English Language Learners (ELL) Program

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"Best ELL practices can help any student"

Our ELL program is just one way in which we try to meet the needs of our diverse learning students.  Not an isolated program itself, the ELL program at Bridges works to assist classroom staff and Related Service Providers with training and methodologies needed to help students access classroom instruction. Done correctly though, ELL best practices can help any student, regardless of their linguistic background.

Student Placement

During enrollment, parents are given a Home Language Survey to indicate what languages are spoken at home. If a language other than English is indicated, the student will be checked for prior ELL testing or will be given a screening test to determine eligibility. Parents will be notified of child's test scores and eligibility.  Parents can, in any case, refuse their child's entrance into the ELL program.

What does the ELL Department do?

  • Parent and Family Outreach

The ELL department is active in helping connect families to the greater school community.  We support many weekend and after school projects as well as providing help with linguistic services.  We help parents who first language is not English connect to school staff.  We are experts in using Language Line, a telephone interpreting service that offers many different language options.

  • Push-in Pull-out Services

At Bridges, we like to have the least restrictive environment for students.  Even when receiving ELL services, ELL teachers most likely stay within the classroom, providing classroom instruction specialized to meet the different needs of our language learners.  As well, students with the most need might receive pull out services outside of the classroom, where they can receive individualized ELL services that are different from what is learned inside the classroom. 

Even though many of our ELL students speak Spanish, they focus on literacy in English.  This year, certain ELL students who show continued improvement in their reading and writing will get a chance to take aSpanish reading course once a week.  Last year, the TAAG program focused on beginning Spanish.