State Required Reclassification Criteria for Pennsylvania’s English Language Instructional Programs for English Learners
Every LEA must include the state-required English learner (EL) reclassification criteria in the LEA’s program for ELs. The reclassification criteria represents valid and reliable evidence of a student’s English language proficiency and ability to access academic standards without specialized language supports. These required criteria ensure consistent measures across LEAs for reclassifying students from active EL status to former EL.
LEAs must assure implementation of the reclassification criteria within the Federal Programs’ Monitoring/Consolidated Program Review and the LEP System Review.
Reclassification of current ELs to former ELs takes place annually between June and September. Students reported as current ELs in the PIMS October District and School Enrollment Collection cannot be reclassified during the period from October, 2018 until June, 2019.
Under new federal rules, measures of academic achievement may no longer be used for EL reclassification decisions. As a result, the PSSA and/or Keystone assessment achievement criteria that were previously included in reclassification criteria have been removed. The criteria outlined in this document will be used for students who will be reclassified in September, 2018. This is the new reclassification criteria to be used from now on.
An EL must demonstrate the ability to access challenging academic content and interact with other students and teachers both academically and socially in an English language setting in order to be considered for reclassification. Evidence of this ability is demonstrated by the student on the annual English language proficiency assessment, ACCESS for ELLs®, and gathered by teachers using standardized language use inventories.
Using the following system, the ACCESS for ELs® and the language use inventory together produce a single score. If that score exceeds the state-defined threshold;m 10.6, then the student is eligible to be reclassified.
Two language use inventories must be completed. An ESL teacher must complete one of the inventories. The other inventory may be completed by a single content teacher or a team of content teachers. IIf only one teacher can accurately complete the inventory (e.g. elementary classes in which the classroom teacher is ESL certified and provides both content and language instruction and there is no other teacher or administrator who can accurately complete the inventory), one inventory may be completed and the single score is multiplied by two. The two inventories do not need to agree.
The language use inventories must be completed prior to the release of ACCESS scores each year for students who, based on teacher input and previous ACCESS scores, are likely to reach the threshold of 4.5 composite score. Once ACCESS scores are released, the points are added to the points from the rubrics to determine if students are eligible to be reclassified.
Each language use inventory produces a single score and the sum of the two inventory scores is added to the ACCESS for ELLs® points assigned to determine if the student meets the minimum threshold for reclassification.
Below are the reclassification criteria and language inventories. Each teacher must complete rubric 1 and 2.
