North Platte board hears English learner program growth, staffing plans

Kelly Sheets, English Learner coordinator and teacher for North Platte Public Schools, told the board on May 12 that the district’s English learner (EL) program grew during the 2024–25 school year and that staffing and program changes are planned for next year.

Sheets said the district now serves students who speak 23 languages, including Zulu, Ugandan languages and Hausa, and that EL enrollment stood at 63 active students and 31 monitored students for a total of 194. “We currently have 23 languages represented in our district,” Sheets said. She described program groupings, explaining that “active students” have not demonstrated proficiency on the ELPA21 assessment and receive targeted support, while “monitor” students have shown proficiency in the last four years and are tracked for continued success.

The board was told administrators will add certificated EL capacity next year. Board members and administrators said the district has offered and filled at least one EL position and expects two additional certificated FTEs next year; the hires were described as administrative staffing actions rather than formal board votes. A district speaker also said the hires are intended to address caseloads and placement logistics across buildings.

Sheets outlined classroom practice and curriculum. She said the district uses the EL Achieve curriculum to teach the four language domains — reading, writing, speaking and listening — with explicit language instruction and grade-level alignment. She described instructional supports including visuals, color coding for parts of speech, sentence frames, structured talk routines and accommodated assessments. “The goal with the curriculum that we use is for students to do at least 50% of the time talking,” she said.

On screening and placement, Sheets said the district uses the Infinite Campus registration questions and the ELPA screener. If a student’s registration indicates a language other than English, state-required screening follows; students who score proficient on the screener are placed in general education without EL supports. “If they get any kind of progressing or emerging score on any one of those four areas, then they stay with us in the program until they’re proficient in all four,” she said.

Sheets described family engagement work — two family nights for elementary and secondary, gallery walks and take-home literacy activities — and said secondary family attendance is lower than elementary, often because older students work after school. Board members asked about mentoring by recently exited students; Sheets said monitor students informally help beginners, especially at the high school level, where her classroom serves as a drop-in support space.

Board members also asked about where EL staff will be assigned. Administrators said teaching-and-learning staff are finalizing programming and building assignments and noted that next year’s placements should reduce current student transport during the school day.

Clarifying details discussed during the presentation included counts by proficiency level (78 beginning/level 1; 35 level 2; 36 level 3; 14 level 4; 31 advanced/monitors), 23 newly registered EL students to be screened next year, and an end-of-year active count of 63 students. Sheets said many supports allow EL students to meet grade-level standards while also learning English.

The board did not take formal action on EL program funding or staffing during the meeting; the staffing additions were presented as administrative actions already underway.