Waltham High School removes sheltered English immersion program following new state guideline

Waltham school administrators will eliminate sheltered English immersion classes from Waltham High starting with the next school year. This move came in response to analyses of the program’s outcomes in tandem with a new guideline from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education which emphasizes that SEI programs must be carried out in the least segregative manner possible.

Massachusetts state law defines SEI as “an English language acquisition process… in which nearly all classroom instruction is in English but with the curriculum and presentation designed for children who are learning the language.” For example, a student new to the English language would take SEI math as a replacement for their grade-level math class.

Without SEI classes, students who are still learning English will be in courses alongside classmates with all levels of English proficiency, including native speakers. This goes for all classes, including math, science, and history.

SEI is an alternative to integrated English immersion, where English language learners are together in classes with native English speakers. The SEI model is beneficial for newcomer students who may not have had continuous formal schooling beforehand and are beginners in learning English. 

DESE’s 2026 guidelines emphasized that SEI courses are not a replacement for English-as-a-second-language instruction. If a student is enrolled in a sheltered class, the student must also take classes specifically for English acquisition. 

At WHS, SEI programming has not produced consistent student performance, and the administration was aware that it was not operating as expected, said Assistant Superintendent Shannon Conley. 

“It was intended that those courses taper off so that your newcomers get courses like that… but after a few months, then they are tapering off into the general education classes. That’s not what occurred,” Conley said. “So when you really start to drill away at [student performance metrics], we already knew that perhaps that model was something that we would need to look at.”

DESE’s new guidelines prompted administrators to act on the doubts they had about SEI programming.

Conley said that SEI classes used to be taught more frequently to benefit a larger newcomer population. As that population shrunk, offerings for sheltered classes did as well.

The school has seen a recent drop in English learner students. The EL student population represents 16.7% of WHS’s enrollment for the 2024-25 school year, a 4.8% drop from the previous year. 

DESE’s new guidelines also stipulate that sheltered programs must have clear entry and exit criteria and that students must be consistently monitored for readiness to move into integrated immersion. 

As the district reckons with low performance at WHS, administrators are taking a closer look at Waltham schools with higher performance data to determine what changes can be made at WHS to maximize student success. 

In the past SEI courses taught at the high school have not always aligned with content guidelines. 

“One of the things that’s really important in other districts that still have SEI courses is that they are completely aligned to state frameworks. So it’s always based on the content frameworks first versus the language component. And in some cases that wasn’t the way that our SEI courses looked. There was a heavier focus on the language and less about that true alignment to the content, and that should have never happened,” Conley said.

Since fully sheltered classes will no longer be offered at the high school level, all students will be integrated into the standard classes taken by native English speakers, no matter their level of English acquisition. Conley said WHS must help teachers, who are still required by law to get an SEI endorsement, improve the way they run their classes to support students at a lower level of English acquisition. This is because students who are still learning the language will now be in integrated classes. She said the district will continue to develop these teachers’ skills through professional development.