NORTH COUNTY VOICES : Should Spanish be a mandatory subject in the public schools? If so, beginning at what grade level?

Charlotte Hotchkiss , 58, has been a trustee for the Escondido High School district for 18 years. She is a tax agent who lives in Escondido.

No, it should not be, for several reasons. Where is the time going to be in the curriculum? You either have to throw something out in order to make space for that or you have to expand the school day and that costs money. Where is the money going to come from?

The second part of it, aside from the money, is that Spanish is not the only second language spoken in this state. There are something like 50 languages spoken throughout the state and you get into discrimination and so on and so forth.

It’s nice if somebody knows a second language but as far as mandatory is concerned I don’t think that we can afford that.

Even within the high school curriculum, if you were to say that every student must take Spanish then you crowd out something else and the students are having enough trouble getting all their mandatory classes done in order to graduate anyway.

What are you going to do for someone who takes Vietnamese? Are you going to make them take English and Vietnamese and Spanish? Or Chinese or whatever else. I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea that someone know a second language but there are problems involved. It’s not a simple yes or no answer.

If somebody’s going to learn another language it should be as early as possible but I don’t know how crowded the curriculum is in the first, second and third grades. And if they’re filling up their days now, what are they going to take out in order to put this in?

My feeling is that this country has assimilated people by them learning the language and I don’t mean to say that Spanish or Korean or whatever else is not important to the people but it’s the English language that binds us all together and we certainly (don’t) want to get into (the dispute over the French language) like they did in Quebec, Canada. It seems to me that the immigrants who came . . . to Ellis Island (learned) English. For the Spanish-speaking people who are here, they realize that learning English is the important thing to getting a job. But I don’t think that people need to give up their own cultures. That makes this a tremendous melting pot and a very good cultural diversity for our country.

Don Shields, 53, is the executive director of the California Council on Science and Technology. A resident of Leucadia who was born and raised in San Diego, Shields was the president of Cal State Fullerton from 1970 through 1980 and Southern Methodist University from 1980 to 1986.

I think foreign language study should be mandatory in the public school system, whether that should be Spanish, Japanese, French, German. I believe, as we look at our emerging situation nationally as well as here on the Pacific Coast and looking to the Pacific Rim, the global economy situation, some of the cultural aspects of our society becoming more and more internationally oriented, that the study of foreign language and being at least bilingual will be terribly important in terms of the educational experience of our young people.

I think Spanish is a natural as one important option. I don’t think it just should be limited to Spanish.

I believe the earlier the better. When I was a member of the National Science Board I was first concerned about the quality of undergraduate education in science and technology at the university level. I rapidly moved to concerns about the secondary level and then I moved to concerns about the elementary level and I’m in preschool right now. If you’re talking about generic concerns in education it seems to me that language-culture skills knowledge are important throughout the entire spectrum of the educational experience. And so I believe the earlier the better, and i think there are a number of studies that show that students can very positively respond to language instruction at a very early age.

Rene Townsend, 46, is the superintendent of the Vista Unified School District. Last fall, she was given the Dr. Robert F. Alioto Award for outstanding leadership and curriculum for a California superintendent.

I would like to see all students be bilingual; whether or not everyone should be bilingual with Spanish is probably (questionable). There may be some other languages, too, that should be considered.

I’d rather look at people being bilingual, but not necessarily mandating one (language). Obviously in our area of the country, Spanish is the No. 1 language. But we’re going to be seeing more and more other languages, and certainly being on the Pacific Rim we need to consider Asian languages as well. The concern I would have about mandating bilingualism is the availability of people to make that happen. So it’s a nice ideal. The reality, I think, is going to be a long time in coming.

I think the earlier the better. I just know from having tried to learn languages later in life that it’s harder. It’s a lot easier for the little guys to pick up a second language and a third or fourth even.

Isabel Schon, 50, is the director of the center for the study of books in Spanish for children at Cal State San Marcos. Schon, a native of Mexico City who came to the United States in 1972 and now resides in La Jolla, has a doctorate in education and is the author of 14 books on bilingual and multicultural education.

It has to be mandatory, because we’re in California, because of the huge Spanish-speaking population in California and our proximity to Mexico and Latin America.

I think students need to have the choice. However, then we go into the reality of the situation. If I want to learn Russian, are you going to offer Russian as well as Arabic, as well as several Oriental languages? One has to be realistic. It seems to me that in terms of choice, Spanish would be a high priority language in Southern California.

The younger the student, research shows that that’s when in fact most of us can learn a second language easier. We can start them. The successful bilingual programs in the world start at pre-kindergarten levels. (So if we support) very successful bilingual programs . . . we’ll be helping our students economically, academically and personally.