Understanding and Supporting the Educational Needs of Recently Arrived Immigrant English Learner Students: Lessons for State and Local Education Agencies

Recently arrived immigrant English learners (RAIELs) are a highly diverse group, encompassing important subgroups such as students with refugee status, unaccompanied minors, and students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFEs). RAIELs arrive in the U.S. filtering into all grade levels, with varied initial English proficiency levels, educational backgrounds, and home language literacy levels. These students bring unique and valued strengths to the classroom, but also frequently face shared challenges. While RAIELs share with other English learners (ELs) a common need to acquire English proficiency, they also often have needs that non-recently arrived EL students do not typically have. These include mental, physical, and social needs that are shaped by dislocation and trauma exposure; academic needs that pertain to limited or interrupted prior formal schooling; and adjustment to the norms and characteristics of a new country, community, and school setting. There is limited understanding of who RAIELs are as a student group and how their needs differ from those of English learners more broadly. This report, and the studies that form the backbone of the findings reported here, were initiated by the Council of Chief State School Officers' (CCSSO) English Learner State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards (EL SCASS). This group, made up of leaders of English learner education from state departments of education across the country, identified a need to understand and improve their work supporting the education of immigrant students who had recently arrived in the U.S. This report explores answers to three critical questions: (1) Who are recently arrived immigrant EL students; (2) What are their educational needs; and (3) What school, district, and state-level policies and practices are being implemented to support them? The hope is that the report offers information, support, and guidance for the work of both state departments of education and local education agencies as they design, implement, adapt, and evaluate their programs, policies, and services for this important group of students. A glossary is provided.