The question
English-language learners (ELL or EL) are the fastest-growing student population in US public schools. About 10% of all K-12 students nationally are classified as ELL, but the distribution is wildly uneven: some schools serve almost none, while others serve student bodies that are majority-ELL.
Where ELL students concentrate
High-ELL-share schools cluster in three geographies:
- Border regions in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California, particularly schools in the Rio Grande Valley, around El Paso, and in the Imperial Valley, where the surrounding population is heavily Spanish-speaking.
- New-immigrant gateway cities: parts of Queens (NY), suburban Atlanta, suburban DC, parts of Houston, and emerging gateway metros like Charlotte and Nashville.
- Refugee resettlement hubs: schools in Minneapolis, Lewiston (ME), Clarkston (GA), Salt Lake City, and Garden City (KS) that serve Somali, Burmese, Bhutanese, Karen, Afghan, and Ukrainian student populations.
Why it matters
ELL enrollment changes school operations in ways that don't show up in topline numbers: dedicated ESL staffing, bilingual instructional materials, translated parent communications, and federal Title III funding allocations. Districts that serve large ELL populations often score lower on state assessments not because their instruction is weaker but because the assessment is administered in English to students still acquiring the language.
Tracking which schools serve the largest ELL populations is therefore essential to interpreting state-assessment results fairly, to allocating professional development resources, and to identifying schools that have built genuine expertise in serving multilingual learners.
Methodology
Source: NCES Common Core of Data 2024-25, ELL/EL enrollment counts where reported. Not all states report ELL counts to NCES on the same schedule; gaps are flagged in the underlying CSV. Schools with fewer than 100 students are excluded for stability.