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Kennett district reports steady gains for English learners but flags speaking and writing gaps
Summary
Kennett Consolidated SD staff told the curriculum committee that 800 English learners showed multi-year growth on the ACCESS exam and that listening scores are strongest while speaking and writing lag; staff emphasized a five‑year growth plan, co-teaching and targeted interventions.
Brenda Austin, Kennett Consolidated School District’s supervisor of English language development, told the curriculum committee on Nov. 25 that the district serves about 800 English learners and employs 26 ELD teachers to support them. "We have 800 English learners in Kennett," Austin said, and described the ACCESS test, which assesses listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Austin explained how the composite ACCESS score is calculated and why the district uses a 4.5 composite as an exit threshold: "The magic number is 4.5," she said. The composite weights reading and writing at 35% each and listening and speaking at 15% each; students who reach 4.5 are eligible to exit English language services. Austin said the district sets interim yearly growth targets so students can reach that threshold in about five years, on average.
Staff characterized listening as the district’s strongest domain and identified speaking and writing as the areas needing the most work. "Our best domain across all grades is listening," Austin said, adding that speaking and writing are lower because those tasks measure student output and require students to use academic language in one-on-one or computer-based settings.
Austin and other staff described classroom-level strategies to raise performance: co-teaching models that place a language specialist and a content-area teacher together, targeted intervention sessions ("strength/stretch sessions") to boost speaking and writing, and goal-setting with students using the Elevation system to track EL data and progress.
Committee members pressed for details about distribution and testing windows. Austin said the ACCESS window typically runs from about Jan. 6 through mid-February, so results reflect partial-year instruction. She also provided enrollment breakdowns: roughly 400 ELs at elementary grades and about 400 at middle and high school combined, with roughly 185 at the middle school and 185 at the high school.
Austin framed recent progress as tied to programmatic changes and human-capital investments, including a completed Language Instruction Educational Program (LIEP), benchmark phonics at elementary levels and expanded co-teaching. She cautioned that year-to-year shifts can reflect exits from the program (students who meet 4.5 no longer take ACCESS) as well as newcomers who arrive mid-year.
Looking ahead, staff said the district will continue classroom-embedded language supports, monitor long-term ELs with targeted speaking/writing interventions, and use data meetings to guide tiered supports. No formal action or vote was taken at the meeting.
