At Monday evening’s regular meeting of Amarillo Independent School District Board of Trustees, board members heard reports on the growing number of English as a Second Language (ESL) students and how they are working with the situation.
Coordinator Sylvia Hughes told the board Dec. 8 that 24% of students in Texas are ESL, and in Amarillo, the number is 19%. Spanish is the primary language for most of those students, with the second being Somali, according to her information. She discussed the number of teachers and programs involved in teaching English to these students.
Hughes explained the difference in the terms used to describe these groups — multilingual learners, Emergent Bilingual (EB) students and ESL students.
“It’s just terms that the state has to be a more positive label,” she said.
EB students are those who are in the process of learning English and have another language as the primary language. English learners are now referred to as emergent bilingual students.
“Every child is at some level of being bilingual because they start school knowing only one language and before they finish, they acquire English, while maintaining their first language,” she said.
Figures show that EB students make up 24% of the student population in Texas and 19% in the Amarillo district, according to Hughes.
“Most of our refugee population is concentrated in the Palo Duro area,” Hughes said. “Amarillo High has around 50 students qualified for ESL, Tascosa High School has 150 and Palo Duro High School has over 600.”
Each year, schools have to report to the state of Texas for exceptions and waivers for teachers who are not bilingual certified but do work with bilingual students in their classroom. Some work with ESL students but are not yet ESL certified, but they are fully certified classroom teachers.
Last year, 45% of AISD kindergarten through 2nd grade students were able to increase one level, meaning they went from beginning to intermediate, or intermediate into advanced. Numbers show that it would benefit students to start learning a second language at younger ages.
“They soak it up, they really do,” Hughes said.
TELPAS, a state language acquisition test, measures reading, writing, listening and speaking. It is measured as beginning, intermediate, advanced or advanced high levels. Last year, 45% of the K-2 students were able to increase one level. Of third graders, 33% increased by at least one level.
Curriculum Assessment Specialist Aaron Witt said they had 164 EB students graduate last year from AISD.
“Then, they are reclassified, meaning they’ve met all the criteria to exit the program. In 2025, we reclassified 416 students; in 2024, we reclassified or exited 41 from our program, so that’s a big measure of success,” he said. “They’ve proven they can do well without our help, and that’s what we really want for our students.
“Any student who shows up at our door, they’re willing to teach and we fully recognize this,” Witt said in closing.
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Amarillo ISD board hears report on student English language learners
Reporting by Nell Williams, Amarillo Globe-News / Amarillo Globe-News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
