The impact of professional learning communities and block scheduling on English Language Learner students at Oak Point Middle School.

The purpose of this study was to examine and evaluate the impact of two interventions, block scheduling and professional learning communities, on the academic achievement of English Language Learners (ELL) on the English-language arts portion of the California Standards Test (CST). A nonequivalent independent groups design was used. A benchmark school was selected based on similar school characteristics and the pre and post intervention comparisons were made between the experimental school and benchmark school which had no treatment, but had historically outperformed the experimental school. Participants in the study included the entire middle school population of 1,072 students grades 6-8. The percentage of ELL students was 50% of the entire population. The block schedule and professional learning communities began in August of 2007, the first day of school and continued through June of 2008. The primary findings would come from the student performance on the English-language arts section of the CST that was administered in May 2008. Performance level data were coded on a scale of 0-4 for all students in grade 6-8. A pre-post analysis of the experimental school indicated an increase on the English-language arts section of the CST for ELL students in grades 6 and 8. While 7th grade did not increase, qualitative findings reflect that teachers implemented the multiple interventions at various levels of fidelity. The results also indicated a positive increase in the experimental school's Academic Performance Index (API) score for ELL students and students school wide. When the experimental group was matched against the benchmark school, both schools had an 11% increase the achievement of the ELL student on the CST. However, the benchmark school still outperformed the experimental school suggesting that the experimental school has room for considerable improvement. This study only examined this research through the lens of the current California accountability system. It is still necessary for further research to be accomplished to pinpoint the accuracy of school achievement data for ELL student. In particular, longitudinal data is needed to track grade to grade student growth.