FILLMORE : Board Discusses Bilingual Placement

Parents would be notified before their children are enrolled in Fillmore School District’s bilingual education program, under a proposal to be presented to the school board tonight.

A task force of parents, teachers and school administrators meeting Monday decided that the biggest difficulty with the bilingual program is not the program itself, but public confusion about what happens in classrooms and how parents can choose to shape their children’s education.

The group will recommend that the board study how the program is run and determine whether students who speak limited English are transferred soon enough to English-only classes. But most committee members agreed that improved communication would do much to reduce parental concern about the program.

In September, parents packed a school board meeting to criticize the bilingual program at San Cayetano school, where 800 kindergarten- through third-grade students are taught.

Some parents said their children were placed in bilingual classes without their approval. Others wanted more English-only classes. Parents complained that the program was too costly, and that English speakers lost learning time while listening to fellow students being instructed in Spanish.

Parents always have been able to choose whether their children would be in a bilingual classroom, said San Cayetano Principal Karen Cooksey.

The program was explained at parent conferences in the fall after class assignments have been made, she said, and parents who were dissatisfied with the arrangement could request a change.

However, if the school board adopts the committee’s recommended policy, parents will be offered a choice of classrooms in the spring, before the new academic year begins.

But Cooksey said the school already offers as many English-only classes as are possible without violating state and federal segregation rules. “It has always been our policy to have as many English-only classes as the numbers allow,” she said. Reading and mathematics are taught in the student’s primary language, Cooksey said, while subjects such as physical education, art and music are taught primarily in English.

The committee did not recommend major changes in class assignments for the remainder of the academic year to avoid interrupting instruction and upsetting students. However, San Cayetano staff is already working on a plan to keep the program consistent from one room to the next, Cooksey said.