Seven BPS schools will launch new multilingual education programs in the 2025-2026 school year, the district announced Monday, marking the largest single-year surge in BPS’s language offerings.

“Approval of the new programs is a critical step for our district in our efforts to serve our Multilingual Learners,” Superintendent Mary Skipper said Monday. “The development of these programs reflects our commitment to centering students’ identities and leveraging their home languages to accelerate their learning in school.”

The new bilingual education programs, approved by DESE earlier this month, will be spread across five elementary schools and two secondary schools, serving English language learners. BPS officials said they developed the proposals after a community-engagement process through the last school year.

In the 2025-2026 school year, over 200 students will have access to the programs, BPS officials said, and capacity is expected to expand by 30% in each subsequent year. About one-third of BPS students are English learners, the district estimates.

The unprecedented expansion in these programs follows the districts launch of a “Inclusive Education Plan in the fall of 2023, which controversially proposed moving the majority of English learners to general education classrooms. Eight members of the district’s English Learners Task Force resigned in protest of the plan.

The Blackstone and Philbrick/Sumner will have dual language programs in which classes are taught in English and Spanish and students receive a “Seal of Biliteracy” upon high school graduation.

Quincy Elementary will have a bilingual education program, in which math is taught in Mandarin and students must take a Mandarin language course.

The McKay will have a transitional bilingual education program, in which multilingual students begin classes primarily in Spanish and transition to English as their proficiency develops.

TechBoston Academy, Ohrenberger and English High School will have “newcomer” programs aiding recently immigrated multilingual learners, with instruction primarily in English but “specific techniques” to make beginner level Math, Science, and Social Studies content accessible to the students.

The programs “represent hope for our English learner students,” Boston School Committee member Rafaela Polanco Garcia said, noting that they “will benefit only a small portion of our student population in their first year” but expand each year.

In the elementary schools, three programs will be implemented for K1 students and the McKay program will be implemented in K2. The elementary programs will grow to include the next grade up each year until the program includes the whole school.

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The specific programs proposed are “designed to meet the specific needs of different student populations, taking into account language patterns across Boston neighborhoods, bilingual educators in each school, and the surrounding geography of bilingual education programming,” BPS officials said.

“The approval of these programs sends a message to our students and school communities that we see multilingual learners as an asset and that we are dedicated to supporting them so that they can reach their full potential,” said Multilingual and Multicultural Education Chief Joelle Gamere. … “We are ready to get to work implementing the new programs, and we are fully committed to providing each school with the support and resources they need to ensure long-term success.”