July 08--Community Unit School District 308 is changing the way students are chosen for its dual language program, after the district identified problems with the selection process in previous years.
The goal of the selection, which will take place Thursday, is to ensure than an equal number of Spanish-speaking kindergartners and English-speaking kindergartners are enrolled in each class, officials said.
"It was something we were concerned about, because really the point of the program was for (English learner) students," said Theresa Ulrich, the district's director of English learners.
School Board members in the Oswego-based district voted to end the dual language program in late February, with several members at the time saying the program wasn't doing enough to help Spanish-speaking students working to master English. They said they preferred to start a new program that would dedicate more resources to Spanish speakers.
After an election brought three newcomers to the School Board, members narrowly voted to allow the program to continue in the coming school year at Hunt Club Elementary and Plank Junior High School, and to open at least two kindergarten sections.
This year, families of 87 incoming kindergartners applied for the program, according to the district. Twenty-two applications were for Spanish-speaking students, while 65 were for English-speaking students.
The number of applicants is almost twice as large as the number of kindergartners who enrolled in the program during the 2014-2015 school year, when 14 Spanish-speaking students and 30 English-speaking students were in dual language kindergarten classes.
The application is only open to kindergartners. Classes of older students will remain unchanged, school officials said.
District officials had extended the application deadline from early June until June 30 to make sure families of English learner students had enough time to ask questions and review their options, said Judy Minor, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning. The dual language program is the only program for English learning students in the district that required an application, she said.
An audit found problems with the district's previous selection process, Ulrich said. Students with older siblings already enrolled in the program and children of district employees were guaranteed entry into the program, she said.
Last year, only a handful of spots remained for Spanish-speaking kindergartners after the students guaranteed entry enrolled. There were about three times as many English speakers as Spanish-speaking students enrolled that year, Ulrich said.
This year, she said, she was pleased with the variety of applicants.
"We have the perfect number of Spanish-speaking (English learner) students to balance out with an equal number of English-speaking students," she said.
All Spanish-speaking applicants will be placed in the program, Ulrich said. The district will use a web-based program to randomly select 22 English-speaking applicants, and the remaining English speakers will be placed on a waiting list, she said.
The district plans to have two classes of 22 students, each with an equal number of English and Spanish-speaking students. All classes will take place at Hunt Club Elementary School.
The selection process will be livestreamed on the district website at noon Thursday. It is also open to the public.
"It's just one more step that we're taking to build trust with the community," Ulrich said. "Because we're growing our (English learner) program, and we want our families to understand that we are looking our for their best interest and we are doing right by them. "
sfreishtat@tribpub.com
