When must a district implement a Bilingual Education program?
A school district is mandated to implement a Bilingual Education program if it has an enrollment of 20 or more students with limited English proficiency in the same grade assigned to a building, all of whom have the same native language (other than English). In New York City, when 15 students who speak the same language and are in the same grade or two contiguous grades, a bilingual class must be established. The same holds true at the high school level when there are 20 students in the same grade who speak the same language.
