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Background: One in Five Students Tagged as ESL
In Conroe ISD, about 20% of students, or one in five, are Emergent Bilingual. At Ms. Groves's campus, one in seven students is classified as ESL. Not all of them receive services, since some parents deny them, but the number is still significant.
Ms. Groves does not see her students as a number. She sees them as bilingual superstars—a mindset shapes everything she does in her class.
“This is what is so fun about what we do. Our goal was simple. We just wanted them to change their color. That is it.”
— Ms. Groves, ESL Reading Teacher, Conroe ISD
The Challenge: Students Set Up to Feel Like Failures
Ms. Groves used to be a science teacher. She watched students get pulled out of class with no prior preparation, and informed that it was time to take the TELPAS assessment. No context. No strategies. Nothing. She had one student in honors ELA who had been in the EB program for seven years without managing to reclassify. It wasn’t a question of ability. The students’ failure to reclassify stemmed from a lack of sufficient preparation and aligned instruction.
Ms. Groves also saw the confidence problem up close. Some students were simply shy. They barely talked in everyday life, so expecting them to speak into a microphone for the assessment was way beyond their comfort level. She had to reframe the whole experience for them.
“This is not just about a test. This is about you. You have value. You can do something others cannot because you are bilingual. When you speak, what you say has meaning. It matters.”
— Ms. Groves
The Search for a Solution That Treated TELPAS Like the Real Test
Roughly four years ago, the district conducted a Connect to Literacy™ pilot on Ms Groves’ campus. At first, the assistant principal felt it was not working as intended. Then he started a dedicated ESL Reading class—essentially a TELPAS preparation class— and asked Ms. Groves to join.
She said yes immediately. She remembered being a student who could not understand prime numbers because her own teacher just told her to try harder. She would never do that to her students. Instead, she would offer them strategies and provide aligned practice that truly prepared them for assessment success.
The Solution: Data Down to the Hundredths Place
Ms. Groves used Summit K12 data to give every student a personalized plan. She built individual charts based on middle-of-year assessments. For every speaking task, she noted exactly what each student scored in each domain and what the AI feedback said. Then she sat with them and looked for patterns.
That is how she discovered that verb tense was a widespread issue. That is how she discovered students were stopping mid-thought and leaving points on the table. One student chose completeness as her focus. When she could see it in her data and understand how to stretch her scores, she felt empowered.
“This program made my students feel smarter. They told me that. And I believe them.”
— Ms. Groves
How Students Show Up Differently: The Thinking Out the Door Routine
Ms. Groves has a daily routine she calls Thinking Out the Door. As students leave class, they respond to a reflection question using sentence stems. Things like, what can you do now that you couldn't do at the beginning of the year? Or, what is one thing you have improved?
The responses were incredible. Students said they felt confident. They felt brave, and they felt like they could talk. She showed them the data to prove it was real.
“I had one student who barely spoke any English at the start of the year. By the middle of the year she was showing improvement across all four domains. By the end of the year she was off the charts.”
— Ms. Groves
Most Impactful Features
- AI-powered speaking feedback that pinpoints exact skill gaps
- Beginning-of-year and middle-of-year assessments that mirror TELPAS
- Personalized Learning Plan practice tied to language domains
- Detailed data students can read and own
- Lessons that align with TELPAS question types and formats
Impact and Results: A Class That Changes Lives
The first year the ESL Reading class launched with Summit K12, sixty-three students exited the EB program. The year before, only one student had exited. This year, the data went even deeper:
- 100% of students demonstrated growth or maintained performance in at least one domain
- 23% of students grew in all four domains
- 94% of students increased their proficiency level
- 16 students achieved a perfect score of 4
- 25 students increased their scores by more than one full point
In a student survey,43% of students rated Summit K12 assessments 4 out of 5 for helping them understand TELPAS, and 22% gave the highest score of five.
“Tuesdays and Thursdays were PLP days in my classroom. We took that data, we integrated it, and we changed lives. I get emotional talking about it because these students deserve it.”
— Ms. Groves
Ongoing Partnership: Stop Saying Try Harder. Start Giving Strategies.
Ms. Groves believes the program is powerful, but it needs a teacher who is willing to facilitate, dig into the data, and make every tenth of a point matter. For her students, every tenth of a point is proof they are growing.
“A hundred percent of our students demonstrated growth or maintained performance in at least one domain. We took the data. We integrated it. And we changed lives.”
— Ms. Groves, ESL Reading Teacher, Conroe ISD
