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All states / Mississippi

Mississippi

Verified against current sources (2026-05-08) Cite this page ↓

Mississippi does not offer a bilingual education credential; ELD/ESL is an add-on endorsement. SEI training is not mandated for all teachers. As of 2021, 3.1% of public-school students are classified English Learners (NCES). Re-verified against current SEA sources on 2026-05-08.

3.1%
classified ELs (2021-10-01)
view trend →
ELD
credential types offered

Credentials

Bilingual education

Not offered.

MDE does not offer a bilingual education endorsement. Appendix A of the K-12 Educator Licensure Guidelines (Dec 2025) lists Praxis-route foreign-language endorsements (Spanish, French, etc.) but no bilingual-education credential.

ESL Endorsement

  • Add-on endorsement
Approved program
Required
Coursework
Not required
Practicum
Unknown
Subject test
Required

177 — English as a Second Language (K-12) is added to a valid Mississippi license either by passing the Praxis Subject Assessment or by completing an MDE-approved program (Appendix A, K-12 Licensure Guidelines, Dec 2025). No standalone 18-hour coursework path exists for 177. The SEA does not impose a separate practicum on top of the approved-program route; practicum left null pending per-IHE program detail.

Sheltered English Instruction (SEI)

Not mandated for all teachers.

Mississippi does not require SEI training of all teachers. Only educators pursuing the 177 ESL endorsement are required to complete EL-specific preparation.

State policy signals

Seal of Biliteracy

Recognition for graduating students proficient in English plus another language.

Adopted in 2019.

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

ELP assessment

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

ELPA21 · ELPA21 consortium member.

Source: mdek12.org (opens in a new tab)

History of licensure

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

  1. Mississippi Seal of Biliteracy adopted

    MDE adopted the Mississippi Seal of Biliteracy in 2019, recognizing high school graduates who demonstrate proficiency in English and one or more world languages. The MDE EL services page continues to link to the Seal policy.

    mdek12.org (opens in a new tab)

  2. 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 Mississippi'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)

  3. ELP assessment migration: LAS Links → ELPA21 Summative

    Mississippi migrated its annual English Language Proficiency assessment from LAS Links to ELPA21 during the 2024-25 school year. The MDE ELPT page now references ELPA 21 as the contact and ties to the February 2026 Mississippi Testing Accommodations Manual; the MDE EL services page lists "Interpreting ELPA21 Score Reports" as a webinar topic. ELPA21's Spring 2025 Insider newsletter named Mississippi the consortium's "newest partner state" at AMTESOL 2025. This flips `elpAssessment.name` from "LAS Links" to "ELPA21 Summative" and `elpAssessment.consortium` from null to "ELPA21".

    mdek12.org (opens in a new tab) · elpa21.org (opens in a new tab)

Sources

  1. [1] Mississippi Department 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] MDE — K-12 Educator Licensure Guidelines (Dec 2025), Appendix A (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  4. [4] MDE — English Learner Services / EL services page (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  5. [5] MDE — ELPT (English Language Proficiency Test) page (now references ELPA 21) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  6. [6] ELPA21 Insider Newsletter, Spring 2025 (names Mississippi as newest partner state) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  7. [7] MDE — PGS Teacher Growth Rubric (July 2018) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  8. [8] NCES Digest of Education Statistics, Table 204.20 (English Learners in Public Schools, fall 2021) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08

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 8). Mississippi EL teacher certification. https://projectcert.org/states/ms/
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_ms_2026,
  author  = {{projectcert}},
  title   = {{Mississippi EL teacher certification}},
  year    = {2026},
  url     = {https://projectcert.org/states/ms/},
  urldate = {2026-05-08},
  note    = {Last verified 2026-05-08}
}
@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.