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of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

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    ​​Screening, Identification, and
    ​Pla​​cement of ELs

    The Civil Rights Act of​​ 1964, Title VI, Language Minority Compliance Procedures, requires school districts/charter schools/comprehensive CTC's to identify EL students. LEAs have a responsibility under federal law to serve ELs who need ESL/bilingual instruction as well as academic supports in order to be successful in school.

    LEAs in Pennsylvania ar​​e required to complete the steps outlined in the English Learner Identification Procedure to identify English learners at the time of enrollment. These steps must be completed within 30 calendar days of the start of school for students who enroll prior to the start of the school year or 14 calendar days for students who enroll during the school year.

    Alternate Screener Guidance (PDF)

    Home Language Survey (Word)

    The Home language survey may be downloaded in multiple languages from the General Education section of the Translation Library in the ELD Portal.

    Students who arrive from other countries may present transcripts from their previous school(s). LEAs may need to have these transcripts translated and/or consult with the family in order to review them and award appropriate credits. LEAs should follow the same procedure for awarding credits from countries outside of the U.S. as they do for other states in the U.S. or other school districts within Pennsylvania. The Evaluating Foreign Transcripts document is intended as a reference tool to assist school staff members with evaluating foreign transcripts for students newly enrolling from other countries.​

    Evaluating Foreign Transcripts (PDF)​

    EL Identification Procedure: Interactive Online Tool

    This tool walks enrollment and ESL staff through the K-12 EL Identification Procedure from the home language survey to scheduling. It applies the screener criteria, states which grade level cluster form to administer, tracks the identification timeline, and builds a dated record of every decision, which can be filed in the student's record. It also produces the initial placement parent notification letter. The parent letter can be generated in English and ten other languages from information entered in the form.

    Everything entered stays on the local computer. Nothing is transmitted to PDE or stored on any server.

    Before staff use the tool for a student, someone with full knowledge of the district's language instruction educational program needs to complete a one-time setup. Instructions for that step and for completing an identification are contained in the instructions document below. Please read it carefully before using the tool.

    Web-based identification tool instructions for districts (Word)

    Open the tool