Newhall Board to Rebut Report on Bilingual Education

The Newhall School District will appeal the findings of state investigators who accuse the district of denying equal educational opportunities to its Spanish-speaking students, officials said Wednesday.

The Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday night to appeal a report issued last week by the state Department of Education.

The report alleged that two of the district’s six elementary schools, Newhall and Peachland Avenue, provided unqualified teachers in their bilingual education programs and furnished inadequate materials for their limited-English-speaking students. The report also ordered the district to correct the problems.

Supt. J. Michael McGrath said Wednesday the appeal will cite what he described as “errors of fact” in the report, such as its assertion that the Newhall Elementary School library lacked textbooks, encyclopedias and computer software in Spanish.

McGrath also said the district was wrongly criticized for practices not penalized in other schools.

“Basically we think we’re being held to a higher standard than anyone else,” he said.

Last week’s report came in response to a series of complaints by three parents who accused the district of shortchanging its Spanish-speaking youngsters by incorrectly staffing bilingual education programs and stinting on materials. A team of state investigators visited the two schools over a number of days during the last school year.

The team dismissed most of the 23 allegations, including ones that the district misidentified limited-English students and coerced parents to enroll children in the program, which calls for teaching students in Spanish in core academic subjects.

However, the investigators concluded that some pupils were taught by instructors who lacked proper bilingual education or language development credentials.

The district was given until Sept. 15 to contest the report’s findings. McGrath said a letter of appeal would be sent by today.