Multilingual Learner Services

Minooka SD 201’s ELL Department works collaboratively with District staff, families, and community members to:

Plan, assess and support our community of learners using effective pedagogy on second language acquisition.
Respect and embrace our cultural and linguistic diversity at Minooka SD 201.

Collect student, staff and family voices to help our students grow academically and socially.
Attain English proficiency

Supply Lists

Resources

How Do Students Qualify for ML Support?

Students are identified based on how the parents or guardians filled out the Home Language Survey (HLS)upon registering their child into a public school in Illinois. The state requires that we include it in our online registration to help identify any children who may need additional linguistic support.

There are two questions to the HLS (Does your child speak another language at home other than English? and Does your child listen to another language at home other than English?"). Once a parent or guardian indicates "Yes" to any of these questions, the district then has 30 calendar days to screen the child.

Depending on their grade level, we can use a paper screener or an online screener. All of the screeners assess the four linguistic domains which are: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Based on the ISBE screener score cutoff requirements, students may or may not qualify.

One of our Multilingual teachers will communicate with the family of the student, the scores, and the program offers.

Per ISBE guidelines, parents have a right to refuse services at any given time in writing. Regardless if parents refuse services, students must take the state-mandated ACCESS test yearly.

Program Models at Minooka CCSD 201

At Minooka CCSD 201 we currently only offer push-in or pull-out collaborative ML services. All of our teachers as English as Second Language Certified and are bilingual. Illinois state law requires school districts to provide Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) and/or Transitional Program of Instruction (TPI) services for all students who are identified as having limited English proficiency. A building is considered to be TBE when we have 20 or more students whose home language is the same (This also counts parent refusals).

The TBE services are for non-native English-speaking students who are mastering written or spoken English. The program provides instruction in the student’s native language with the transition into English.

TPI services are for non-native English-speaking students who are mastering written or spoken English. The program provides support to help students succeed in academic subjects and learn English.

ACCESS Testing and Monitoring

In order to exit the program, ISBE requires a 4.8 or above on the yearly state-mandated ACCESS test. The ACCESS testing window usually opens up in January and closes at the end of February. After exiting, students are monitored for two school years in order to make sure that no further linguistic support. Scores are reported to the families at the start of the following school year.