District Tries New Tack on Bilingual Education

In a move expected to fuel the debate over bilingual education, the Westminster School District is seeking a state waiver that would allow it to teach all students in English, but increase the use of bilingual teaching aides.

Westminster is the first school district in California to submit such a proposal to the state Board of Education, which is expected to discuss the controversial plan at its Feb. 8 meeting and vote on it the following day.

“There’s no doubt, people will be looking at our plan very closely,” said Tracy Painter, the district’s coordinator of special projects. “This will be a model program for the state of California.”

The move might have more impact on teachers than students.

About 60 students are enrolled in bilingual Spanish classes at two elementary schools, while the district’s remaining 4,100 students with limited English skills already are taught all subjects in English.

But because the state requires districts with 50 or more students who speak a language other than English to provide bilingual instruction, Westminster has been under state order to employ 90 teachers who have a bilingual certificate or are training to obtain one.

To comply with this mandate, Westminster has been paying for teachers to take language classes in Vietnamese and Spanish, which are spoken by nearly half of its enrollment.

“We had been more or less forced to take Spanish or Vietnamese to teach these children,” said Carolyn Anderson, president of Westminster’s teachers’ union, which backed the plan. “Otherwise, we were threatened to be transferred or dismissed. Many teachers were learning these languages, but to go back and learn Vietnamese or Spanish and be fluent enough to pass a state test is extremely difficult.”

By proposing an alternative plan, Westminster is taking the lead in testing a July 1995 state policy that allows school districts to use any combination of English- and native-language lessons, as long as they prove nonfluent students are progressing.

But critics of the district’s plan, which was approved last month by school board members in a 3-2 vote, say it is expensive and likely to hinder the academic progress of students with limited English proficiency.

The district expects to spend up to $1 million on added hours for bilingual aides and training for aides and teachers to learn how to better work together, officials said. No figure was immediately available for how much has been spent on the language classes for teachers.

“Basically, the district is doing all of this because the teachers don’t want to go and learn another language,” said longtime Westminster resident Larry Luera, who spoke against the plan at a December school board meeting. “Their response is that they shouldn’t have to go back to school to learn another language, even though Spanish and Vietnamese are now community languages.”

Luera, whose four children attended Westminster schools, also worries that instructional aides will not accurately interpret the instructions of English-speaking teachers to students.

“Not all instructional aides are fluent in English, so you have to wonder if the correct message is going to get down to kids,” he said.

But Painter said bilingual aides are required to pass reading, writing and oral tests in both English and their native languages.

She also is confident students will learn English quickly under the proposed program, which was devised by district personnel and based on various studies supporting their philosophy.

“We believe this is the very best program we can provide,” she said. “ . . . Certainly, this program is more expensive. But we’re now spending a lot of money teaching our teachers Vietnamese and Spanish.”

The Westminster school district now provides only two bilingual Spanish classes, one with first- and second-graders at Finley Elementary and the other with first-graders at Willmore Elementary.

If the state Board of Education approves the district’s plan, the bilingual classes will be disbanded once the students are in the third-grade.

Other students with limited English skills also will see changes in their classrooms, Anderson said.

“I think one of the biggest changes is that there is going to be an intensive partnership between the teacher and the bilingual aide,” she said. “Before, there wasn’t enough time or funds allotted for training so that we could work together.”