California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed Assembly Bill 2555, making it much easier for the state’s nearly one million Multilingual Learners to become reclassified as English proficient and move out of specialized language instruction.
According to the bill, students will be automatically reclassified as “fluent and proficient” when they score 4 on the English Language Proficiency Assessment for California (ELPAC), beginning in the 2027-28 school year. Co-sponsored by the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) and authored by Assemblymember Dr. Darshana Patel, the new law removes barriers that kept fluent students stuck in specialized language instruction.
Between 2022 and 2024, an estimated 37,000 California students reached the highest level on the English proficiency assessment, but remained classified as English learners, according to University of Oregon research.
The new law eliminates a complex mix of local teacher evaluations, parent consultations, and district-selected basic skills tests that often delayed student reclassification for months or years. The old system required students who were classified as English learners to meet four different criteria before a school could “reclassify” them: the student had to get a 4, the highest score, on the ELPAC, a teacher had to verify that the student was proficient in English, the parents had to be consulted, and the student also had to show they had “basic skills” that are comparable to those of their peers who are proficient in English. In addition to eliminating the last three criteria for reclassification, AB 2555 allows students with disabilities to show proficiency in other ways.
Other provisions include a four-year academic monitoring “safety net” for students who exit the program; retroactive application so qualifying ELPAC scores from spring 2026 will allow students to be reclassified for the current school year; and a requirement that school districts meet with parents when their children are first classified as English Learners to explain what their children should be receiving under the law and how the reclassification process works.
In California, students are classified as English Learners when they enter school if they speak a language other than English at home and do not pass the ELPAC, which they must continue to take every year until they are reclassified as “fluent English proficient.”
Co-sponsor of the bill, CABE outlined its importance in a statement, “State policies governing English learner identification, assessment, ongoing monitoring, and reclassification play a critical role in ensuring that students receive the support they need while also recognizing when they have achieved proficiency and are ready to transition fully into mainstream academic programs if they are in an educational program that leads to English-only instruction. If they are in a K-12 pathway to bilingualism/multilingualism, reclassification is a celebration of success leading to earning the Seal of Biliteracy.”
