Feb. 03--School District U46 staff updated the school board Monday night on plans to expand the Dual Language Program into middle schools during the 2016-17 school year.
The program, which offers both classes for native Spanish speakers learning English and Spanish immersion for English speakers, are already offered to more than 8,300 students at 33 pre-kindergarten through sixth-grade sites across the district.
Staff presented a road map for how the program will be brought to seventh-grade classrooms at Abbott, Ellis, Kimball, Larsen and Tefft middle schools next school year.
Officials said they were still researching what kind of training and curriculum will be required to take the program into the seventh grade, but placed the cost at between $200,000 and $600,000.
Staff will bring curriculum proposals to the board for approval in the spring.
The district relies on an 80:20 language program, where the youngest students start out with 80 percent of their instruction in Spanish, according to district officials.
From there, the Spanish-language portion of instruction is reduced by 10 percent with each grade, resulting in a 50-50 English-Spanish split by third grade, a division that has accompanied program students through the sixth grade and will greet them when they begin seventh grade this fall.
Dual language options are offered for kids who have not learned English, so-called "one-way instruction."
But the district also offers "two-way instruction," where native English speakers also attend such classes with native Spanish speakers, offering a crossing of cultures as students learn, according to the district.
The program was started during the 2011-12 school year in pre-K through second-grade classes. Since then, the program has expanded, grade by grade, with those students.
Students enrolled in dual language programs at U46 have grown from 3,904 students during the 2011-12 school year to 8,382 students this year, according to the district.
Such a program is essential in a district that is 52 percent Latino, and where about half of all students identify Spanish as their native language, staff told the board Monday night.
The current plan would have the "one-way" English language instruction offered in seventh grade this fall, while the "two-way" offerings would be phased in for the 2017-18 year.
Officials said Monday that such language programs are helping to close the achievement gaps between English language learners and their peers.
Eighty-seven percent of first-grade students in the program read at or above the national average for their grade, according to Patricia Makishima, the district's dual language coordinator.
Roughly 52 percent of students in the program can read at their grade level in their second language, she said, and students in the programs are above national averages in reading, math and language compared with Spanish-speaking students nationally.
Staff also touted the individual, familial and community benefits of bilingual students.
District CEO Tony Sanders thanked two young students who accompanied staff during the presentation and flexed a bit of their classroom-acquired English and Spanish for the board.
"Entiendo poco, pero no hablo muy bien," he told the kids, which translates to, "I understand a little, but I don't speak it very well."
geoffz@tribpub.com
