English Language Proficiency Assessment ELPA

Oregon is a member of the English Language Proficiency Assessment for the 21st Century (ELPA21), a group of states committed to supporting educators, school administrators, and communities as they adopt and implement the new English Language Proficiency (ELP) Standards and college- and career-ready standards.

The ELPA measures and reports on students’ English language proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and comprehension. Delivered online, ELPA is designed to be interactive and includes questions that reflect real-world scenarios. Its main purpose is to qualify students for appropriate language services and help guide schools to best support student needs.

Honoring Student Proficiency on the High School (HS) ELPA Summative

Beginning with tests taken in 2020-21, Oregon’s testing system will automatically “carry forward” Proficient performance in individual domains (i.e. Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking) of the Grade 9-12 English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA) Summative. Carried domains will be excluded on future tests, which will be rescored using the Proficient performance that was preserved for the carried domains. 

High school students who are eligible for this policy will experience a streamlined version of the test. When they score Proficient in one or more domains on the Grade 9-12 ELPA Summative, the system will note the Proficient performance and exclude those domains on future tests. The student will no longer see items from Proficient domains on the ELPA Summative. Once the student has obtained a Proficient score in all non-exempt domains (including carried and non-carried domains), they will receive an overall Proficient result on the ELPA Summative and will exit EL status. Students may accumulate carried domains in any order and at any rate during Grades 9-12. Carried domains do not expire until a student exits EL status.