NASHUA, NH – Nashua School District members on Wednesday discussed the budget for the upcoming school year and their plans to prioritize the ELL program during a budget committee meeting.
That discussion centered around an April 2 public meeting and presentation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) at Fairgrounds Middle School during which priorities for the district’s ELL program were outlined.
There is still improvement needed, according to the presentation.
The DOJ has continued to monitor the districts’s ELL program following a 2021 settlement over non-compliance with Section 1703(f) of the Equal Education Opportunities Act of 1974. The act requires the district take “appropriate action to overcome language barriers that impede equal participation by its students in its instructional programs.”
As part of the settlement, the DOJ continues to monitor the district’s progress. Based on Tuesday’s presentation, the budget committee discussed how to continue to invest in improvements in outcomes for students.
The proposed budget for the 2025 school year is $131,061,021, a 4.49 percent increase from the 2024 school year base budget.
Budget priorities include Tier 1 systems – curriculum, instruction and assessment – ELL services, special education services and real world learning experiences.
“This is a nonnegotiable,” superintendent Mario Andrade said of ELL services. “We cannot, no matter what happens in this budget, stop the work that we’re doing in that area.”
According to a presentation to the committee by the director and assistant ELL director – Robert Cioppa and Danielle Boutin – 1,179 students in the school district are identified as ELL with 44.8 full time ELL teachers.
New Hampshire uses WIDA – world-class instructional design and assessment standards – to test the progress of ELL students’ English proficiency every year on a scale of one through six. The cut score for proficiency is 4.5.
In the Nashua School District, 35 percent of ELL students are at a level 1; 23 percent are at a level 2, 31 percent are at a level 3; and 11 percent are between a 4 and 4.4.
“We ended up in our agreement with the Department of Justice mostly because we weren’t providing enough services to our students,” Cioppa said. “We just didn’t have the staff. Too many students and not enough staff.”
The priorities as set by the DOJ include the identification and placement of ELL students; provision of ELL services and access to core curriculum; staffing and professional development; and ELL access to special services.
To meet these expectations, seven full-time ELL positions will be added to the operating budget, which could include positions such as instructional coordinators, ELL coaches, elementary teachers and ELL/SPED teachers.
The district will again contract with Wisconsin Center for Educational Products and Services (WCEPS) as part of the professional development plan. The district is also looking into implementing a central ELL registration site among its other plans for the ELL program.
“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, it’s great work, and we’re looking forward to it,” Cioppa said.
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