BUENA PARK : Parents Protest Bilingual Classes

Terry Kendrick doesn’t want her 6-year-old son in a bilingual classroom at G. H. Dysinger School in Buena Park.

“My concerns are that he’s not going to get the same learning as a child in an English-speaking class,” Kendrick said.

Kendrick said that since school started Sept. 14, she has been trying to get her first-grader moved to an English-speaking-only classroom. She even kept him out of school for three days. But her efforts to persuade school officials to switch him have failed.

“I’ve been battling this since school started,” she said. “What it comes down to is choice, having a word in your child’s education.”

Kendrick fears that her son, John, by being exposed to Spanish and English in the first grade, will become confused and his education will suffer.

She was not alone in her criticism at a recent meeting of the Centralia School District Board of Trustees. Other parents voiced similar concerns about bilingual classrooms last month.

School district officials and board members said parents may send their children to another school in the district if space is available and tried to ease the parents’ fears about bilingual education.

“We do everything we can to provide choice in the school district,” Supt. Patricia Clark White said. “But we do have to balance parental input with the other criteria that are essential in making a good decision for all of our children.”

White said there are misconceptions about bilingual classrooms.

“When (parents) hear ‘bilingual education,’ they think a child is going to be in a classroom where they’re going to be speaking in Spanish,” she said.

But White said bilingual classrooms have two teachers, one English-speaking, the other bilingual. “Every child receives core academic instruction in their primary language,” she said.

In addition, White said the school district is committed to providing the “top education to all our children” and that bilingual classrooms do not diminish the quality of their education.

“If a child was not doing well (in a bilingual classroom) then we would look at the situation,” White said. “But when children are succeeding as these children are, it confirms our professional judgment.”

Dysinger has about 800 students, 53% Anglo, 34% Latino and the rest of other backgrounds, officials said.

Board President John Alvis said it is important for all children to have equal opportunities in education, regardless of cultural and language backgrounds. “We’re not providing a bilingual student with a superior education than any other child. . . . We view all children as equally important,” he said.

Parents, however, remained unhappy with some of what they heard. Several said being told they may move their children to another school--away from friends, siblings and a familiar environment--to get an all-English-speaking class is not much of a choice.

And David Kendrick said that if his son fails to get the education he deserves there will be legal action.

“If he falls below grade level, I’ll file a suit against the school district,” said Kendrick, who has joined a coalition for immigration reform.