As regular readers know, this year our school has been doing a pilot Long-Term English Language Learner support class incorporating a number of strategies to support our students.

Students received many “pre-assessments” in September, as did a control group of LTELLs.

This coming week, we do the “post-assessments” (last week, both groups completed the ELPAC, the English test all ELLs in our state have to take annually).

We’ve worked closed with our District staff to design the assessment protocols.

With luck, we’ll have a preliminary analysis of the results by the end of May.

I’ll then write a short post here sharing some of the things we learn, followed by a lengthy analysis a few months later in an article for ASCD’s Educational Leadership (which will not be behind a paywall).

There’s no doubt in our students’ and teachers’ minds that it has been an extremely positive learning experience, and we have tons of qualitative data that shows this kind of positive result.

Now, we’ll just have to see what the quantitative data says….

I’m hopeful.

All I can say is that if what we’ve been doing doesn’t work, I don’t know what will. And, based on the level of national interest in our pilot program, I suspect I won’t be the only one feeling that way….