Allentown School District (ASD) | Success Story
"Our EL department is able to make valuable and effective instructional decisions that have already started to positively impact language growth for our students.”
Andrea O'Brien
ESL Facilitator, Allentown School District
Monitoring Progress and Implementing Language Growth Plans for English Learners (ELs)
In this success story, Andrea O’Brien, ESL Facilitator at Allentown School District (ASD) in Pennsylvania, shares how her district uses LAS Links throughout the school year to monitor the progress and skill growth of their EL students in each language domain, and implement data-driven instructional plans that target individual and whole-group language needs.
What Emergent Bilingual (EB) challenges do you have in your district/schools?
Some of our EL students are not meeting their EL growth targets and attainment targets according to the Future Ready PA Index (a collection of progress measures established by the Pennsylvania Department of Education that relate to student and school success).
How is LAS Links used in your organization?
We are currently administering LAS Links to all of ASD’s EL students in K–12 three times during the school year.
We chose LAS Links because we needed a Progress Monitoring tool that would provide us with very specific data pertaining to each of the language domains (Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing). We wanted to have ongoing district-wide data discussions (with our EL teams at each of our schools) to help us determine instructional plans that will address the specific language needs.
After reviewing and analyzing data from each testing event, we are beginning to create Individual Language Growth Plans that highlight scale scores/proficiency levels for each of the language domains that will be targeted (and specific skills within the language domain) and the language intervention that will be implemented.
What LAS Links data/report(s) do you find most useful to your organization?
The Longitudinal Report helps analyze individual student growth from testing event to testing event. The Item Roster Report provides item-specific information on how students performed in each skill on which they were assessed. Those specific skills are then targeted during the language intervention.
Our plan is to continue to implement monthly data analysis and discussion meetings with fidelity. We will allow the data to drive instruction and determine individual and whole-group language growth plans.
Having LAS Links has been an invaluable tool. Our EL department is able to make valuable and effective instructional decisions that have already started to positively impact language growth for our students.
In addition, our DRC LAS Links consultant is absolutely exceptional! She has helped us to thoroughly understand the data found in each report (she makes it so easy!). She has conducted outstanding district-wide and department trainings. I appreciate her professionalism, flexibility, and ability to help us navigate through any situation.