Background/Context: Students classified as Long-Term English Learners (LTELs) are those who have not gained fluency in the English language, even after being enrolled in the U.S. K-12 educational system for five to seven years (Olsen, 2014). Although LTELs are not consistently tracked across states, we know they constitute a sizeable portion of the EL population in some states--for example, during the 2019-20 academic year, 200,000 students in California were LTELS, plus another 130,000 considered at risk of becoming LTELs because they are not on-track to gain fluency in English proficiency (Buenrostro & Maxwell-Jolly, 2021). In a study by the WIDA Consortium, about 13% of all ELs in grades K-2 across 15 states were projected to become LTELs based on their English proficiency scores (Sahakyan & Ryan, 2018). Even "among" English Learners, LTELs face the least access to academic opportunities, such as taking academic content courses and advanced courses (e.g., Johnson, 2019). Prior research is silent on the effects of specific policies and programs targeting the education of LTELs. Purpose/Research Question: In this study, we examine the effects of a program, known as AVID Excel, which aims to improve English proficiency and access to academic core content while also promoting college readiness for middle school LTELs. We ask: Is participation in AVID Excel associated with better English proficiency and English reading outcomes for LTEL students, compared to receiving other English Language Development (ELD) services or to no ELD at all? New evidence from this research contributes to the literature in two essential ways. First, we add urgently needed results on the reading achievement and growth patterns of LTELs over time. Reading is an important component of developing the type of academic literacy needed to access core content in key subject areas (Brooks, 2016; Goldenberg, 2013), yet the existing research base does not speak to LTEL reading growth. Second, this study is the first to examine an intervention designed specifically for LTEL students. Intervention: AVID Excel is a newly popular type of college-access AVID program designed specifically for supporting middle school LTEL success. The curriculum provides explicit instruction in ELD, academic language, and college readiness skill across six domains: (a) reading, (b) writing, (c) oral language, (d) academic vocabulary, (e) study skills, and (f) self-determination and leadership. This program differs from traditional designated ELD, which solely focuses on English proficiency. Setting: Our partner district is a large, urban district in California and enrolls about 60,000 students annually. Just under 30% of the students are classified as ELs. There are about 1,500 LTELs in grades 6-8 and 1,500 in grades 9-12 every year. Support services for LTELs in middle schools vary across sites. Some students are enrolled in dual language programs; some attend designated ELD classes (including AVID Excel); others are educated in general education classes. The AVID Excel program was first implemented in the district in 2015-16. In 2021-22, eight of the 13 middle schools in the district were offering yearlong AVID Excel for 7th and 8th grade students. Data and Analysis: We use the district's administrative records between 2012-13 and 2021-22. Data include students' (a) demographic characteristics (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, home language); (b) annual eligibility for EL and special education (SPED) services; (c) type of ELD service received and courses taken, including AVID Excel; and (d) academic and English language proficiency assessment scores (i.e., CELDT, ELPAC, SBAC-ELA, Reading Inventory). We retained data for students who were ELs at any time in 7th or 8th grade in the analytic sample (N=8,608); 5224 were LTELs in either 7th or 8th grade, meaning they have been ELs for at least 5 years, or since 2nd or 3rd grade. Among LTELs, 19% and 17% participated in AVID Excel. Since there was no random assignment into AVID Excel, and students could self-select out of the program, we applied multivariate regressions to examine the association between AVID Excel participation and each assessment outcome, controlling for student and school characteristics. To estimate reading growth as measured by RI, we used a multilevel model (e.g., von Hippel et al., 2018). Cross-level interactions identify additional growth made by students in other programs, above and beyond growth by AVID Excel students. Models were estimated using full-information maximum likelihood estimation by calling HLM Version 8 from Stata 16 (Raudenbush et al., 2019). Our descriptive analysis informs future impact evaluations. AVID Excel is gaining prominence across the nation as an intervention targeting LTELs. Correlational findings from this study can be used to contextualize and support the design of experimental studies. Results: Overall, we found that participation in AVID Excel is associated with higher reading and ELA test scores relative to Newcomer ELD or other ELD courses and lower scores relative to No ELD. On English proficiency tests, AVID Excel students tended to score higher than the other three groups. These results generally hold after controlling for prior-year test scores. AVID Excel students grew slower or at a similar rate compared to students in other ELD services or no service at all. Thus, we can rule out positive associations between AVID Excel and reading score gains as measured by RI. (See Tables 1-4 in the PDF document.) Conclusion: Supported by within-year growth data, this study offers critical, novel evidence on the AVID Excel program and LTEL students' English language proficiency and reading achievement and growth. We leverage a unique opportunity to interrogate the efficacies of a large, coordinated program designed and delivered for this student population. The findings not only inform program development within the district but also provide critical evidence to other educational agencies serving multilingual students.