Enrollment climbs for dual immersion program Enrollment climbs for dual immersion program (October 08, 2004)

Changes include earlier parent conferences

By Julie O'Shea

Castro Elementary's vigorous campaign to enroll more native English speakers in its dual-language immersion program seems to have paid off. School officials recently reported an increase in enrollment, citing encouraging statistics.

The school came under scrutiny last year after an independent audit found that students who weren't native English speakers were falling behind academically. Critics of the program said that with the majority of the daily lessons being taught in Spanish, it's no wonder these students weren't performing well on tests conducted in English.

In addition, some worried that the dramatic imbalance of Spanish-speaking students to English speakers was a disadvantage to the program's success. The current numbers are more promising; there are now eight English speakers out of 18 students in one Castro kindergarten class.

Principal Carla Tarazi recently told the Mountain View-Whisman school board that she and her staff are trying to make the program run more smoothly. She said native Spanish-speaking kindergarteners enrolled in the immersion program must first spend 30 days in an English-only classroom at the beginning of the school year.

In addition, Castro administrators began conducting language immersion conferences with Spanish-speaking parents months before classes began in August, giving educators a better sense of the classroom demographics and enrollment sizes. Last year, these state-mandated meetings were held in September, forcing school staff to propose some last-minute changes to the immersion classrooms.

To avoid a similar predicament, the school scheduled the parent meetings in the spring this year, prior to the start of the new school year.

By law, the school must provide an alternative language program, which is dual immersion, to native Spanish-speaking families. School officials are also required to meet with each parent and explain the structure of the dual immersion program, and parents must sign a waiver, confirming that they know their child will be spending the majority of the day learning in Spanish.

Kindergarteners enrolled in the dual immersion program spend 75 percent of the school day learning in Spanish and 25 percent in English. This structure shifts a little each year, such that third-graders learn half in Spanish and half in English. By the time students reach the fourth grade, they are spending 60 percent of their day learning in English.

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

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