Overview:
More than 60 languages are spoken by WCCUSD students, and more than 8,000 of them are at various stages of learning to speak English.
The top two languages spoken by students are Spanish and Arabic.
The district offers services to help get English learners proficient, and this year 700 students achieved that goal.
When sixth-grader Eslam Nagee Rhimee took the stage at West Contra Costa Unified School District’s annual celebration for English learners, he addressed the crowd in both Arabic and English.
After six years in the district’s English language learner program, the Grant Elementary student had officially become “reclassified” as being proficient in English. He was one of more than 700 students who were reclassified this year.
“I am proud of my Arabic language and English language,” Rhimee told the crowd in Arabic. “I love my parents, I love my school … and I love shawarma.”
Off stage, Rhimee told Richmondside that he was especially grateful for his community. He said at home his dad was intentional about speaking only English. His friends also helped him practice his language skills.
Having a student reclassify as being proficient in English proficiency is no easy task and on average takes about six years. A student has to score a 4 on the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC) test, which evaluates writing, reading and speaking and listening. They also have to have good grades in school to prove their proficiency, and oftentimes parent and teacher evaluations are part considered in the decision to officially reclassify a student.
Students who score a 1 or 2 on the ELPAC take language development classes daily. If they score 3 or 4, they are placed in mainstream English classes but also do supplemental language development work a couple times a week. Students can remain at any level for several years.
“One of the most important things is socialization,” Rhimee said, emphasizing that he learned the most by playing outside. “I have a lot of friends and talked to them. Sometimes they made fun of me, but I didn’t take it personally. I actually learned from them.”
He said, for example, his friends taught him how to correctly pronounce the number three, because he used to say “dree.” He also credited teacher Ghada Abdelhalim for helping him with his weekly speech lessons.
Joining Rhimee at the May 20 ceremony were his parents, who immigrated from Yemen, beaming with pride. His father said seeing his son walk the stage at Helms Middle School made him feel “relieved,” that his son could continue his education without the language barrier. He was especially proud that his eldest son was chosen to go on stage to represent WCCUSD’s Arabic speaking population.
His mother said she was grateful that the district provided son with resources early, and especially grateful to Abdelhalim who helped translate for her at school meetings.
Many students still fall far behind
Rhimee is an example of when the system works. He had family support, access to services at a young age and an educator who could communicate with his family in their mother tongue. The elementary school also had a team of three educators supporting its English learners.
For families who do not speak English, the support can make a significant difference in how students navigate the reclassification process.
Abdelhalim, a bilingual paraeducator at Grant elementary, also serves as the only Arabic translator for the whole district. She provides translation services for certain meetings and contacts Arabic-speaking families proactively to see if they need support.
Arabic is the second most common language spoken by English learners in the district. About 4% of English learners speak Arabic as their first language. The most common language spoken is Spanish, 83%. But there are more than 60 other languages spoken within WCCUSD and not all have tailored translation services. There are about 8,100 English language learners in the district, according to state data.
Abdelhalim, who also works in Grant Elementary’s newcomer program, which supports students who are new to the country, said this year she had to help a Thai student who barely spoke English.
“We talked through Google Translate,” Abdelhalim told Richmondside. “It was hard but we made it work.”
Roughly a third of WCCUSD’s student body is classified as English learners — on par with the state average.
Last year, the district’s reclassification rates finally caught up to the state average of about 13%. Before that, WCCUSD lagged behind with an 11% reclassification rate in 2023-24. Before that it was about 6% to 8%, according to district data.
This year’s rates have not been released because the data is still being collected by the district, WCCUSD spokesperson Liz Sanders told Richmondside.
But they are hopeful the rates will continue to trend upward, especially because a new tool was implemented this year, the Observation Protocol for Teachers of English Learners (OPTEL).
The OPTEL is primarily an observation protocol used to support teacher evaluations of English learner proficiency, especially in reclassification decisions. It gives teachers a framework that helps them look for specific behaviors and evidence, such as whether a student participates in class discussions or asks clarifying questions.
This year, the district piloted the program. It will be fully implemented next year.
“I am very glad to see our district’s work to go beyond simply informing families of assessment results when it comes to monitoring our English Learners’ progress,” Superintendent Cheryl Cotton told Richmondside via email. “By using the OPTEL to have meaningful, standards-based conversations with families, we can better ensure that our multilingual learners have a village of support both at school and at home.”
