ESL Program Placement, EL Student Plan, Assessment, Exit Criteria

PLACEMENT of EL students: Madison County Schools ensures that ELs should be placed age-appropriately in the mainstream classroom. This provides them with access to challenging, grade-level content instruction and the opportunity to interact with their English speaking peers. It is important that ELs be placed in the least restrictive educational environment. At the high school level, credits should be awarded based on transcripts provided by the students/parents, even if the coursework was taken in another country. If transcripts are in a language other than English, translations should be sought so that credits can be awarded.

Individualized English Language Plan (I-ELP) 
Each student designated as Limited English Proficient (LEP) will have an Individualized English Language Plan (I-ELP) that lists language goals and accommodations for instruction and assessment. The I-ELP will be updated annually until the student achieves Former Limited English Proficient (FLEP) status.

ASSESSMENT of EL students: Madison County Schools assesses all English Learners annually with ACCESS for ELLs 2.0® English language proficiency test.

EXIT REQUIREMENTS 
All ELs in Grades K-12 participate in the annual ELP assessment (ACCESS for ELLs 2.0). Students who reach an overall composite of 4.8 in the reading, writing, listening, and speaking domains on the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 annual assessment exit from services and become former ELs for four years.  

MONITORING EXITED STUDENTS  
Students who make the required score to exit from ESL services are placed on monitoring status for four academic years. EL stakeholders and teachers communicate at least once each nine weeks during the first year and at least once each semester during consecutive years to ensure that the exited student is functioning successfully in the mainstream classroom. Students are classified as Former English Learners Monitoring Years 1-4 (FEL-1-4) during this monitoring period. Upon successful completion of four years of monitoring, ELs are classified Former English Learner (FEL) and are no longer included in the LEP subgroup for accountability purposes.

During monitoring, students who perform poorly in their academic courses and standardized tests may be considered for re-entry into the EL program and receive EL services. If the EL committee believes the student is struggling due to language issues, the student can be re-screened using the Screener/W-APT. If the student is not proficient, s/he will re-enter the ESL program. Any students who have re-entered the program will be classified as “LEP2” and will go through the exiting procedures described above.