FISD serves emergent bilingual students in prekindergarten through 12th grade, said Paige Brewer, director of special programs, in a presentation about English as a Second Language programs given during a Nov. 17 board meeting. Emergent bilingual, or EB, refers to students who are acquiring the English language during school.
At a glance
Currently, 7,957 students in FISD are classified as EB. This accounts for 13% of the student population, according to the meeting presentation.
Students in need of language support are identified with an initial language test and will receive content-based language instruction if they qualify, said Lisa Morales, a district ESL coordinator. ESL is not a life-long program, Morales said, and students are phased out of the program if they meet requirements under the STAAR exam and TELPAS, or Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System, exam.
If students don't pass those metrics, then they continue with extra language support, she said.
There are 77 languages served across the district, with the top 10 being:
- Telugu
- Spanish
- Tamil
- Hindi
- Mandarin
- Urdu
- Korean
- Arabic
- Japanese
- Portuguese
“Our languages are growing and continue to change and evolve,” she said.
One more thing
About 850 FISD students who were new to Texas this year were tested for English proficiency, and about 800 of those were pre-K students, Brewer said.
Pre-K, kindergarten and first-grade students make up about 40% of the EB population, Morales said.
