After years and years of lamenting and months and months of waiting, South Carolina has announced new reclassification criteria (informally known as exit criteria) for multilingual learners (MLs) based on their ACCESS for ELLs scores (read the full memo here). We have gone from criteria that required at least a 4.4 overall score AND at least a 4.0 in every language domain (Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing) to now only requiring a minimum of a 4.4 overall score to exit ML direct services in the state of South Carolina. Teachers across South Carolina are elated! More ML students will be reclassified as proficient, and our South Carolina School Report Cards’ ML component should shine for the next couple of years. While there is much to celebrate, there is still a bit about which to be wary. This piece will examine the benefits, issues to watch out for, and where we can go from here as we navigate this new reclassification (exit) criteria and the impact that it will have on South Carolina schools. 

Benefits

It is now easier to exit ML direct services with this ACCESS test exit criteria.

For years, ML teachers have struggled with students not exiting direct ML services due to scores such as a 3.9 in speaking or writing when they had near perfect scores everywhere else. These types of students often excel in the classroom but cannot seem to exit ML services based on their ACCESS scores. This new criteria will help prevent experienced MLs from continuing to stay in the program long after it is necessary for their academic success and will reward the efforts of districts’ ML programs. Other states are also adapting their reclassification criteria and you can read about these trends here.

This can be an equity issue. We do not want students served in a federal program that other means of data show that the students may not need. This is the whole reason that the five year exit goal exists for the South Carolina State Report Card. Students should not be receiving direct ML services forever. Our classrooms should be language-rich across the board and support ML students in their overall language growth and academic success. However, as much as state and district officials tell teachers to not teach to the test, teachers were kind of forced into that mentality because we were dealing with students not exiting for years when many of these same students were high academic achievers in places like Gifted and Talented and AP courses. Some would argue that those students must still need services if they hadn’t scored high enough on the ACCESS test, but many teachers also realized that the ACCESS test requires a unique set of skills that, due to the limitations of the assessment, did not always present the full picture of a student’s language or academic capabilities.

With the new exit criteria, we will be able to exit students more often in a timely manner. If students continue to not meet proficiency criteria past the five year goal for the state report card, that gives us an indication that maybe our Tier 1 instruction is lacking, maybe there is a need for intervention or special education services, or maybe the students really are not trying on that assessment properly and do not understand the importance of the assessment. (For more information on supporting experienced MLs, you can read this interview with Tan Huynh and Beth Skelton) Either way, the issue of students meeting or exceeding expectations in the classroom but still receiving direct ML services from a ML teacher should decline. This is a relief and something I know many students and teachers are celebrating!

Issues to Watch Out For

It is now easier to exit ML direct services with this ACCESS test exit criteria.

Wait a second! Wasn’t that the benefit of this new criteria? Yes, something can mean two things at once. Many SC educators will stop at the benefits without realizing the negative impact that this new exit criteria may have on our ML students. If a student meets the 4.4 qualifying overall score, they are in the Expanding range. Meaning, those students have more than intermediate language capabilities, but they still are not as advanced as a 5.0- or 6.0-achieving student (take a look at WIDA’s Can-Do Descriptors). This leads to the potential of students exiting too early. 

Just like on the other side of the argument, this is also an equity issue if a student exits too soon. We want students to be served by federal programs if the student needs services to ensure they receive an equitable education. With this new exit criteria, a student could squeak by with some general intermediate (3.0 range) and some advanced (4.0 range) scores and exit. Surprisingly, a student also could score in the 2.0 range in one domain and the 5.0 range in the rest and still be labeled as proficient. We know that if a student’s overall scores and individual domains consist of some 3.0s and some 4.0s, or even contains a 2.0, when we look holistically, that student might benefit from continued services. These kinds of domain scores means that the student may need support in their content area classes but may be disqualified from those services when ML teachers are limited to indirect monitoring. Historically, this kind of domain score range is where many of our experienced MLs continued to place, and there were times in their classes starting in the upper elementary level that experienced ML students required additional language support to fully perform at grade-level standards. This new criteria’s intention is to prevent students who have 5.0s or 6.0s across the board and one 3.9 language domain from not exiting, but the new criteria means students who could continue to benefit from services may exit those ML direct services.

Moreover, we need to be thinking about the long-term impact of students exiting early. Reclassification means that they are now proficient and labeled as monitored students for four years, but they receive limited support from ML programs due to their proficiency. Additionally, many educators and officials in our field look at the exit status and to them, that means the student no longer needs language support. But many of these students could still benefit from best language practices. This opens up issues where ML students may be inappropriately redirected to RTI or MTSS intervention services or even may be referred for special education testing when, in reality, they are still developing academic English proficiency (Reminder: ML program services are Tier 1 or general education instruction regardless of their proficiency level. RTI and MTSS are supports that MLs can and should benefit from, but it is not a replacement for language instruction). This could end up creating a situation we continue to advocate so hard against: overidentification for Tier 3 intervention and/or special education services for our MLs. 

