Ohio English Language Proficiency Assessments
Ohio English Language Proficiency Assessments
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Overview of OELPA and Alt-OELPA
Taken Ohio Department of Education and Workforce OELPA webpage, 2024Overview of OELPA and Alt-OELPA
The Ohio English Language Proficiency Assessment (OELPA) is the state summative test that assesses an English learner’s progress to English proficiency and readiness to exit from the English language development program. Traditional public-school districts, community schools and participating chartered nonpublic schools administer the OELPA annually to students identified as English learners in grades kindergarten through high school. The OELPA is aligned to Ohio’s English Language Proficiency Standards and meets the state and federal requirements for an annual assessment of English proficiency measuring listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Ohio districts and schools may administer the Alternate Ohio English Language Proficiency Assessment (Alt-OELPA) to eligible English learners with the most significant cognitive disabilities in kindergarten through high school and whose IEP team has decided the alternate assessment is appropriate. Please visit the Alt-OELPA webpage for information, including Alt-OELPA Participation Guidelines.
Federal and state laws require all English learners to be administered the OELPA or Alt-OELPA annually, and these summative tests are required in addition to Ohio’s State Tests in English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies.
Purpose
Purpose
While the purpose of OELPA and Alt-OELPA is to meet Federal and State laws, score information may be used to determine course placement, appropriate support(s) to be provided, accommodations available for Ohio State Tests, progress of an EL student's proficiency, and when the student is ready to exit the EL program.
Understanding EL Proficiency ScoresAccommodations and Exemptions
Accommodations and Exemptions
All EL students, Kindergarten through 12th grade and including grades 13 and 23, must take either OELPA or Alternate-OELPA, even if a parent/guardian declines EL services.
Students who have an IEP may be exempt from up to three out of the four domains on either assessment. The decision to exempt a student from a domain should be made by the IEP team, which should ideally include an EL teacher. The exemption(s) must be written in the EL student's IEP and EL plan, then correctly marked in TIDE (testing system) by the Building Testing Coordinator (BTC) before testing.
Review the accessibility and accommodations manuals on the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce's for all Ohio State Tests and End of Course Exams on the Accessibility for Ohio's State Tests page.
Accessibility Manual for OELPS and OELPA 2023-2024
Criteria for exiting the EL program
Criteria for exiting the EL program
In order to exit the EL program, students need to demonstrate the ability to understand, speak, read, and write the English language at a level in which they are able to achieve successfully in classrooms where the language of instruction is English, meaningfully participate in academic assessments in English, and participate fully in society in the United States.
A student is reclassified (exited) when the student has attained an Overall Performance Level (OPL) of 3, Proficient, on the OELPA or Alt-OELPA. The Proficient OPL is defined as Test Performance Level (TPL) scores of fours and fives across all four non-exempted domains on OELPA, or threes and fours across all four non-exempted domains on Alt-OELPA.
Monitoring
Monitoring
Federal obligations require districts to monitor exited students for two years for academic success. Ohio recommends four years of monitoring and will count exited EL students as EL for four years on the state report card.
Fairfield's most recent OELPA and Alt-OELPA results
Fairfield's most recent OELPA and Alt-OELPA results
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