  There are a few exceptions made for students that are receiving additional literacy support by another course due to special circumstances like an IEP.

Communication from both elementary and secondary schools is provided in the student’s home language whenever possible to ensure that families have appropriate notice regarding school activities such as parent teacher conferences, extracurricular activities and other special events.  Additionally, progress reports, report cards and other vital school information are communicated in the child’s home language when available.

Parent outreach efforts include the utilization of technology to deliver timely, accessible information to parents in order to keep them informed and involved in the education of their child. The District advisory committee includes parents and students.  Translation services are provided to parents of EL students in order for families to fully understand the goals of the overall educational program and to help facilitate parent-teacher interaction. Furthermore, at certain community schools, social, medical and mental services are provided at no cost to district families in an attempt to remove barriers to academic success.  Finally, free adult ESL and GED classes are offered to all district families to provide them an opportunity to develop English fluency.

Students scoring approximately 2.4-3.4 are placed in a sheltered core class setting.  The class contains only LEP students of that language proficiency range so that the instruction can be adapted to the learning needs of the students in order to accelerate their language development and provide understandable delivery of core content.  Though the instructional delivery is adapted to meet the needs of EL students, the curriculum of the sheltered core class is the same as regular classes (for native English speakers). 

In addition to the four sheltered core classes, students receive a period of English language development instruction, delivered by an ESL certified teacher.  This class is called Academic Language Acquisition (ALA).  The ALA class is designed to provide language learning support in the four domains with the inclusion of core content and vocabulary.   For students at this proficiency level (2.4-3.4), the ALA class consists of students within the same range of proficiency, so that the instruction can be designed to maximize learning growth toward mainstream coursework.

Students who have demonstrated fluency on the ACCESS test are monitored as they attend mainstream classes.  In cases where students are not succeeding, they may be placed in an ALA class or another class to provide additional support.