Castro's language program opens to all Castro's language program opens to all (March 19, 2004)

No surprises this year, says superintendent

By Julie O'Shea

Five months after Mountain View-Whisman district officials threatened to pull students out of Castro Elementary School's controversial Spanish-English Dual Immersion program, Superintendent Jim Negri is now saying there will be room for all who would like to enroll.

Reacting to last spring's audit that accused Castro staff of not holding "high academic expectations for all students," the district said it planned to cut the language program in half in an effort to create a 50-50 balance of native Spanish speakers to native English speakers. Currently, many more than half of the programs students are native Spanish speakers.

The move, announced by administrators four weeks into the new school year, angered parents and teachers, who claimed they had been blindsided. A few weeks later, Negri decided that he needed another year to implement such a radical program restructure.

"Every new school year, the ultimate goal is to reach a balance of students in alternative programs," said Marcela de Carvalho, the district's director of English Language Learner Programs. "It's too soon in the enrollment process to make concrete decisions (about next year)."

Negri recently promised there will be no surprises when classes start this fall. Open enrollment for the 2004-2005 year concludes later this month and school officials will have a better idea next month as to what the makeup of the classrooms will look like in August, Negri said. The superintendent added that the district would not turn any students away if their parents want them in the program.

Castro's dual immersion program moved to a 75-25 model at the beginning of the school year. In this setup, kindergarteners spend 75 percent of the school day learning in Spanish, while 25 percent are taught in English. Each year the balance shifts, so that by the time children reach the third grade, there is an even 50-50 split of Spanish and English lessons.

Principal Carla Tarazi said this was done in order to better prepare students for the transition in third grade. The school had previously used a 90-10 model, where kindergarteners spent 90 percent of the day speaking in Spanish and the rest in English.

Critics have blasted the program, saying native Spanish-speaking students are not being prepared for high school and beyond. But Tarazi points to Castro's steady improvement on state tests, adding that students in the dual immersion program are doing better than students in Castro's English-only classrooms.

Asked if the program might start with a 50-50 model in kindergarten in the coming years, Tarazi shook her head, saying that that setup wouldn't be beneficial to either group of students.

Sara Garcia, a professor at the Santa Clara University Graduate School of Education, disagreed. A 50-50 model could indeed be successful at the kindergarten level, but "it has to have the right conditions for it to work properly," she said.

For instance, Garcia said, there has to be strong parental involvement and all the students have to be "pushed to their full potential."

The state education code mandates that if there are 20 or more immigrant students at a grade level, the school district must provide those students with an alternative learning option, like dual immersion.

However, Tarazi said she will try and discourage parents from enrolling their child in a dual-immersion classroom if she feels that the child wouldn't grow academically in the program.

By law, the district is required to sit down with immigrant parents and explain the different educational options available to their children. If a family chooses to put its child into the dual immersion setting, the parents must sign a waiver form, saying they understand that their child still won't be taught in English for at least half of the day until the third grade.

Negri said the district hopes to conduct the waiver meetings before the start of the 2004-2005 school year.

E-mail Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com

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