Special Situations & Dual Classification

Newcomer ELs

Newcomers are MLs who arrive (from Kindergarten up to high school) with little to no background in the English language. These students may have come from homes, schools, cultures where literacy and academics were strong, or from environments where they were not. Depending on their academic background, aptitude, motivation, support structures, and other factors, each student may develop the English language at a variable rate. Newcomers should receive extra support and additional time with the MLPS for the first two years in the US.

Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE)

SLIFE are MLs who are age-appropriately placed in their grade level but who have a gap of missed instruction in an academically rigorous setting. This could be caused by coming from a country where basic education was not provided, where education was interrupted (sporadically or systematically) in a significant way, or where schooling was missed due to illness or other factors. SLIFE students need special assistance in catching up to the academic standards set for their grade level. These students may also be dually identified as newcomers.

A SLIFE will need additional support as they work to achieve English proficiency and mastery of academic content. Districts must improve their programs to meet the needs of SLIFE. This plan may include ways to:

acclimate the student to the U.S. school system,
address the social and emotional needs of the student, and
provide focused academic skill instruction to bridge knowledge gaps.

Long Term English Learners (LTELs)

LTELs are MLs in the sixth-grade year or higher who have been enrolled in US schools (and therefore an ML program) for six or more years (may include PK) who have not reached beyond the WIDA level 5.0 of proficiency or shown fluency on other standardized testing metrics. Starting at the sixth year of study, these students are identified and may require special assistance and a program of study to help them overcome barriers in attaining academic proficiency.

Section 3121(a)(6) requires that districts report annually on the number and percentage of MLs not meeting English language proficiency within five years. Long-term MLs may face significant barriers to English language acquisition and attaining academic proficiency. Therefore, districts must improve their programs to meet the needs of this group. Although long-term MLs may have higher English proficiency levels, the consultative PSDM may not be the best service type to meet the needs of these students.

Programs, Services and Interventions for Newcomers, SLIFE and LTELs:

Depending on the school level, student need and other factors, students may receive one or more of the following programs to help grow their level of Social and academic language. All ML programs should include interventions that seek to scaffold, differentiate and Target the special needs of each English learner. Many of the interventions are beneficial for the regular go learner as well as the special categories mentioned above.

The US Department of Education does not mandate or prescribe particular curricula, lesson plans, assessments, or other instruments. The US Department of Education, English learner toolkit rather, contains examples, adaptations, and links to resources created and maintained by other public and private organizations. This information is provided for the reader's convenience and is included here as an example of the many resources that Educators, parents, advocates, administrators, and the concerned parties May find helpful and use at their discretion. The US Department of Education does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timelessness, or completeness of this outside information. Further, the inclusion of links to the resources does not reflect their importance, nor is such inclusion intended to endorse any views expressed or materials provided.

Gifted and Talented Programs

LCSD’s GT Program is available to all students identified for placement in accordance with regulations established by the South Carolina State Department of Education, regardless of their race, ethnicity, sex, national origin, or primary language. The District’s Advanced Placement courses are also available to all students regardless of their race, ethnicity, sex, national origin, or primary language. Placement in gifted education, AP courses, or any other magnet program does not disqualify a student from receiving MLP Services, nor does placement in MLP Services exclude a student from participation in any gifted or magnet program.

See the State Assessment page for instructions on Alt-V Scoring of CogAT for MLs.

Multilingual Learners with Disabilities

The IDEA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) address the rights of students with disabilities in schools and other educational settings. If an ML is suspected of having a disability, referral and placement must happen in a timely manner. For more specific information and answers to commonly asked questions, visit the IDEA webpage and/or the United States Department of Education’s (USED) OCR Protecting Students with Disabilities webpage.

Should parents/guardians decline disability-related services under IDEA and Section 504, the SEA and district remain obligated to provide appropriate language assistance services to MLs. Likewise, suppose parents/guardians opt out of specific MLP programs and services but have consented to the provision of disability-related services. In that case, the district remains obligated to provide such services as required in the IEP or Section 504 plan and to conduct ELP monitoring and/or provide language assistance as appropriate.

Students properly identified may receive both MLP and special education services. An MLPS who suspects that a child has other educational needs unrelated to his or her English language proficiency should bring this to the attention of the school's Intervention Assistance Team. Testing for learning or other disabilities must be done in the language most likely to yield accurate results. A Special Education Pre-Referral form should be completed prior to referral to ensure that MLs are not referred inappropriately. Communication with parents regarding referrals for testing, testing results, and placement results must be done in a language that parents can understand. The MLPS should be notified of and included in RTI or Intervention Assistance Team meetings for MLs.

If RTI paperwork is started, it is imperative that the MLPS conducts several weeks of additional progress monitoring to provide a hard day in aiding in the decision-making process. The progress monitoring done by the MLPS should not take the place of interventions done by the classroom teacher.

Sometimes students with IEPs have come to the point in their English language development where their remaining needs should be matched through the Special Service program, not the ML program. This should be documented in a monitoring report in Ellevation with good justification to support the decision.

Reference the Multilingual Learners with Disabilities memorandum, which describes the guidelines for properly identifying potential multilingual learners with disabilities (MLWDs).

For additional information or questions, please contact Sara Garrett, sgarrett@ed.sc.gov, or Lisa McCliment, lmccliment@ed.sc.gov in the OSES.

MLPS & IEP Meetings

MLP Specialists must be invited and included in the IEP meeting/process - that is federal law. MLPS provide core instruction and are the language acquisition experts. MLPS will not write on students' IEPs or attend all meetings. MLPS should be part of the IEP discussion either formally in the meeting or informally prior to the meeting. Either program can not act independently if the student qualifies for special education and MLP services.

