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Raegan Maloy

Professor Fast

EDU 220

September 26, 2022

Research Summary Two

The Florence Unified School District is the school district of my hometown. Every

category available for assessment was mostly under the partially proficient line. However,

focusing primarily on English Learners, district wide, 96% are minimally proficient and 4% are

partially proficient (“AZ School Report Cards”, n.d.) for the 2020-2021 school year. It should be

noted though, which I found interesting, that the 2020-2021 school year was severely impacted

by the COVID-19 pandemic. The assessment results gave a note of caution for the interpretation

of the data. That being said, looking back at the 2018-2019 school year, 87% were minimally

proficient, 10% partially proficient, 3% proficient, and 1% highly proficient (“AZ School Report

Cards”, n.d.). It begs the question, how great of a toll did EL students take when it was switched

to online learning? Instruction would have been different, and more work would have been

completed in writing, reducing the chances for verbal responses to the occasional zoom call. My

school ran things quite differently than most, so I never really experienced the toll of converting

to online school. In consideration of that, I sometimes forget the impact the pandemic would

have had on EL students who were used to one-on-one instruction and in-person assistance. It

makes sense that proficiency percentages declined in the 2022-2021 school year. In the article

“How COVID-19 Pandemic Magnified Challenges for Arizona Students not Proficient in

English”, it was reported that “students in the English language learning programs in Arizona

had the lowest passing rates of any group, including homeless students” (Gonzales, 2022). There
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were additional concerns expressed because students who spoke a language other than English at

home, were unable to receive assistance in their homework and as a result, their academic

progress suffered. During the 2020-2921 standardized math and reading tests, “fewer than 2% of

ELL students passed the exams” (Gonzales, 2022). All things considered, EL students need

hands-on assistance that cannot be achieved all the time through a video call, the data from the

pandemic showed that. We can see the effects right here in our local school districts.
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References

AZ School Report Cards. (n.d.). AZ School Report Cards: District Information. AZ School Re-

port Cards | District Information. Retrieved September 26, 2022, from https://azreportcard-

s.azed.gov/districts/detail/4437

Gonzalez, D. (2022, March 29). How covid-19 pandemic magnified challenges for Arizona stu-

dents not proficient in English. azcentral. . Retrieved September 26, 2022, from https://

www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona-education/2022/03/28/covid-19-arizona-

students-not-proficient-english/6721998001/