The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is exceeding most of California’s goals for students learning English as a second language but according to state standards, some students are not advancing quickly enough.
Terry Deloria, assistant superintendent of educational services, briefed the Board of Education on the status of the district’s English language learners at last Thursday’s meeting.
There were fewer than 1,000 English learners in the district this school year, down from nearly 1,900 in 1997. Nearly 9 percent of students fall into the category, down from 17 percent in 1997. The percentage has held steady for the past few years.
Most of these students are born in the United States, followed by Mexico, then Russia, Spain and Egypt.
Deloria tracks how many years each English learner has been enrolled in a U.S. school. Last year, 168 students that enrolled in the district were brand new to the United States.
Every year, English learners are given state-mandated tests to track their progress. The state wants to see at least half the students growing one level each year. About 75 percent are advancing at that pace in the district.
In another category, which measures how English learners perform in the statewide end-of-year English and math tests, the district consistently hit state goals until recently. For the past four years they’ve missed the mark on the English portions of the tests. “Most districts” are struggling in this category, Deloria said.
There is a relatively new category that essentially measures how many students are stuck. These are students who have been enrolled in a U.S. school for more than six years and are scoring “proficient” or lower on their English language tests for two or more years in a row. About 15 percent of the district’s English learners are stuck.
The district is aiming to drop that to 12 percent by the 2016-17 school year.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Santa Monica Daily Press.