Excerpt reprint from the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education

Dear Colleague Letter: English Learner Students and Limited English Proficient Parents

The Departments are aware that some school districts have a formal or informal policy of “no dual services,” i.e., a policy of allowing students to receive either EL services or special education services, but not both. Other districts have a policy of delaying disability evaluations of EL students for special education and related services for a specified period of time based on their EL status. These policies are impermissible under the IDEA and Federal civil rights laws, and the Departments expect SEAs to address these policies in monitoring districts’ compliance with Federal law. Further, even if a parent of an EL student with a disability declines disability-related services under the IDEA or Section 504, that student with a disability remains entitled to all EL rights and services as described in this guidance.

A school district must ensure that assessments and other evaluation materials used to evaluate a child with a disability are “provided and administered in the child’s native language or other mode of communication and in the form most likely to yield accurate information on what the child knows and can do academically, developmentally, and functionally, unless it is clearly not feasible to so provide or administer.” This is true even for those EL students whose parents have opted their children out of EL programs. A student cannot be determined to be a child with a disability if the “determinant factor” is limited English proficiency and if the student does not otherwise meet the definition of a “child with a disability” under the IDEA.

Example 13: A teacher thinks that a Spanish-speaking EL student with beginner-level English has a learning disability. She would like to have the student evaluated for a disability, but believes that the student must complete one year in the EL program or achieve intermediate proficiency in English before being evaluated for a disability or receiving special education and related services. She is incorrect. The principal explains to her that if she believes the student has a disability, the school district must seek parental consent for an initial evaluation and once consent is granted must evaluate the student in a timely manner. After the parents consent, the district arranges for a bilingual psychologist to conduct the evaluation in Spanish, given the EL student’s ELP level and language background.

25203_MLWD Memo May 2021 FINAL.pdf

chap6.pdf

MLs Vs. Disabilities---MLWD_SCDEPrez_2024.pdf

Some Myths Regarding MLs and Special Education

By Else V. Hamayan, Barbara Marler, Cristina Sánchez-López, Jack S. Damico

This article is an excerpt reprinted with permission from Special Education Considerations for Multilingual Learners: Delivering a Continuum of Services (Caslon Publishing). It also appears in the 2nd edition of the book.

Several myths prevail in the area of special education for MLs. These myths guide us in the way we approach education in general, in the way we interpret students' behaviors, and in how we teach and assess students. The following are commonly held misconceptions regarding MLs and special education.

Myth 1

If we label a multilingual learner as having special education needs, at least he will get some help.

Response

A special education placement when none is warranted does not serve the student well. First, we are bestowing on the student a stigmatizing label that the student does not need. Second, interventions that are specifically geared to help processing, linguistic, or cognitive disabilities often do not help children acquire second language proficiency. In fact, traditional reductionist approaches to special education implemented monolingual can limit the kind of learning that multilingual learners need (Goh et al., 2020; Kay-Raining Bird et al., 2016). Special education interventions tend to target a narrow selection of skills to enable mastery, and discrete skills are often practiced out of context (H. L. Damico et al., 2017; van Kraayenoord, 2010; Westby & Vining, 2002; Xu & Drame, 2008). This complicates the learning process for multilingual learners because they need a meaningful context in order to comprehend the language that surrounds them (Genesee, 2012; Sanchez-Lopez & Young, 2018). In addition, special education interventions often use reading materials with controlled phonics and vocabulary and they focus on surface structures of language, which reduces the meaningfulness of the task and constricts language usage, making it more difficult for multilingual learners to understand and retain information (J. S. Damico et al., 2021).

Myth 2

We have to wait five to seven years for multilingual learners to develop their English language skills before we can rule out language as a cause for the student's difficulty.

Response

Although it takes 4 to 7 years for multilingual learners to show what they know on academic achievement tests in English (H. G. Cook et al., 2011; Cummins, 2012), there is no need to withhold any kind of support services that a multilingual learner might need in the meantime. Use of a timeline suggested by research was meant to give teachers a sense of how long it might take students to be able to learn abstract academic concepts with no special supports using a language that was not yet fully developed (B. A. Collins et al., 2014; Goh et al., 2020). Besides, if a student truly has an intrinsic difficulty, then it exists in all the student's languages and in most use contexts. The sooner these exceptionalities are identified and supported, the better opportunity the student has to be successful in school.

Myth 3

When a multilingual learner is identified as having special education needs, instruction should be only in English, so as not to confuse the student.

Response

Children with speech, language, or learning impairment can become bilingual (e.g., Genesee, 2005; Goh et al., 2020; Gonzalez-Barrero & Nadig, 2018; Kay-Raining Bird et al., 2016). There is evidence that children with Down syndrome can be bilingual and that bilingualism does not hinder their language development (Kay-Raining Bird et al., 2005). The majority of people in the world are bilingual, and some of them have special education needs. Disabilities certainly do not arise from being bilingual. They manifest in all or most contexts. The decision to shift to instruction in English exclusively is usually based on lack of knowledge of the research, ignorance of the students' home language, or convenience. Besides, developing students' home language can help students with specific language impairment make better progress in the second language (Cardenas-Hagan et al., 2007; B. A. Collins et al., 2014; Gonzalez-Barrero & Nadig, 2017; Gutierrez-Clellen et al., 2012; K. Kohnert & Godstein, 2005). In addition, for multilingual learners with significant disabilities, it is especially important to maintain the home language because the students' families will continue to be a significant support well after they have entered adult life. It is important that parents and family be able to communicate with and have close ties to their children.

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