Honig Confuses Newhall District : Schools: Local officials appealed charges of an inadequate bilingual program. But the state education chief’s response raises more questions.

California’s top education official has rejected the Newhall School District’s appeal of a state report accusing the district of providing inadequate education to bilingual students.

Or maybe he hasn’t.

In a brief letter, state schools Supt. Bill Honig responded to the district’s lengthy Sept. 29 appeal, in which Newhall officials rebutted the state’s claims that Spanish-speaking students weren’t getting a proper education at two of its six elementary schools. But his response produced more questions than answers.

“I’m confused,” Newhall Supt. J. Michael McGrath said Friday. “It’s so carefully couched that it’s not even a real answer. In my judgment, it says nothing. It doesn’t respond to our appeal.”

Even Education Department spokeswoman Susie Lange agreed that Honig’s response needs some amplification. “It was unclear,” she said. “I shared the same confusion other people did.”

At issue is a report, released in August, which concluded that the district violated state law by providing unqualified teachers and inadequate supplies of textbooks, encyclopedias and even computer software at Newhall and Peachland Avenue elementary schools.

The report also said that instructors without credentials in either bilingual education or language development were improperly teaching students. As a result, the study said, students with limited English skills weren’t getting a proper education.

Newhall officials took exception to the findings and sent a 15-page response to justify as much as $92,000 in annual bilingual education funding from the state, and to avert a potential lawsuit by the state to bring it into compliance.

But in his Oct. 16 letter to McGrath, Honig said he disagreed with some “purely legal points” in the district’s appeal. Honig said some methods of teaching bilingual students at the schools--including “sheltered English,” or a gradual exposure to English--were not approved by the state, McGrath said.

Honig did note, however, that the district has made some progress in improving bilingual instruction, citing information submitted by the district in its appeal. For example, Newhall was now pairing English-speaking teachers with Spanish-speaking teachers or aides.

Honig also said the district had provided new information regarding the quality and supply of educational materials for bilingual students--information he said was not available to state investigators when they twice visited the district in late 1991 and early 1992. Investigators had said Spanish-speaking students were given fewer resources than their English-speaking counterparts.

But what Honig didn’t say in his letter was whether those improvements are good enough.

And he left open the question of whether the state will take Newhall officials at their word that improvements have been made, or whether investigators will need to revisit the schools to see the changes for themselves.

As a result, Newhall administrators are waiting to see what happens next. And so are some state education officials.

Wade Brynelson, assistant state schools superintendent for compliance and consolidated programs management, said he plans to meet Monday with his investigators to determine what to do next. And he said he plans to contact McGrath to discuss what, if anything, the district needs to do.

“We need to engage the district and find out if this information they are giving us about more materials and better teaching methods is accurate. There is still disagreement, and lack of clarity about whether they’re in compliance,” Brynelson said. “Maybe we’ll find they’re in complete compliance, and maybe we’ll negotiate an agreement so they can come into compliance.”

McGrath stood by the district’s rebuttal. He said the “new” educational supplies Honig referred to aren’t new at all.

McGrath also said the district has used qualified teachers, and several accepted methods of teaching bilingual students that were simply overlooked by the investigators.