The big picture
The district’s emergent bilingual student population has more than doubled since the 2018-19 school year, according to district data presented at an Oct. 26 board of trustees meeting.
As of October, the district had 5,705 emergent bilingual students, making up 14% of the district’s total enrollment when factoring in an additional 357 students the district is monitoring after exiting the program. The emergent bilingual population grew by over 800 students from the 2022-23 school year to this school year.
Of the over 65 languages represented in the district, the following are the top seven languages spoken by 20 or more students, Senior Coordinator of ESL Janie Kelly said.
- Spanish
- Korean
- Telugu
- Russian
- Tamil
- Arabic
- Hindi
Emergent bilingual students receive either English as a second language instruction with linguistic support most commonly in English and language arts or dual language enrichment in both English and Spanish, Kelly said.
ESL is offered to qualifying students from early childhood to 12th grade across all campuses while dual language enrichment is offered from early childhood to eighth grade at certain elementary and middle school campuses, Kelly said. For the 2024-25 school year, the district may begin offering dual language enrichment at Running Brushing Middle School.
The district also provides ESL courses for adults in the community through a partnership with Community Action of Central Texas and its Parents as Teachers programs for parents of children age 5 and under, she said.
