Resident submits charter petition to Glendale Unified

A Glendale resident recently submitted a proposal to Glendale school board members for their consideration of a dual-language immersion charter school in Glendale that would serve students in grades kindergarten through eighth grade.

Hilary Stern submitted the proposal, also known as a petition, to possibly establish the International Studies Language Academy.

She is a parent of children who have attended Glendale Unified’s Franklin Magnet Elementary School, where students spend the majority of their day speaking and learning in languages such as German, Spanish, French and Italian.

On the proposed campus, students would spend the majority of their day speaking and learning in those same four languages.

At some other elementaries in Glendale, students spend at least half the instructional day learning in Japanese, Armenian and Korean. This would be the first school to offer an immersion program all the way through eighth grade.

Across the district, more than 2,500 students were enrolled in immersion programs last year.

Stern said the impetus for establishing the charter school is to provide more opportunities for students to pursue dual-language immersion instruction.

Last year, school officials laid down the pathways many of the current elementary dual-language immersion students would take as they advance into Glendale’s middle and high schools in the following years.

School officials said then that middle and high school students would be offered a chance to take a science or social studies course in their foreign language, but spend the rest of the day in classes taught in English, apart from an advanced language class they could take as an elective.

Stern said a group of parents brainstormed on ways to build upon Glendale’s existing dual-language programs.

“Parents have long known about the hundreds of applications [Foreign Language Academies of Glendale] programs were receiving for only a limited number of spots, which meant that a lot of families who wanted language-immersion opportunities for their kids were not able to take advantage of this terrific program,” she said.

The Glendale Unified school board is expected to discuss the proposal during its Oct. 20 meeting, said school board President Chris Walters, who declined to comment any further on the issue before the discussion.

Earlier this summer, school board members updated the district’s policy on charter schools after learning that the group could file a petition.

The revised policy approved by the board in July states that the board “shall give preference to schools best able to provide comprehensive learning experiences for academically low-achieving students.”

The nearly 250-page-proposal states that the proposed charter would provide curriculum in math, science and history as well as design, visual or performing arts.

The school would fulfill “the need for additional high-quality schools,” according to the petition, and the campus would likely be located south of the Ventura (134) Freeway. It would serve a majority of students from the southern and western parts of Glendale, the proposal states.

“The petitioners do not intend to replace any of the excellent programs that GUSD has already in place,” according to the proposal.

Stern is no stranger to Glendale schools. After a one-year effort, she worked with fellow parents to secure a $1-million grant to plant 40 drought-tolerant trees on the Franklin campus and replace the asphalt with meandering paths and landscape features that treat water run-off.

She is also executive director of Fondazione Italia, an organization that works closely with the Italian consulate to support Italian language programs across Southern California.

The foundation has donated thousands of dollars to Franklin Magnet.

More information about the proposed school can be found at islaca.org.