State law requires that school districts must ascertain theprimary language of every student on the Home Language Questionnaire(HLQ) in order toensure that each and every non-native speaker of English is correctlyidentified. When a student enrolls initially in the school district, it isimportant to identify the primary language of the student. This is truefor each and every student. How the student appears or sounds should notdetermine whether or not he or she completes the Home Language Questionnaire. In SPPS, this normally occurs at the Student Placement Center.

A student who identifies any language other than English to one or more ofthe questions in the student language information section is consideredto have a primary language other than English. The HLQ should be placed in the cumulative folder of eachstudent. In general, the home language does not change. However, if anerror occurred upon initial enrollment, every effort should be made toascertain the correct home language background of the student.

Please work with your school clerk to clarify home language issues. Below is a sample Home Language Questionnaire.