District OKs Puerto Rico Trip to Recruit Bilingual Teachers

A shortage of bilingual teachers in the Moorpark schools is prompting officials to send two administrators on a 6,800-mile trek to Puerto Rico early next month on a hunt for Spanish-speaking teachers.

The recruiting trip was first approved two weeks ago by the Moorpark Unified School District board and was reviewed by board members Tuesday night after complaints from some residents that the effort might be an unnecessary expense.

Board President Cynthia Hubbard requested the review of the approval, saying she had received calls from Moorpark residents and school district employees questioning the trip.

No residents spoke out against the plan at the meeting, however, and board members agreed that the trip is crucial for the district’s recruiting needs because of stiff competition for bilingual teachers among school districts statewide.

The district has 25 fully certificated bilingual teachers, six of whom are now administrators. The district needs 13 more for its growing population of English-deficient students, now numbering 672 out of 5,103 students.

Juanita Suarez, principal of Peach Hill School and a native of Puerto Rico, and Yvonne Davis, district director of personnel, will travel to the Caribbean island the first week of February for interviews with teacher candidates at Metropolitan University and the University of Puerto Rico, Suarez’s alma mater.

The cost of the trip is mainly the round-trip air fare of $1,310 for the two women, school officials said. Suarez’s family will house the two school administrators and provide most of the meals, they added.

Cliff Rodrigues, coordinator of bilingual education for the county school superintendent’s office, said he has not heard of any other local school district seeking bilingual teachers in Puerto Rico, but that the state has recruited in Spain and Mexico.

He said one advantage of recruiting teachers in Puerto Rico is that it is a United States territory and officials are not faced with the immigration problems that can hamper recruiting efforts in foreign countries.

“My feeling is that the Moorpark board sees there are kids out there who need instruction in a language they understand,” Rodrigues said. “In California we are short some 5,000 teachers who have that ability. This, to me, is a gallant effort on the district’s part, a bold effort.”

Because of the shortage of bilingual teachers, unusual recruiting efforts are being tried by other districts throughout the state, said Chuck Acosta, president of the California Assn. for Bilingual Education.

One Southern California school district urged its teachers to recruit among former friends and associates in their home states. If they were able to sign up a certain number of bilingual teachers, their expenses for a trip home were paid by the district, Acosta said.

Another district offered a $500 bonus to any employee who could locate and recruit a bilingual teacher.

“That’s like bounty hunting,” Acosta said. “In some ways that’s humorous, but teachers and school districts don’t know what in the hell to do with these children who speak different languages.”

Cynthia Coler, the elected teacher representative on the Moorpark school board, cautioned the board Tuesday to look carefully at the budget in reviewing the trip to Puerto Rico.

“We must act with our minds, and not with our hearts. We need to be able to justify these things,” she said.

But board member Pam Castro, an advocate of the bilingual education program, said the dropout rate of bilingual students is shameful.

“I’m proud that this school board wants to address this problem by finding something that works,” she said.

Marilyn Green, coordinator of the district’s bilingual program, reported that the district will undergo a compliance review by the State Board of Education in February.

“We are really under the gun from the state to solve our teacher shortage. They want to see us try as many creative solutions as possible,” Green said.

In addition to the trip to Puerto Rico, the district recruiting plan includes language instruction for current teachers, recruitment at local universities and colleges and development of a career ladder program that would encourage Moorpark bilingual teachers to stay on with the district rather than move to a district where the pay is higher.

Eloise Brown, former Moorpark city councilwoman, said she heard people question the trip while on a door-to-door campaign walk last weekend in her bid for reelection. Brown said Wednesday that Hubbard had joined her on the campaign walk.

“I have a problem with it. . . . Just because they are recruited doesn’t mean they are going to stay,” Brown said. “There is air fare and special stipends to consider. The community needs to know” that the board has checked to see if bilingual teachers are available locally, she said.