Board hears ACCESS test overview, district outlines 1:1 tutoring and Title III supports for multilingual learners

The Montgomery Township Board of Education on Sept. 16 heard a district presentation on ACCESS testing and the district’s supports for multilingual students, including 1:1 tutoring funded by Title III.

District staff described ACCESS as an annual, WIDA-based assessment that measures multilingual learners’ progress in listening, speaking, reading and writing. The presenter said the federal Every Student Succeeds Act requires an N-size minimum of 10 for reporting results by grade and that the district could therefore report detailed breakdowns for only two grade levels at this meeting.

The district’s multilingual education staff told the board that ACCESS measures language proficiency on a scale from entering, emerging, developing, expanding, bridging to reaching and is used to create an individual student profile to guide instruction. “This is the ACCESS 2. So the ACCESS 2 stands for that assessing comprehension and communication in English state to state for English language learners and is given annually to monitor our students’ progress in academic English,” the staff member said. The presenter explained the assessment administration window and that the next ACCESS administration will be February–March 2026.

Why it matters: Board members asked how the district is tracking trends in its multilingual population and whether multilingual learners are progressing year to year. District staff said trend data exist in school performance reports and in the district’s internal data systems but that a comprehensive, year‑to‑year retention analysis would require pulled reports and follow-up. Board members linked enrollment and subgroup trends to budgetary planning and asked for longitudinal figures to inform finance and staffing discussions.

Staff summarized district interventions for multilingual learners: sheltered English instruction, targeted lab periods, alignment of curriculum to WIDA and the New Jersey Student Learning Standards, STAR 360 screening to track academic skills, and Title III-funded one-to-one tutoring for eligible multilingual and immigrant students. The presenter said Title III funds “can only be used for our ELL multilingual learners and our immigrant population” and that one-to-one tutoring is one of the district’s most effective uses of that funding for supporting core content after school.

Board member questions and staff responses focused on three areas: (1) trend data and whether the multilingual population is increasing (staff said there appeared to be increases in some grades but that districtwide trend figures would need to be prepared), (2) the relationship between the district’s high-impact tutoring grants and Title III tutoring (staff said there may be overlap in eligibility but the grants were separate), and (3) how students are selected and monitored for individual tutoring and services (staff described use of ACCESS profiles, teacher collaboration and progress monitoring).

The presentation closed with an outline of instructional supports and next steps: ongoing teacher collaboration through professional learning communities, curricular modifications shared with teachers, and continued alignment to WIDA standards. The presenter reminded the board that the district reports only grades meeting the federal N-size threshold and said a fuller grade-by-grade proficiency report will be presented at a later meeting.