Placement & Assessment

Initial placement: When new students register in our schools, families are asked to complete a Home Language Survey (HLS) indicating which language is most commonly spoken at home. If English is not the usual or dominant language, your child will be given the Language Assessment Battery (LAB-R) test in school which provides information about their English language listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. The results of this assessment are used to design an appropriate program to support their English language and academic growth.

Annual English language assessment: Each spring, all students in our ESL/Bilingual program are assessed to determine their skill levels in English language listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In Middletown, we use the New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test (NYSESLAT), and the results are used to design appropriate instructional programs for the coming year. Students are classified into four levels, based on their test results:

1 = Beginning
2 = Intermediate
3 = Advanced
4 = Proficient

Once students attain a proficient rating on this assessment, they will be fully integrated into the English-only mainstream program (though they may continue to receive a range of support services if needed).

Annual academic assessment: All students in our ESL/Bilingual program are expected to participate in all state, district, and classroom assessments to ensure their content knowledge grows along with their development of English language skills. In some cases, assessments may be administered in the student’s native language.