What Is the ELPAC?

ELPAC stands for the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California. It is the English language proficiency test given in California public schools to students identified as English learners, and it is administered for the California Department of Education.

The test is aligned to the 2012 California English Language Development Standards, usually shortened to the ELD Standards. Those standards describe what a student who is learning English is expected to understand and be able to do at each stage. The ELPAC checks a student against that description rather than against other students.

It measures English, and only English. It is not a test of math, science, general school achievement, or ability in a first language, and a result on it says nothing about how capable a child is.

Schools decide who to test using the information families give at enrollment, usually a short survey asking which languages are spoken at home. If the answers indicate that a language other than English is used, the school gives that student the Initial ELPAC. Your school office can tell you exactly what prompted the test in your child's case.

The Initial ELPAC answers one question: is this student an English learner, or is their English already fluent enough that no language support is needed? A student in the second group is classified as Initial Fluent English Proficient, written IFEP on school paperwork, and does not take the test again.

Students identified as English learners take the Summative ELPAC every year afterwards, for as long as they hold that status. The yearly test measures how much their English has developed since the last one.

Most of the confusion around the ELPAC clears up once these two are separated. They share the same four domains and the same published task formats, but they are given at different times and used for different decisions.

If your child has been in a California public school for more than a year and you are hearing about testing in the spring, the Summative ELPAC is the one being discussed.

The ELPAC covers four domains, the same four at every grade:

Results are reported as an overall score plus two composites. Oral Language combines listening and speaking. Written Language combines reading and writing. It is common for those two to differ from each other, and that difference is often the most useful part of a score report.

Speaking and writing are scored by a trained person against a published rubric rather than by a machine. The rubrics themselves are published on the official test administration site, caaspp-elpac.org, and they are worth reading once if you want to know what an answer is being judged on.

The test is written in grade spans rather than one form per grade. Kindergarten, grade 1 and grade 2 each have their own form, and then grades 3 to 5, grades 6 to 8, grades 9 to 10 and grades 11 to 12 each share one. A fourth grader and a fifth grader sit the same test. How much of the test a student does one to one with a test examiner, rather than working independently, depends on the grade span, so ask your school how it will be given at your child's grade.

• Listening: understanding spoken English, such as classroom exchanges, short stories and presentations.
• Speaking: answering aloud, for example describing a picture, retelling a story, or giving an opinion and saying why.
• Reading: understanding written English, from single sentences up to short passages.
• Writing: producing written English, from words and sentences up to short pieces that give reasons and detail.

The Summative ELPAC testing window runs from 1 February to 31 May each year. The window is set at state level; the dates inside it are not. Some districts test in February, others in April or May, and larger districts often spread the four domains across several weeks.

The Initial ELPAC runs on a different clock. It is given within 30 calendar days of a student enrolling, so a family arriving in November should expect it in November or early December rather than in the spring.

Score reports do not arrive a few days after the test. Results go to the district first, and the district then has 30 calendar days to send them to families, or 15 working days into the new school year if they arrive over the summer. Ask the school office when to expect yours.

Because the ELPAC window overlaps with the rest of California's spring testing, schools often send several notices at once. If you are not sure which test a letter is about, take it to the office and ask.

No one passes or fails the ELPAC. A Summative result is a performance level from 1 to 4, where Level 4 is the most developed, and a level is a description of where a student currently is in English.

It is not a subject grade and does not appear on a report card as one. Schools use it to decide what English language support a student receives.

It is not a judgment about the language a family speaks at home. Nothing about the ELPAC asks anyone to change that.

And a single result does not by itself move a student out of English learner status. Reclassification uses the ELPAC result together with three other state criteria whose details are set locally: the teacher's evaluation, a comparison of the student's basic skills with those of English-proficient students, and consultation with the parent, who is meant to be part of that conversation.

Most of what helps is ordinary rather than dramatic.

The practice sets on this site are organized by grade band for the same reason the test is. They are best used to find which task types a student finds hard, not to predict a level. The official practice and training tests published at caaspp-elpac.org are worth doing as well, because the training test is the only place to see the real interface a student will sit in front of.

If you would rather have any of these conversations in another language, ask the school office about an interpreter. Schools can usually arrange one.

• Ask the school whether your child is currently identified as an English learner. Families are often unsure, and the answer changes what happens in the spring.
• Ask for last year's Student Score Report if you do not have it, and ask the teacher to read it through with you. This is a normal request.
• Ask when testing is scheduled once the window opens, and ask again if the date moves.
• Look at the published task formats together so the test holds no surprises. Working out what a question is asking takes time that is better spent on the English itself.
• Put a little practice into the weaker composite. If oral language is behind, that means more talking; if written language is behind, more reading and writing.
• Keep the day itself unremarkable: normal bedtime, breakfast, arriving on time.