Task 3
A.1. Justification of Need for EL Program
The example scenario outlines West Oak High School as an institution that needs to
implement an EL program to support its English-learning students. The demographic breakdown
of the school outlines that 25% of students are Spanish speaking, 15% of students speak
Portuguese, 12% of students speak Arabic, and 8% of students speak Mandarin, which totals a
summation of 60% of the school's population as speaking a language other than English and
needing the support of a proper EL program. The presence of English learners in a school
justifies the need for a proper EL program. However, mainly when most of the school's
population is classified as English Learners, the school must provide the appropriate support and
intervention instruction to ensure the success of these students. According to the Supreme Court
case Lau v. Nichols ruling, "school districts must take steps to provide EL with an instructional
program in which they can be given equal access to an education" (Zacarian, 2012). For West
Oak High School to comply with the law and the constitutional rights of their students, they must
provide an instructional program that ensures that 60% of their student population classified as
EL have access to an equitable and appropriate education. The school district and campus are
responsible for identifying, supporting, and providing intervention instruction for ELs.
A.2. Description of the EL Program
, An EL program begins with establishing the process and requirements for identifying
students that classify for EL educational services, which can be accomplished during enrollment
by surveying families for their home language. The Department of Education supports this
process as a reliable means of obtaining the relevant information for identifying Els as they
report, "Most school districts use a home language survey at the time of enrollment to… identify
students whose primary or home language is other than English” (DoE, 2018). While this is