School District to Offer Programs in Spanish
Long Beach Unified School District officials have agreed to develop programs for students who do not speak English, including encouraging bilingual aides and students to become teachers.
The plans follow recommendations made by the Hispanic Advisory Committee, which concluded that the district has too few bilingual teachers to serve its Latino students, half of whom cannot speak English proficiently.
Administrators said they hired 20 bilingual teachers between January and September of last year--10% of the 200 new hires. But officials said it is difficult to find minority applicants. The National Education Assn. predicts that only one public school teacher in 20 will be a minority by the turn of the century.
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