Reclassification for Dually Identified Students: Navigating Resource Constraints and Exercising Agency to Improve Opportunity to Learn

Abstract

Background/Context:

Demonstrating English proficiency and being reclassified from English Learner (EL) services is a pivotal time point in the educational trajectories of students classified as ELs. Dually identified students, who are classified as ELs and identified as having a disability, may have challenges meeting state reclassification criteria if their disabilities affect their performance on English language proficiency (ELP) assessments or if their opportunities to gain English proficiency have been constrained by previous educational services. The reclassification process for dually identified students bears examination, given its pivotal nature in their education and its impact on their opportunity to learn. While a nascent body of literature has brought attention to reclassification for dually identified students, there is a pressing need to understand how dually identified students, their families, and their educators respond to resource limitations and exercise agency during reclassification to increase students’ opportunity to learn.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study:

This study aims to explore two key phenomena within the reclassification process: (1) the strategies that educators employ to navigate the resource limitations that impact dually identified students’ opportunity to learn, and (2) the ways in which educators and dually identified students and their families exercise agency to enhance opportunities for learning. To explore these questions, we apply two related theoretical frameworks: Weatherly and Lipsky’s (1977) framework of street-level bureaucrats and Stanton-Salazar’s (1997, 2011) framework of social capital. The concept of street-level bureaucrats illuminates how educators respond to resource limitations by rationing services and routinizing procedures during reclassification for dually identified students. The framework of social capital allows us to examine how educators, students, and students’ families use agency during reclassification by leveraging their social capital to support dually identified students’ opportunity to learn.

Research Design:

We employ a phenomenological design to understand how educators and dually identified students and their families engage in the reclassification decision, including how they negotiate resource limitations and use agency to increase students’ opportunity to learn. Data come a larger case study across four Oregon school districts that included document analysis and interviews with six dually identified students and their families, 29 teachers, 11 administrators, and six other site-based staff. We also applied an instrumental case study method centered on the experience of one dually identified student during reclassification and removal of special education services. We included this instrumental case because it illustrated a variety of perspectives clustered around a single case in a way that addressed every theoretical construct under examination.

Findings:

Educators found resourceful ways to respond to constraints by creating and enacting protocols and structures and systems on behalf of dually identified students. Some examples of ways that educators enacted agency were developing a working group to facilitate collaboration on behalf of dually identified students’ EL programming, integrating English language development in special education and content classes, sharing information to facilitate domain exemptions on the ELP assessment, and advocating for reclassification of dually identified students who had been enrolled in EL services for many years. Educators also helped dually identified students prepare portfolio work samples, invited parents to reclassification meetings, made sure students and families had a voice in the reclassification decision, and sometimes went as far as to offer dually identified students and their families information about waiving EL services and working outside established protocols to facilitate reclassification. The instrumental case highlighted how one student exited both EL services and special education based on his own agency’s voicing his desire to be reclassified and exit special education, his family’s agency in sharing his preference with educators, and his teachers’ agency in facilitating his reclassification.

Conclusions/Recommendations:

Findings suggest that dually identified students need ample opportunities to engage in rigorous coursework both before and after the reclassification decision. Educators require improved resources to lead the reclassification process for dually identified students, including guidance to facilitate meaningful conversations with families, and support for individualizing reclassification practices. With more responsive, person-centered reclassification policies and practices, the time and attention of educators, students, and students’ families can be more effectively directed toward enhancing academic and language learning opportunities.