However, I must recognize that the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) does allow for the potential of a student to be rescreened for direct services while they are a monitored student if the school can prove that the student is struggling due to their language proficiency after giving them time and quality instruction as a monitored student. In the currently used Title III Multilingual Learner and Immigrant Student Program Guiding Principles from 2023-2024, there is more description of this process and what it entails here (pp. 44-45). In regards to this, I do caution districts. This guideline is to be used in rare case scenarios as the student did meet the reclassification criteria and is considered proficient in English. If overused, rescreening and potentially reclassifying a student as one who again receives direct services may signal issues with the level of language-rich Tier 1 instruction within content area classrooms or that there may ultimately be an issue with the state’s reclassification criteria. 

Finally, another piece to consider is the allocation of money and resources for our Title III and district ML program services. Our Title III programs receive federal funding based on the number of ML students served. This supplementary funding covers items such as curriculum, professional development, and ML family engagement. We may see an impact on this type of funding due to students being exited after the school year has already begun as well as due to students moving more quickly through the program. It will be interesting to see how well our programs are funded for this school year and in the future. Also, the decreased number of direct service MLs could impact how many ML teachers are added in each district in the years to come. School Boards may be less likely to add additional ML teacher positions in the general budget if there are not as many students receiving direct services even though monitored students count on our caseload (and we may need to interact more with monitored students than ever before). While the South Carolina ML population continues to grow, we encourage districts to consider supplementing some level of any loss of federal funds to ensure robust professional development for their ML programs and to also ensure appropriate staffing to meet caseload demands. The impacts will be seen soon, but it is something that even ML teachers should pay attention to in their districts.

Where do we go from here?

• We can still celebrate! This is still a big deal and a win for the state of South Carolina. We previously had one of the toughest reclassification criteria and this will help move students through the program more equitably. If you go to the WIDA website and click on the dropdown menu for the Member/State Pages, you can take a look at other states’ Identification and Placement Guidance.

• We need to continue to look at students holistically. The ACCESS test is only one data point. We need to still look at a student’s individual domain scores to assist in further language services or to provide a larger picture to administrators and teachers if that student exits. Just as we used to use the full ACCESS score report to show the limitations of the test for a student that was academically on grade-level, we need to do the same thing for a now-exited student showing they will still need language support through Tier 1 instruction in the classroom as needed. 

• ML teachers will need to put on our advocacy and teacher leadership hats. We could end up with more students being monitored that maybe should still be receiving direct services. This means we need to continue to support our teachers in creating language-rich classrooms across South Carolina from Kindergarten-12th grade. We will need to be interacting more with our teachers of monitored students and paying close attention to ways we can support those teachers even though that student may not be receiving direct services from ML teachers. We will also need to continue to attend IEP or intervention meetings for our monitored ML students so that we can provide language background and expertise and therefore share the full picture of that student.

• We need to make sure that we are effectively monitoring our students. SCDE’s Title III Multilingual Learner and Immigrant Student Program Guiding Principles describes what is required while monitoring (2023-2024 Guiding Principles, pp. 44-45). However, besides a level of paperwork needed to keep on file, there is not much other guidance into day-to-day practices. We suggest more universal guidance as well as professional development on what effective monitoring looks like beyond paperwork to ensure proficient students are monitored appropriately regardless of a teacher’s direct service caseload.

• We can advocate to add a non-ELP assessment component to the new reclassification (exit) criteria. From the test developer: "WIDA recommends using ACCESS for ELLs scores as one of multiple pieces of information that inform high-stakes reclassification or exit decisions. Schoolwork, in-class assessments, and educator insights are all valuable evidence that can help you understand a student’s English language proficiency and development" (Interpretive Guide for Score Reports, p.8). Adding another component to the 4.4 overall ACCESS score could look like an academic criteria such as a standardized testing score or an official formative assessment like MAP or STAR testing, etc. This would prevent students exiting prematurely while also exiting those students who can demonstrate both English language proficiency and grade-level academic success. That’s just one idea I have heard-what are yours?

The SCMLE Network is here to help in this time of transition. We are here to support you and provide professional development that SC educators need to support MLs. If you have any questions or ideas for programming, you can email Laura McAulay at laura@scmle.org. For more information about what we do at SCMLE, feel free to email info@scmle.org.