In 2002, Massachusetts voters passed Question 2, a law similar to its predecessors in California (Proposition 227) and Arizona (Proposition 203) to replace bilingual education with structured English immersion (SEI) programs. Using Ruiz's (1984) framework for language planning as an analytical lens, this study examined how three Massachusetts districts resisted the monolingual ideology that characterizes laws mandating the implementation of English-only programs and addresses how local policies and practices conceptualized the mandated SEI program differently according to the specific implementation context. Since each district had been ideologically opposed to English-only approaches prior to Question 2, the language as right and language as resource orientations continued to influence the interpretation of SEI. As a result, SEI was positioned differently ideologically in relation to the law (the value of bilingualism versus English-only education) as well as structurally within each district (as part of a bilingual program sequence, as part of a world language program, self-contained). As a language policy, "SEI" therefore does not have a fixed meaning but will necessarily be socially constructed within each context by the beliefs, experiences, and histories of the individuals involved. (Contains 6 endnotes.)