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All states / Kentucky

Kentucky

Verified against current sources (2026-05-10) Cite this page ↓

Kentucky does not offer a bilingual education credential; ELD/ESL is an add-on endorsement. SEI training is not mandated for all teachers. As of 2024, 8.5% of public-school students are classified English Learners (NCES). Re-verified against current SEA sources on 2026-05-10.

8.5%
classified ELs (2024-10-01)
view trend →
ELD
credential types offered

Credentials

Bilingual education

Not offered.

ESL Endorsement

  • Add-on endorsement
Approved program
Required
Coursework
Required
Practicum
Unknown
Subject test
Required

ESL endorsement (Primary-Grade 12) is an add-on to a base KY teaching certificate. 16 KAR 2:200 requires admission to an EPSB-approved preparation program; goteachky.com requires passage of appropriate assessments for each endorsement. Practicum is set per program and not enumerated in regulation, so coded null.

Sheltered English Instruction (SEI)

Not mandated for all teachers.

State policy signals

Seal of Biliteracy

Recognition for graduating students proficient in English plus another language.

Adopted in 2021.

Source: sealofbiliteracy.org (opens in a new tab)

ELP assessment

Annual English Language Proficiency test used for EL identification and reclassification.

ACCESS for ELLs · WIDA Consortium member.

Source: wida.wisc.edu (opens in a new tab)

History of licensure

Dated policy and verification events shaping this state's EL teacher credentials.

  1. EPAA 29(100) document analysis (Leider, Colombo & Nerlino, 2021)

    Leider, Colombo & Nerlino published in Education Policy Analysis Archives 29(100) a comprehensive document analysis of every state and DC's bilingual, ELD/ESL, and SEI teacher-credentialing requirements, professional teaching standards mentions, and EL-percentage figures, based on primary SEA sources collected October–December 2019. The 2019 coding of Kentucky's EL-credentialing landscape is preserved as a temporally-anchored research baseline against which the catalog's later verifications are framed.

    doi.org (opens in a new tab)

  2. Kentucky adopts State Seal of Biliteracy

    Kentucky's State Seal of Biliteracy was authorized in 2021 and is administered by KDE for high-school graduates proficient in English plus one or more world languages. Adoption postdates the Leider 2019 baseline and so was not captured there.

    sealofbiliteracy.org (opens in a new tab) · education.ky.gov (opens in a new tab)

Sources

  1. [1] Kentucky Dept. of Education (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2019-11-15 (via Leider et al. 2021)
  2. [2] Leider, Colombo & Nerlino (2021), EPAA 29(100). Tables 2-5 + Appendix A. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2019-11-15 (via Leider et al. 2021)
  3. [3] NCES Digest of Education Statistics 2023, Table 204.20: English learners enrolled in public schools, by state (Kentucky fall 2021: 5.4%). (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  4. [4] WIDA Consortium membership — Kentucky listed as member; administers ACCESS for ELLs. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  5. [5] KDE Office of Assessment and Accountability — WIDA Assessments required K-12 for English Learners. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  6. [6] 16 KAR 2:200 — Probationary endorsement for teachers for English as a second language (Kentucky Administrative Regulations). (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  7. [7] Go Teach KY (EPSB licensure portal) — Endorsements: ESL (P-12) listed as add-on; assessment passage required. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  8. [8] Go Teach KY — Kentucky Teacher Performance Standards (KTPS): Standard 1 'linguistic', Standard 2 'diverse cultures'; no explicit EL references. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  9. [9] Seal of Biliteracy — Kentucky adopted April 1, 2021. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  10. [10] KDE — Seal of Biliteracy guidance for districts. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  11. [11] Kentucky Department of Education, multilingual learner enrollment (2024-25) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-10

Cite this page

Site content is published under CC BY 4.0. When citing a fact from this page, please cite both projectcert and the original Leider et al. (2021) paper the dataset extends.

APA
projectcert. (2026, May 10). Kentucky EL teacher certification. https://projectcert.org/states/ky/
Leider, C. M., Colombo, M. W., & Nerlino, E. (2021). Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs? Education Policy Analysis Archives, 29(100). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.29.5279
BibTeX
@misc{projectcert_ky_2026,
  author  = {{projectcert}},
  title   = {{Kentucky EL teacher certification}},
  year    = {2026},
  url     = {https://projectcert.org/states/ky/},
  urldate = {2026-05-10},
  note    = {Last verified 2026-05-10}
}
@article{leider2021decentralization,
  author  = {Leider, Christine M. and Colombo, Michaela W. and Nerlino, Erika},
  title   = {{Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs?}},
  journal = {Education Policy Analysis Archives},
  volume  = {29},
  number  = {100},
  year    = {2021},
  doi     = {10.14507/epaa.29.5279}
}

See the methodology for how these data were collected, or the glossary for term definitions.