While district leaders credit OPTEL with helping them identify students ready for reclassification, it is unclear how much of the increase reflects improved English acquisition versus changes in how teachers document proficiency.
While reclassification rates are high, the pace of progress is among slowest in state
However, even with this new tool, WCCUSD falls drastically behind in terms of the pace at which students progress.
Typically, students classified as English learners should become proficient within six years. If they take longer, they become classified as “long-term English language learners.”
WCCUSD’s students in 2025 had some of the slowest progress in the state.
For regular English learners, only 33.6% of students made progress, meaning they jumped one level or stayed at the highest level of English proficiency — a decline of 6% compared to the previous year. About 31% of long-term learners made progress, a 7.1% decline from the previous year.
Comparatively, according to the California School Dashboard, statewide an average of about 50% to 55% of English learners progress toward English language proficiency annually, while more than 80% maintain or improve their overall performance level.
At WCCUSD, English learners performed more poorly on standardized tests in language arts and math and did worse compared to other students. English learners were more than 100 points below the state standard for language arts, whereas English speaking students were only 22.9 points below the standard.
In math, English learners were 153 points below the standard — a drop of 6.7 points compared to last year. Meanwhile, other students actually improved their math test scores by 12.1 points, though they are still 49.5 points below the state standard.
Zach Porter, an English teacher at Kennedy High School, believes staffing issues are one of main reasons WCCUSD is so far behind when it comes to English learners progressing.
“Kennedy is an intense example of this,” Porter told Richmondside.
The high school in south Richmond had 349 English learners in 2025 and only seven reclassified — 2% of its English learners. He said this year, only five students from Kennedy reclassified.
In the last three years, the high school has had constant vacancies and turnover in the English language development department (ELD), Porter said.
“There’s really not been a designated, fully trained, competent educator teaching those upper levels of ELD consistently,” Porter said “So a lot of our long-term English learners are really not receiving the instruction in academic language development that’s really required to pass the ELPAC and get reclassified.”
Kennedy had, by far, the lowest reclassification rate in WCCUSD. The second lowest is De Anza High School with nine students reclassifying, which amounts to 3% of its English learners.
Typically high schools have lower reclassification rates compared to elementary and middle schoolers. This is because younger learners reclassify more quickly, leaving secondary schools disproportionately populated by long-term English learners who face ongoing academic and linguistic hurdles.
In WCCUSD, the average reclassification rate for elementary students was 18% in 2025. For middle school students it was 28% and for high school students it was about 11%, according to data analyzed by Richmondside.
Schools in wealthier areas also tend to have higher reclassification rates because they have more access to resources. In WCCUSD, the reclassification data indicates the same.
In WCCUSD, the school with the highest reclassification rate was Kensington Elementary in Kensington. Thirteen out of its 14 English learners reclassified in 2025. Following that was Pinole Middle, which reclassified about half of its 60 English learners.
Schools in El Cerrito had an average reclassification rate of 27%, and Hercules followed with 22%. Meanwhile San Pablo schools had an average reclassification rate of 14%, and in Richmond it was 11%, according to district data analyzed by Richmondside.
Porter said he is skeptical about how next year will go for English learners. In addition to the OPTEL, the district is also restructuring some of its class offerings.
At Kennedy, the tentative plan is to remove ELPAC level 3 and 4 classes and instead implement the Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum (ERWC). The course is an inquiry-based, rhetoric-focused English language arts program designed to prepare students for college and career literacy, developed by the California State University system.
He said while such a class may be helpful for students who have remained in ELPAC 4 for multiple years, he worries that students who do need additional support will fall through the cracks.
“The college prep class will have language development scaffolds and supports, but it’s not the focus of the class … so, there are a lot of question marks,” Porter said, emphasizing that teachers have not yet been trained on this new curriculum.
He also said that different WCCUSD schools have different types of programs for English learners. For example, Richmond High School has a unique program called the Internationals Academy that helps students who have recently immigrated to the United States get acclimated and build their language skills.
A similar program, called the newcomer program, exists at Kennedy High but only for freshmen. Although that may also be expanded.
Porter said he is not opposed to the implementation of the Internationals Academy, but said there needs to be more thought around the overall English learner curriculum.
“It’s like we’re building a plane while flying it,” Porter said.
