High school content teachers are often unfamiliar with teaching English learner students in the mainstream. They are sometimes unsure of the needs of English learner students and do not know how to teach them or what expectations to set (Lucas & Villegas, 2010). As a researcher, I spent over a year at Vista International High School (all names of people and places are pseudonyms). The school was in an urban district outside a large metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest. After observing and interviewing teachers, I unpacked the perceived instructional challenges that content teachers articulated in their work with English learners in the mainstream. At the time, the school was focused on inclusion for English learner students within mainstream content classes, and the principal provided