English Learners (EL) Program
Assistant Director of EL Services: Daniel Rios
EL Teacher: Anthony Gutrick
EL Teacher: Lilia Ossa
para leer en español haz clic aquí
"Best EL practices can help any student"
Our EL program is just one way in which we try to meet the needs of our diverse learning students. Not an isolated program itself, the EL 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 EL testing or will be given a screening test to determine eligibility. Parents will be notified of the child's test scores and eligibility. Parents can, in any case, refuse their child's entrance into the EL program.
What does the EL Department do?
Parent and Family Outreach
The EL 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 whose 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 EL services, EL 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 EL services that are different from what is learned inside the classroom.