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All states / Rhode Island

Rhode Island

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

Rhode Island offers Bilingual Education both as a standalone certification and as an add-on endorsement; ELD/ESL is available both as a standalone license and as an add-on endorsement. SEI training is not mandated for all teachers. As of 2023, 13.5% of public-school students are classified English Learners (NCES). Re-verified against current SEA sources on 2026-05-10.

13.5%
classified ELs (2023-10-01)
view trend →
Bil + ELD
credential types offered

Credentials

Elementary Bilingual and Dual Language Education Certificate

  • Standalone certification
  • Add-on endorsement
Approved program
Required
Coursework
Required
Practicum
Required
Subject test
Required
Language proficiency
Required

Six standalone Bilingual / Dual Language Education certificates by grade band — Early Childhood PK-3 (§1.9.1.D), Elementary K-6 (§1.9.2.D), Middle 5-8 (§1.9.3.H), Secondary 6-12 (§1.9.4.M), and All Grades PK-12 (§1.9.5.R) — per the June 2025 RI Certification Regulations. Each requires (a) completion of a RI-Approved Program (or Credential Review / Reciprocity meeting equivalent competencies), (b) bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited institution, (c) 45 hours of practicum, (d) Praxis 5362 ESOL at 155 plus a language-specific test (e.g., Spanish 5195/168, French 5174/162, Mandarin 5665/164, ASL 0634/170, Latin 5601/161, German 5183/163; for all other world languages effective 2025-07-01, ACTFL OPI+WPT at Advanced Low), and (e) 'demonstrated proficiency in the first (1st) and second (2nd) languages of instruction.' Prerequisite: a valid certificate at the matching grade band, so bilingual functions as both a standalone area and an add-on layered onto base certification.

ESL Specialist/Consultant

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

Two pathways. Standalone: 'English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)' All Grades PK-12 certificate per §1.9.5.S — requires approved program, bachelor's, one year of practical residency (or equivalent) plus 60 hours of field experience, 45-hour practicum, and Praxis 5362 ESOL at 155. Holders of only the ESOL certificate are restricted to ELD support roles unless also certified in the relevant content area. Add-on: the MLL (Multilingual Learner) Endorsement, available to educators holding any valid RI certificate via completion of an approved MLL proficiency program at one of seven approved providers (Brown, ExcEL Leadership Academy, Rhode Island College, Rhode Island School for Progressive Education, Roger Williams, URI, RI Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals); plus 'MLL Integrated Content Teacher' grade-band variants (§§1.9.X.C) that extend an existing certificate via specific coursework in second-language acquisition, linguistics, socio-cultural studies, MLL content-based instruction, and oracy/literacy development. No second-language proficiency requirement (ESOL is the English-language-teaching credential, not a bilingual one).

Sheltered English Instruction (SEI)

Not mandated for all teachers.

No statewide sheltered-English-instruction mandate. RI uses content-based instruction terminology (CBI, CBI for Newcomers, CBI for SLIFE) rather than 'SEI' on the RIDE MLL/EL landing page; the 2025 Certification Regulations impose EL-instructional preparation only through specific certificates / endorsements (Bilingual/DL, ESOL, MLL Endorsement, MLL Integrated Content), not on all teachers. No requirement found analogous to AZ/CA/MA.

State policy signals

Seal of Biliteracy

Recognition for graduating students proficient in English plus another language.

Adopted in 2016.

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. Rhode Island Seal of Biliteracy adopted

    Rhode Island Board of Education adopted a State Seal of Biliteracy on 2016-06-17 (per sealofbiliteracy.org/state/ri/), awarded to graduating high school students demonstrating proficiency in English and one or more additional languages.

    sealofbiliteracy.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 Rhode Island'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. RIDE Certification Regulations (June 2025) finalized

    RIDE issued the Regulations Governing the Certification of Educators in Rhode Island (June 2025), the document of record behind the live Certificate Areas and Requirements index. Section 1.9.X.D.2.b explicitly requires completion of an approved program for Bilingual / Dual Language Education certificates; Section 1.9.5.S.2.a does the same for All Grades ESOL. Effective 2025-07-01, ACTFL OPI+WPT at Advanced Low replaced certain language-specific exams for 'all other world languages' in Bilingual Education.

    ride.ri.gov (opens in a new tab)

Sources

  1. [1] Rhode Island Dept. of Elementary and Secondary 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] RIDE — Multilingual Learners (MLLs) / English Learners (ELs) landing page (program models, ELP assessment, screener). (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  4. [4] RIDE — Certificate Areas and Requirements (live index of every RI educator certificate, including six grade-band Bilingual/Dual Language certs, All Grades ESOL, MLL Endorsement, MLL Integrated Content, and District-Level Administrator — Multilingual Learners). (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  5. [5] RIDE — Regulations Governing the Certification of Educators in Rhode Island (Council on Elementary and Secondary Education, June 2025). Sections 1.3 (standards descriptors), 1.9.1–1.9.5 (grade-band certificates including Bilingual/Dual Language, ESOL, MLL Integrated Content), and 1.10 (administrator certificates). (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  6. [6] RIDE — Rhode Island Professional Teaching Standards (RIPTS, approved October 2007; with preamble). Eleven-standard document still linked from the RIDE certification page; preamble explicitly names English Language Learners; Standard 4 descriptors name cultural background, native language, and English language acquisition. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  7. [7] sealofbiliteracy.org — Rhode Island state page (RI Board of Education adopted standards including a Seal of Biliteracy on 2016-06-17). (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  8. [8] NCES Digest of Education Statistics 2023, Table 204.20 — English learners enrolled in public schools by state, fall 2021 (Rhode Island: 17,289 / 12.5%; NCES COE narrative flags RI as the largest positive percentage-point change in EL representation nationwide from fall 2011 to fall 2021). (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  9. [9] Rhode Island Department of Education, Strategy for Improving Outcomes for Multilingual Learners (March 2024) (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). Rhode Island EL teacher certification. https://projectcert.org/states/ri/
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_ri_2026,
  author  = {{projectcert}},
  title   = {{Rhode Island EL teacher certification}},
  year    = {2026},
  url     = {https://projectcert.org/states/ri/},
  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.