On any given day, seventh grade teacher Mary Vang can be found inside her classroom at Fresno's El Capitan Middle School, walking her students through real-world situations, helping them get a better grasp on the English language.
For example, she recently walked 11 of her students through how to respond to different types of questions. She raised a scenario to the class, and played an audio clip with the question: “You want to know if your friend has finished working on their science project. What would you say to your friend?”
“You can say, ‘Have you finished your science project yet? Did you finish your science project yet?’ Or you can say, ‘How's your science project going?’” Vang said to the class. “If you say any of those, you will meet the passing score.”
The question and its answer might seem simple, when taken at face value. But for these students, that kind of walkthrough of logic and explanation is making a big difference in their learning.
This group of seventh graders are youth who recently arrived in the United States and are learning English as a second language. Those students are known as English learners, and they speak Spanish, Arabic, Hindi/Punjabi and Vietnamese. Across the district, English learners account for nearly a fifth of its student population and speak more than 35 languages at home.
Vang’s class is part of an afterschool program specifically targeting English learners. Dubbed “EL Bootcamps” by school leaders, the sessions have been critical in boosting student achievement on the English Language Proficiency Assessment for California (ELPAC).
This year, the district saw significant gains in progress among their English learners, marking the highest advancement across all schools in five years.
“With these camps, we're able to build on the strengths they have in their primary language,” said Heather Martinez, vice principal of El Capitan. “I think that a lot of these kids feel that being bilingual is not a strength, and one of our goals is to help them realize how much of a strength it actually is.”
‘I feel more confident’
Central Unified schools have been steadily boosting up their testing scores over the last few years, particularly in their English learners. In 2024, Harvest Elementary saw a 20% leap in progress in their ELPAC scores.
While the progress is the result of various strategies implemented by the district – the bootcamp has been one that has wielded the most immediate results.
“What we’ve seen is that it increases their ability to speak in their regular classes, in front of their peers and small groups,” Martinez said. “That practice of speaking in front of others helps them speak more freely and confidently, as well as understand they do have the skillsets they need to succeed.”
The bootcamp started in 2020, when the ELPAC exam was administered online due to the pandemic. Most educators in California agree the exam is challenging for young students because it tests various aspects of the English language to assess fluency.
The strategy was created because school leaders theorized it would help students transition from paper testing to taking exams online, Martinez said.
“We don't want the actual testing platform and the format of the test to be a barrier,” Martinez said. “That was one barrier we could remove, so [now] students can focus on the structure and what is expected of them.”
It also served as a way for students to better prepare for the exam and specifically study topics they were going to be tested on, similar to how students prepare for the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT).
Each bootcamp session is specifically designed around one language domain: listening, speaking, reading or writing. The lessons are created by using previous state released test questions in an effort to get students acclimated to the structure of the ELPAC exam. And students receive the extra attention from their regular teachers, so they can be more comfortable going deeper into the lessons.
With four sessions throughout the year, split in the fall and spring, students get the chance to hyper-focus on language skills to boost their confidence and test-taking abilities in preparation for the ELPAC. Students can take the knowledge and apply it to future exams, such as the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC).
Alongside these bootcamps, the district is also increasing parent outreach through informational EL nights, Advancing Together workshops, ELPAC prep academies, and coffee with the principal to ensure collaboration from inside and outside the classroom.
Eleven-year-old Mannan Chopra’s parents migrated to the U.S. from India when he was 5 years old. Since then, he’s been learning English at El Capitan and is taking advantage of the bootcamp. His favorite part of the class is learning about narrative writing because he “like[s] the short stories, because they’re nice to read.”
“I feel more confident about it,” Chopra said about the ELPAC exam. “I’m a little nervous, but not that much.”
Various schools are working to build “ELPAC Days” into their regular calendar to ensure students have enough time to learn and practice their language skills.
Experimental strategies leading to success
Since the pandemic, administrators have been working toward improving scores for their English learners. But the measurement used by most districts, results from the ELPAC exam, didn’t show the full picture, administrators said.
Progress for English learners is tracked statewide using the English Language Acquisition Progress Indicator (ELPI). Educators aim to have students raise up one ELPI level, out of four, to successfully become bilingual in English and their home language. Districts and their schools are ranked by ELPI levels, showing the status of their performance and the rate of change in their scores.
This year, almost all Central Unified schools saw leaps in how many students surpassed an ELPI level. Roughly 20% of students who were tested on English fluency were reclassified, a higher rate than other similarly sized districts in the area – such as Clovis Unified and King Canyon Joint Unified.
Only two high schools, Central and Central East, are still in the “very low” category – but administrators are confident there will be gains in the upcoming years.
Cindy Escandon, the district director of curriculum and instruction, said the “ELPAC scores weren’t enough” to gauge how their students were performing – so the district started to consider additional skill assessments.
“We started looking at our i-Ready, reading levels, the gaps in writing…that gave us a much clearer focus on how to move forward,” Escadon said.
This allowed the district to get down to the “nitty gritty” to help students on an individual level to see what is needed to help them in the classroom. And now, there has been a tonal shift to how the district is approaching EL education, and integrating strategies throughout all district curriculums.
“ELD skills and integrated EL strategy is going to come in as a normal part of a daily routine, because they're good practices for all students and have a high impact on our EL students,” assistant superintendent Julia McLennan said.
Community schools are also now a major way the district is reaching students' needs. Family and community liaisons have also been a major help in reaching families who may need support amid immigration crackdowns and the fear surrounding them, McLennan said.
“We’re not done,” Escandon said. “What we’re doing is self-evaluating constantly, building self-efficacy to make sure our students are empowered.”