Reporting by racial/ethnic subgroup is common for accountability purposes in District-, Network- and school-wide analyses. This student group reporting is a crucial tool for investigating racial and ethnic disproportionalities, the progress of racial equity initiatives, and evidence of the impact of systemic racism on District students and families. Similarly, reporting and accountability are often disaggregated by English Learner (EL) status. Doing so supports efforts to serve students who require linguistic support, and also provides some indirect information about the diversity of students’ cultures.

However, when student groups are identified in this way, it highlights differences between groups, but may also imply that the differences within those groups are unimportant, or even absent. This brief aims to surface some of the internal diversity within racial/ethnic groups, and within home language groups, by exploring the intersection of race/ethnicity and home language among our students. These insights are critical to realizing the District’s commitment to becoming a more culturally and linguistically responsive organization.

Key Findings

• As of the 2019-20 school year, Hispanic/Latinx English Learners (ELs) are the largest racial/ethnic groups of District ELs (55.2%) followed by Asian ELs (21.8%) and White ELs (12.7%).
• ELs classified as Hispanic/Latinx are linguistically homogeneous, with 92.5% classified as speaking Spanish, while other racial/ethnic classifications of ELs are linguistically more heterogeneous.
• When examining the racial/ethnic diversity of linguistic categories, two language groups of ELs, Arabic speakers and Portuguese speakers, stand out as particularly diverse across multiple racial/ethnic classifications.

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